And in the Tempest in a Teacup department, faithful viewer Dracomere informs us that WIRED has stumbled upon the most fascinating sociological development since the explosive popularity of hats shaped like monkeys among the young executive set: apparently on college campuses, students are being judged by their peers based on the contents of their shared iTunes music libraries. "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."

The result? That one guy you always thought looked pretty cool is revealed to be nothing more than a Tiffany-listening, Spice Girls-loving Michael Bolton fan with no fewer than six remixes of "La Macarena" in his library. The resulting bigotry has been termed "playlistism" at Wesleyan University, and wary students are jettisoning music that they like but may not meet with the approval of their peer group. In a similar vein, people aware of their lack of taste have taken to scoping out the playlists of the popular kids and then adding the same music to their own collections in a somewhat pathetic attempt to "pass for cool."

Of course, since you have to choose to share your iTunes music in the first place, playlistism isn't really monkey-hat-proportioned in its sociological significance. If you don't want people judging you based on your taste in music, don't click the little "Share my music" checkbox in the Preferences in the first place. Think your extensive collection of obscure shoegazer music and J-Pop will pass public muster, but that one Garth Brooks album (the soul patch that haunts your dreams) will get you duct-taped naked to the cafeteria ceiling? That's what "Share selected playlists" is for. Or if you want to share with friends without exposing yourself to public ridicule, check the "Require password" box and only give the secret phrase to trustworthy friends who already know that you own every recording A Flock of Seagulls ever released and won't sell you down the river for a cheap laugh.

That said, playlistism is likely only to benefit Apple in the long run; in addition to the simple joy of being able to listen to scads of music shared by fellow students, collegegoers are also amusing themselves playlististically by selecting random iTunes libraries on the network and trying to guess what sort of person might have such a music collection. (We assume the drinking game can't be far behind.) This all leads to ever-increasing usage of iTunes (and consequently ever-increasing mind share for Apple) as more and more students seek to boost their cool quotients by the careful application of-- and addition to-- public playlist data.

Meanwhile, the incontrovertible truth is that one simply cannot be cool without owning an iPod. So there.