Middle schoolers turned the Spotify comments beneath episodes of NPR podcast “Wild Card” into an informal group chat, according to a story featured on “This American Life.” NPR staff initially thought the unusual abbreviations, emojis and short messages were automated bot activity.
The story appeared in the September 18 episode of “This American Life”, which examined communication between different generations. Host Ira Glass traced how NPR employees eventually discovered who was behind the comments.
NPR Staff Initially Thought the Comments Were Bots
The activity began last fall when the team behind “Wild Card” noticed a stream of confusing comments appearing beneath its episodes on Spotify. Showrunner Dave Blanchard initially thought the messages looked like bot traffic and deleted some of them before sharing screenshots with colleagues in NPR’s Slack.
Audio producer Hannah Chin recognized the behavior differently. Chin, a Gen Z colleague, identified the comments as likely coming from younger users who were using a part of the internet for a purpose it had not been designed to serve.
The middle schoolers appeared to be using the podcast’s comment section as a makeshift chat room. Chin compared the behavior with their own experience using services such as Google Docs to communicate with friends when they were younger.
NPR had encountered similar behavior before. Children were reported to have used the Spotify comments beneath its TED Radio Hour episodes as informal chat rooms in 2025.
Kids Looked for Podcasts With Few Comments
Glass eventually contacted one of the young users to find out why they had chosen an NPR podcast rather than another corner of Spotify. The child said the group had simply searched for podcasts that did not already have many comments.
That meant the choice of “Wild Card” was less about the podcast’s subject matter and more about finding a relatively quiet comment section where conversations would be easier to follow. Spotify introduced comments for podcasts as a way for listeners to respond to episodes, but the group instead used the feature for conversations with one another.
The discovery showed NPR staff that the seemingly nonsensical posts were messages between real users rather than automated spam. The comments had been difficult for older colleagues to interpret because they relied heavily on abbreviations, emojis and language used by the younger participants.
Featured image credits: Magnific.com
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