Discussion: What’re You Listening To?

A few thoughts on kids in the comments, New Order’s Brotherhood, and brilliant closing tracks. The kids are all right. NPR recently shared a story about comments that were appearing underneath its podcasts. In isolation, they didn’t make much sense, but they did seem to be talking to one another. At first blush, staffers assumed they were bots and set out to clean up the comment sections. But then they asked a Gen Z coworker for their take, and her response will shock you… Just kidding—we’re not doing that here. But it is an interesting story. As most of you know, social media platforms have started age-gating, and, well, like water seeking its natural level, kids got creative in trying to find new places to chat. It just so happens that the relatively empty comment sections under NPR podcasts fit the bill, so there they were. I don’t know who these kids are—though Ira Glass spoke to one of them, because of course he did—but I hope all of ’em wind up at NASA someday. That’s my kind of…