“Thanks to the ability of Apple’s iTunes to share music collections over local networks, it is now possible to judge someone’s taste in music — or lack of it — in a way that previously required a certain level of intimacy,” reports Wired’s Leander Kahney. “On college campuses, for example, a new form of bigotry called ‘Playlistism‘ is emerging. The invention of students at Wesleyan University, playlistism… is discrimination based not on race, sex or religion, but on someone’s terrible taste in music, as revealed by their iTunes music library. Wesleyan students are enjoying a new parlor game — going through music libraries trying to guess what their owners are like. At any one time, 30 or 40 iTunes libraries are available on the campus network, which is shared by about 2,000 students.”
