How the internet got gentrified

Code Switch

NPR

Society & Culture

4.6 • 14.9K Ratings

🗓️ 4 March 2026

⏱️ 32 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

We all know what gentrification looks like IRL — boxy, corporate-owned apartment complexes, places to get a quick bowl for lunch, streets that are dubbed "cleaner" and "safer" (even at the expense of the people who used to live there). But what does gentrification look like online? We’re talking to Jessa Lingel, who studies digital culture at the University of Pennsylvania, about her argument that the internet has become gentrified, and that we're all suffering the consequences.

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0:15.0	Hey, y'all, this is Gene.
0:17.4	So this episode you're about to listen to is not about the gigantic news that we all woke up to over the weekend, that the United States is once again at war, this time alongside Israel against Iran.
0:29.2	We are working on an episode about that for this weekend, but we could not get it out in time for this publish.
0:35.7	But we wanted to acknowledge this gigantic, cataclysmic thing that is happening, that is going to affect all of us, that is already playing out in the lives of Iranians in Iran and people across that region.
0:47.6	So, yeah, we just felt that would be remiss not to acknowledge that.
0:52.9	But it is coming.
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1:02.5	What's good with you?
1:03.5	You're listening to Code Switch, the show about race and identity from NPR.
1:07.1	I'm Gene W.
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1:09.8	So I am talking to you right now from this little recording booth at NPR headquarters in Washington, D.C.
1:15.5	And it's mad cold in here.
1:16.7	But anyway, when we first moved into this building, there was basically nothing over here, mostly just parking lots.
1:25.1	There was the D.C. Housing Authority and some other local government buildings that sat mostly empty. There was the DC Housing Authority and some other local government buildings
1:28.4	that sat mostly empty. There was an aging public housing complex right across the street.
	...

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