In a development that should surprise absolutely no one who has ever met a twelve-year-old, middle schoolers have apparently commandeered the Spotify comment section under an episode of NPR's Wild Card and turned it into an impromptu group chat. The kids, likely blocked from other apps and social networks, got creative. Because of course they did.

The story came to light on a new episode of This American Life, where host Ira Glass dug into how the kids landed there and why. When Glass asked one of the kids why they picked this particular podcast, they replied, "We just, like, looked for podcasts that didn't have many comments." Which, obviously, hurt Glass's feelings a bit. Nothing like being chosen because your comment section is a ghost town.

Initially, showrunner Dave Blanchard thought the comments were a particularly odd strain of bot. "It was just like gibberish," he told Glass. The posts were "clipped, weird, incoherent," he said, and loaded with emoji and shorthand. So he did what any reasonable person would do: he deleted them. Then one of the accounts posted, "so it deleted my com." Which is either a bot gaining sentience or, more likely, a kid who just lost their entire social life. Blanchard shared screenshots of the comments in NPR's Slack.

Producer Hannah Chin almost immediately recognized the behavior not as bots, but as kids. "I was a kid who used weird parts of the internet not as they were originally designed to talk to my friends," they said. "I talked back and forth with my friends on Google Docs," demonstrating just how resourceful kids can be when cut off from traditional social media. A similar thing happened last year with Ted Radio Hour.

So there you have it: kids will find a way. Whether it's Google Docs, podcast comments, or presumably a carrier pigeon network, they will circumvent your restrictions. And they'll do it with emoji and shorthand that makes adults feel ancient.