The interactive chat function has proved to be the USP for these channels, and is a key driver behind the scene’s strong following – and compared to so many other social media platforms, these chatrooms are uncharacteristically friendly. “I try to sleep but I can’t,” writes one user. “I pray for your wellness brother. I might go out anytime but I want you to know that I care for you,” replies another. Most of the users that frequent the chat are high-schoolers, Gen Z music fans who missed out on the chatrooms and message boards of the early internet, which were more anonymous than the heavily personalised worlds of Instagram, Snapchat, and Twitter. The channels aren’t overrun with trolls or the obnoxiously righteous, and the channel owners add filters for bots and bring moderators on-board to keep the chat clean. “If you type anything that triggers that filter, it immediately gets removed,” Pritchard explains. “Any racism or sexism – even with dots or asterisks to separate letters – will be flagged. If you trigger a filter twice, you then get timed out. And if you do it again, you get banned.” The interactive chat function has proved to be the USP for these channels, and is a key driver behind the scene’s strong following – and compared to so many other social media platforms, these chatrooms are uncharacteristically friendly. “I try to sleep but I can’t,” writes one user. “I pray for your wellness brother. I might go out anytime but I want you to know that I care for you,” replies another. Most of the users that frequent the chat are high-schoolers, Gen Z music fans who missed out on the chatrooms and message boards of the early internet, which were more anonymous than the heavily personalised worlds of Instagram, Snapchat, and Twitter. The channels aren’t overrun with trolls or the obnoxiously righteous, and the channel owners add filters for bots and bring moderators on-board to keep the chat clean. “If you type anything that triggers that filter, it immediately gets removed,” Pritchard explains. “Any racism or sexism – even with dots or asterisks to separate letters – will be flagged. If you trigger a filter twice, you then get timed out. And if you do it again, you get banned.”