Beyond home and school: community-based media and youth voice on pandemic life in the United States

Abstract

“Back with another video. I got a glitch for y’all. Imaboutta bless, Imaboutta bless.” On the second day of a city-wide early work program for low-income youth in one of America’s largest municipalities, a teen experiencing yet another remote learning set-up took to YouTube to share a “glitch” that offered a shortcut to meeting mandated use requirements of a program-wide learning app. A basketball game played on a TV in the background, sneakers squeaking on floorboards as the narrator trained his phone’s camera on an iPad and explained the workaround he’d discovered. He ranged from sharing irritation at what he saw as a cookie-cutter learning experience (“it’s so dumb bro, this is so annoying”) to feigning deference to an off-screen authority figure (“yessir, yessir”) as he tapped through the interface, to excitement as he shared his discovery with his teen audience. A telling comment under the video expressed deep gratitude: “You deadass saved my life, this shit had me stressed fr [for real].”