100 Warm Tunas Taking A Break From Predicting Triple J's Hottest 100

100 Warm Tunas, the “most accurate” predictor of songs on the triple j Hottest 100, will take a break ahead of the 2026 countdown.

As the ABC noted in 2022, software engineer Nick Whyte’s predictive algorithm has enjoyed great success, especially in its first six years. From 2016 to 2022, 100 Warm Tunas correctly predicted approximately eight of the top ten songs on the countdown, while it predicted the top song 67% of the time.

However, over the last year, social media algorithms have changed – 100 Warm Tunas relies on screenshots of triple j listeners’ votes for the Hottest 100 – to the point where rounding up votes and developing an accurate algorithm has become increasingly complex.

“triple j’s Hottest 100 of 2025 is back, but after ~10 years of running my side-project 100 Warm Tunas, I’ve decided to wrap it up and not run it this year. Instead, I’ll divert the time I would normally spend on this over summer to other side-projects,” Whyte shared in a blog post.

The post continued, “Why? Because 100 Warm Tunas relies on data that, these days, is too difficult to obtain. 100 Warm Tunas uses screenshots that people post to social media of the songs they voted for. In the past, this data was plentiful, and easy to gather, but these days it’s too difficult to get my hands on for numerous reasons.”

Whyte then broke down the challenges of gathering data for 100 Warm Tunas, citing changes in Instagram’s API and bot detection; Instagram removing chronological hashtag searches, so you’ll only see “popular” posts; Instagram removing story hashtags in hashtag search, making it impossible to track Hottest 100 votes on Stories; X (formerly known as Twitter) paywalling their API, and changes in social media trends, such as users having private accounts and sharing to their Stories rather than a traditional post.

“For the last ~3 years the site has relied on data submitted by voters directly, either via the website or via Instagram direct message,” Whyte continued. “This ultimately resulted in data skew, because only the most motivated/die-hard triple j listeners are providing their data.”

Whyte then cited the technical and personal career opportunities that have presented themselves as a result of running 100 Warm Tunas, including interviews on ABC and offers to buy the website.

The post concluded, “It’ll be a shame to wrap it up, especially after putting in a large volume of effort over the last 12 months to modernise the platform, but I think the project’s prime time is now over. I’m excited to see what new projects others spin up in this space and where they take it next.”

Fans can follow Whyte on his website or GitHub.

100 Warm Tunas has correctly predicted the 2018 #1 (Ocean Alley’s Confidence) and the 2017 winner (Kendrick Lamar’s HUMBLE).

For the 2020 countdown, 100 Warm Tunas correctly predicted that the UK outfit Glass Animals’ Heat Waves would come out on top. In 2021, 100 Warm Tunas predicted 84% of the songs in the top 100 tracks of the year, including the correct prediction of The Wiggles’ Like A Version of Tame Impala’s Elephant landing at #1.

For the 2023 countdown, though, the prediction that Troye Sivan’s Rush would come in at #1 wasn’t quite as accurate—the song ended up at #8. Doja Cat surprised listeners when she topped the countdown with Paint The Town Red.

With the 2024 countdown, 100 Warm Tunas nailed it once again by predicting that Chappell Roan would top the countdown with Good Luck, Babe!.