One of my best friends lives 908 miles away. We don’t talk all the time, but, just about every day, she’ll share a song on her Instagram story.

By listening to that song, I can instantly tell what kind of day she’s having. I don’t know what she had for breakfast or if she’s running late for work, but this song makes me feel just a little closer to her.

This kind of thing isn’t new. We’ve long found ways to tell people how we feel — or make them feel better — through music. I’d spend hours in high school making CDs for friends. In college, I made Spotify playlists. Those were our mixtapes. And now our mixtapes live, I guess, on Instagram stories.

When I scroll through Instagram stories, which I do a lot, I can count on seeing just as many songs as photos of food or sunsets. Are songs the new selfies? Probably not. But it does seem like music is taking over the format.

Manitou Springs’ band on a mission to play music ‘anywhere the wind takes us’

Of all the Instagram trends, I’m a big fan of this one. Telling people what you’re listening to says more about you than how your hair looks on a certain day.

This trend started in 2018, when Spotify made it easier for users to share the tracks they were listening to with their followers on Instagram stories. The function was apparently created to help people discover new music. That certainly can happen, but I think it’s more so helping people find a new way to express themselves.

I think we’re often looking for ways to tell people what kind of day or year we’re having without unloading the whole story. It can be scary to talk about falling for someone or feeling down, but it’s not so scary to share a song that emotes that feeling.

Just like listening to music can help us feel better or understood, sharing that music with others can feel that way, too. It feels like sharing a snapshot of your current mood.

If I’m feeling happy, I might share a song called “Lucky” by Chelsea Cutler. If I’m mad, I’ll share Halsey’s song called “I’m Not Mad,” because it’s actually about her being very mad. I shared this new song called “Drivers License” because I just thought it was a really good song.

There’s something else. Sharing music on Instagram can make us feel closer to the artists we love. When I share a song that’s important to me, I often include a little note to the singer simply thanking them for creating it. Whether they see that, it feels special to be able to express that. And sharing songs on any social media ends up helping the artist. That’s why Wesley Schultz, frontman of The Lumineers, goes out of his way to personally thank fans who share his songs on Instagram. When a fan wrote that one of Schultz’s covers “brings tears to my eyes,” he replied saying, “Me too.”

That’s the beauty of sharing music, no matter the platform. We find those “me too” moments within the lyrics.

Recently, my roommates and I have started a little pre-dinner tradition. We take turns playing songs we like and talking about what they mean to us. Often, that leads to us talking about a lot of other stuff. We all have different musical tastes, but we spend hours around a table listening and talking with music as the source of cathartic conversations.

We can’t do that with all of the people in our lives. So we turn to Instagram, where sharing a glimpse of our lives is just one click away.