Middle Schoolers Transform NPR Podcast Comments Into an Impromptu Chat Forum

Middle schoolers, likely restricted from other apps and social platforms, appear to have repurposed the Spotify comment section beneath an episode of NPR’s Wild Card as an impromptu group chat. In a recent episode of This American Life, host Ira Glass explores how the students ended up there and what motivated them. Ultimately, it reflects their ingenuity in navigating imposed limitations.

When Glass inquired why the students chose that specific podcast, one replied, “We just, like, looked for podcasts that didn’t have many comments.” The remark, understandably, stung Glass a little.

Initially, showrunner Dave Blanchard assumed the remarks were an unusual bot pattern. “It was just like gibberish,” he tells Glass in the episode. He described the posts as “clipped, weird, incoherent,” noting they were filled with emojis and shorthand, and proceeded to delete them. Subsequently, one account posted, “so it deleted my com.” Blanchard then shared screenshots of the comments in NPR’s Slack channel.

Producer Hannah Chin quickly identified the activity as originating from children rather than bots. “I was a kid who turned obscure corners of the internet into a way to chat with friends,” they explained. “I communicated back and forth with my friends on Google Docs,” illustrating how resourceful youngsters can be when barred from conventional social media.

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