Kids turned the comment section of an NPR podcast into a group chat

Middle schoolers, likely blocked from other apps and social networks, apparently turned the Spotify comment section under an episode of NPR's Wild Card into an impromptu group chat. In a new episode of This American Life, host Ira Glass digs into how the kids landed there and why. But it mostly boils down to kids getting creative to work around the restrictions placed on them.

When Glass asked one of the kids why they picked this particular podcast, they said, "We just, like, looked for podcasts that didn't have many comments." Which, obviously, hurt Glass's feelings a bit.

Initially, showrunner Dave Blanchard thought the comments were a …