It’s not hard to be a Bruce Springsteen fan. Millions of people around the world do it every day effortlessly, relishing the power, the glory, the promise, the majesty, the mystery, and the ministry of rock & roll as only Bruce Frederick Joseph Springsteen can deliver it. It’s much harder to fake being a Bruce Springsteen fan. And yet that’s somehow the situation Josh Gottheimer, a Democratic politician from — you’ll never believe this — New Jersey, has found himself in.

Gottheimer has represented Jersey’s 5th congressional district in the House since 2017, and he’s currently trying to secure the Democratic nomination for governor ahead of next year’s election. Over the years, Gottheimer, as one would expect from a New Jersey politician, has made plenty of hay about his love of Springsteen. As NJ.com notes, his campaign website describes a youth spent “catching a Springsteen show every chance he could get”; and when Gottheimer announced his gubernatorial bid lat month, he came out to “Glory Days” (a song famously about, uh, locking your longing gaze on the past because you’re unable to stare down your bleak, empty future).

Now, we’re not necessarily here to cast doubt on Gottheimer’s Bruce standom. What we are here to do, however, is mock him for faking his Spotify Wrapped to make it look like his Top 5 most listened to songs this past year were all Springsteen tracks. 

Last week, Gottheimer shared a screengrab of his alleged top songs of 2024, which boasted five great (albeit pretty basic) Springsteen classics: “Thunder Road,” “Because the Night” (not even Patti Smith’s version), “Glory Days,” “Badlands,” and “The Rising.” On X, Gottheimer wrote, “No surprises here… Fun fact: My first ever concert was at Meadowlands to see The Boss!”

As it turns out, there was one surprise. It was spotted by Terrence McDonald, editor of the New Jersey Monitor, who noted in the publication’s newsletter that the fonts and spacing on Gottheimer’s supposed Wrapped screengrab were “all wrong.” A side-by-side comparison between Gottheimer’s Wrapped and a real Spotify Wrapped confirmed the discrepancies, most clearly in the shapes of several numbers, as well as the typeface of the letter “g” in “songs.” 

Furthermore, a quick look at Gottheimer’s Wrapped looks noticeably fuzzier and lo-res than a normal screengrab — as if some poor campaign intern spent 45 minutes hastily concocting it in Photoshop. (We’re, of course, just speculating.)

Gottheimer eventually owned up to the fabrication — though if you thought, there’s no way it could possibly get any lamer than a politician fudging their Spotify Wrapped to look more relatable, Gottheimer managed to outdo himself. In a statement shared with NJ.com, the representative basically said he had to do it because of his meddling kids. 

“This would be my Spotify Wrapped if I didn’t share my account with my 12- and 15-year-old kids,” Gottheimer said. “While it’s Springsteen all day for me — don’t get me wrong, I still love listening to Taylor Swift!” 

Oh, brother. Even Taylor Swift is catching strays in this mess.