--- title: The hottest new hangout for middle schoolers is NPR’s... description: NPR staffers noticed a wave of odd, emoji-heavy comments under the podcast Wild Card's Spotify episodes and initially assumed it was bot activity, reporting... canonical: https://daily.dev/posts/the-hottest-new-hangout-for-middle-schoolers-is-npr-s-comment-section--cisjo2bkh twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:site: @dailydotdev og:type: website og:site_name: daily.dev og:title: The hottest new hangout for middle schoolers is NPR’s comment section? | daily.dev og:description: NPR staffers noticed a wave of odd, emoji-heavy comments under the podcast Wild Card's Spotify episodes and initially assumed it was bot activity, reporting... og:url: https://daily.dev/posts/the-hottest-new-hangout-for-middle-schoolers-is-npr-s-comment-section--cisjo2bkh og:image: https://api.daily.dev/og/posts/CIsJO2bkh.png og:image:alt: The hottest new hangout for middle schoolers is NPR’s comment section? og:image:width: 1200 og:image:height: 630 og:locale: en --- > ## Documentation Index > Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://daily.dev/llms.txt > Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further. # The hottest new hangout for middle schoolers is NPR’s comment section? **[TechCrunch](https://daily.dev/sources/tc)** · 2 min read · 0 upvotes · 0 comments ## Summary NPR staffers noticed a wave of odd, emoji-heavy comments under the podcast Wild Card's Spotify episodes and initially assumed it was bot activity, reporting the posts to Spotify. A Gen Z producer, Hannah Chin, recognized the pattern immediately: middle schoolers too young for mainstream social media were using podcast comment sections as improvised group chats, deliberately picking shows with low comment volume to avoid detection. The same behavior had previously been spotted under NPR's TED Radio Hour. The story was recounted on This American Life, hosted by Ira Glass. ## Full article daily.dev links to this article rather than hosting it. Read it at the original source: ## Similar posts on daily.dev - [Randomer Things](https://daily.dev/posts/randomer-things-mb6setngq) · Metadata · 3 upvotes · 0 comments --- Tags: [#spotify](https://daily.dev/tags/spotify) [View this post on daily.dev](https://daily.dev/posts/the-hottest-new-hangout-for-middle-schoolers-is-npr-s-comment-section--cisjo2bkh) ```json {"@context":"https://schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"Organization","@id":"https://daily.dev/#organization","name":"daily.dev","url":"https://daily.dev","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://daily.dev/apple-touch-icon.png","width":180,"height":180},"sameAs":["https://twitter.com/dailydotdev","https://github.com/dailydotdev","https://www.linkedin.com/company/daily-dev-ltd"]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https://daily.dev/#website","url":"https://daily.dev","name":"daily.dev","publisher":{"@id":"https://daily.dev/#organization"},"potentialAction":{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https://daily.dev/search?q={search_term_string}"},"query-input":"required name=search_term_string"}}]} {"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"TechArticle","headline":"The hottest new hangout for middle schoolers is NPR’s comment section?","url":"https://daily.dev/posts/the-hottest-new-hangout-for-middle-schoolers-is-npr-s-comment-section--cisjo2bkh","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://daily.dev/posts/the-hottest-new-hangout-for-middle-schoolers-is-npr-s-comment-section--cisjo2bkh"},"datePublished":"2026-09-25T20:38:53.744Z","dateModified":"2026-09-25T20:39:11.461Z","description":"NPR staffers noticed a wave of odd, emoji-heavy comments under the podcast Wild Card's Spotify episodes and initially assumed it was bot activity, reporting...","image":"https://media.daily.dev/image/upload/f_auto,q_auto/v1/posts/1c61f6fe38d614fd04aef1371457f70c?_a=AQAEuop","thumbnailUrl":"https://media.daily.dev/image/upload/f_auto,q_auto/v1/posts/1c61f6fe38d614fd04aef1371457f70c?_a=AQAEuop","isAccessibleForFree":true,"articleSection":"TechCrunch","inLanguage":"en","publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"daily.dev","url":"https://daily.dev","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://daily.dev/apple-touch-icon.png","width":180,"height":180}},"author":{"@type":"Organization","name":"TechCrunch","logo":"https://media.daily.dev/image/upload/t_logo,f_auto/v1/logos/tc","url":"https://daily.dev/sources/tc"},"commentCount":0,"discussionUrl":"https://daily.dev/posts/the-hottest-new-hangout-for-middle-schoolers-is-npr-s-comment-section--cisjo2bkh","interactionStatistic":[{"@type":"InteractionCounter","interactionType":{"@type":"LikeAction"},"userInteractionCount":0},{"@type":"InteractionCounter","interactionType":{"@type":"CommentAction"},"userInteractionCount":0}],"keywords":"spotify","timeRequired":"PT2M"} {"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https://daily.dev"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"TechCrunch","item":"https://daily.dev/sources/tc"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":3,"name":"The hottest new hangout for middle schoolers is NPR’s comment section?"}]} ```