Backstage Intro – Meet Dian

Our Community Stars can be featured on Backstage Intros. To find out more about the Star Program click here. 

This month, we’re happy to give you a sneak peak into the story of one of our beloved mods – @Dian!

Hey @Dian, can you tell us a bit about yourself, we’d love to hear your story 🙂 

First of all, where do you come from?

I, Dian Karailiev, come from a town called Kardzhali, Bulgaria. Google it, Bing it, DuckDuckGo it, or visit it in person.

What are your hobbies and favorite things to do?

Theorizing about societal revolutions by tapping into an ever increasing self-righteousness is my favorite pastime, but as this is not such a demanding task nowadays, there is time for other hobbies as well. In its quest for finding solutions to unique problems by applying random permutations of a previous solution, Nature has created humanity. In its quest to find solutions to unsolved problems by applying the same solutions, humanity has created excuses. Exploring the vast void filled with unproven events, I love to look for those excuses.

When I can’t stumble upon a random excuse, I do other things as well. I like applied math a lot. There is an ever widening rift in the fabric between theoretical math and everyday life, which tells a nice unwritten sci-fi story, e.g. random matrices are a system, where Emergence can be easily observed. Looking for other sources of Emergence is a thing I can’t find an excuse not to do. Unexpected patterns everywhere!

Wow! That was quite the description of your hobby. We see you’re a man of science, so can you tell us what made you join Spotify?

As I was nearing the Georgia-Azerbaijan border, in my quest to reach Singapore by hitchhiking in order to become a Sing-A-Rich street harmonica performer, I got robbed… This almost made me cancel all the already sold out harmonica open concerts, but my hobby to look for excuses was not yet fully developed. Continuing forward, a wall of masked people blocked my advances towards artistic greatness and I was forced to pay for an internet access on my phone to get a dose of society and find out a global pandemic was about to make us live in interesting times. I quickly made arrangements to weather out the storm in Sofia, Bulgaria and here I am, still waiting for the most incredible and random turn of events to pass, but I’ve already found an excuse for this not to happen: I love it here!

I was about to ask you to share an interesting fact about your life, but your story took me by surprise. Now we know you not only like tackling not only theoretical questions of existence, but you also love hitchhiking in foreign countries. Give us an interesting story from one of your adventures.

A homeless person shared his piece of dry bread with me once out of pity. It wasn’t as tasty as I’d imagined it would be, when I’m telling this story.

When I worked my ass off cleaning horse stables for months on end, trying to prove that I’m not that entitled, the bread I got as a reward was… not that tasty as well.

But when I went to Noma restaurant in Copenhagen after 4 months of waiting for a table reservation, the meal wasn’t half that bad.

(Met the homeless guy soon after visiting the restaurant, because I went broke.)

Truly amazing. An adventurer like you must love a good tune. How do you prefer listening to music?

Blasting through my headphones while strolling aimlessly.

What’s your favorite song and why:

Queen – Breakthru 

https://open.spotify.com/track/5Nuxdf0f5PpaeaPm4jrhiE?si=d399c9f2216e487c

“If I could only reach you,

If I could make you smile,

That would really be a breakthrough.“

…but maybe later, my car broke down.

As a go-getter full of excuses, I love this line.

If you could choose to see one event in the history of the universe – what would it be?

The end. The feeling of uncertainty at the end of all things, while still being certain that things as we know them would end, is one thing everyone would experience at least once, but being where everyone would experience it at once sounds like the coolest concert ever.

If you could choose to go on holiday anywhere in the world right now, where would that be?

In a hut somewhere in the Himalayas pretending to enjoy the view from the half-opened and fully covered by snow tent.

Do you have any pets?

Yes, two lop-eared rabbits: Bunny and Fluffy. Bunny is the more fluffy one and Fluffy is the bunnier-looking one. It is a wonderful experience to witness the Emergence of their character traits and learn to communicate with them on the most basic level.

Do you have any awesome memories with Spotify that you’d like to share with the Community?

The love of my life taught me how to interact with people and become part of society. She also taught me how to use the app and taught me music. I met her here, at Spotify, but not because we were colleagues. Because I never stopped doing the things I enjoyed most in this life. One of them is photography and here are some photos  I took while hiking near my hometown of Kardzhali:

Thank you so much, Dian! And you for sticking around folks! Stay tuned for the next Backstage Intro coming soon.

In the meanwhile, if you’re a Star wanting an introduction, feel free to reach out to one of the Mods to let us know. We’d love to find out a bit more about you 🙂