Gen Zer Solves NPR’s Spotify Comments Mystery That Baffled Staffers: ‘These Are Not Bots’

(Screengrab via X)

Confused NPR staffers who thought a stream of bizarre Spotify comments might be the work of bots discovered a far more human explanation after a Gen Z colleague took one look and found kids had quietly turned the network’s podcast pages into makeshift chatrooms.

This American Life host Ira Glass recounted the mystery, which he promised would be the subject of his upcoming show, after a producer of NPR’s Wild Card podcast noticed apparently nonsensical comments appearing beneath episodes.

In a promotional clip for his episode on the incident, Glass detailed how the staffer found someone had written, “ah, okay, MH.” Another posted, “Gilgamesh quit and I’m crying.” A third announced: “Last Friday I broke up with my GF.”

The exchanges looked sufficiently strange that staff suspected automated accounts and reported them to Spotify, which deleted the posts. Then a younger NPR employee intervened.

“These are not bots, these are kids,” Glass recalled the Gen Z staffer Hannah Chin explaining.

The apparent trick was simple, children too young to use conventional social media or unable to access it were seeking out low-traffic podcast comment sections where parents and teachers were unlikely to look.

Glass tracked down one of the young users and asked why NPR had become the venue of choice.

“Um, I think we just looked for podcasts that didn’t have many comments,” the child replied.

“I see, so you picked NPR because it didn’t seem very popular,” Glass said.

“Yeah,” the kid replied.

“I tell you, buddy, I do a public radio show and that hurts a little to hear it,” Glass joked.

“Sorry,” the child said.

The discovery echoes a phenomenon NPR itself documented in 2025, when staff monitoring comments for TED Radio Hour noticed children descending on years-old episodes and using the threads for conversations unrelated to the shows.

One employee described initially finding around 20 comments beneath a three-year-old episode, including exchanges such as, “No, you’re so pretty. You’re so pretty.” A later episode accumulated comments “into the 90s.”

Staffers floated the possibility that students were using Spotify because other platforms were blocked at school or prohibited by parents.

The result is an accidental digital hiding place buried beneath respectable public-radio programming. As adults tighten access to the platforms where they expect children to congregate, some young users appear to have simply moved the conversation somewhere nobody was watching.

Watch above via X.

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