If you’re a college student who hasn’t been living under a rock the past few months, you’ve at least heard about Yik Yak. In case you’re confused, Yik Yak is a popular college app that’s been growing at campuses for the past year. Once you make a username, you’re able to post whatever comments you want about anything pertaining to your campus and people can up vote or down vote them, depending on whether or not they agree. No matter what a Yak says, a Yak is only taken down if it gets a certain number of down votes.
Perhaps you have used the anonymous app to shit-talk someone you met at a party, your annoying hall neighbors, or someone in a rival sorority. By doing this, you are letting your anger out about the situation without causing problems for anyone else. You are even getting your own boost of self-confidence depending on how many “up votes” your Yak gets. Any person posting feels a sense of relief because, since it is anonymous, it cannot be traced back to them. You give very little information when signing up for an account, so someone will almost never be reprimanded for what they post, no matter how raunchy or mean it is. Great, right? No.
What was originally created to be another fun app for college kids has turned into one of the main sources for cyber bullying, something they have been trying to avoid since the Internet became a thing. Once a Yak mentions someone by name, it becomes a form of cyber bullying if they are saying anything mean about that person. It begins spreading by the more up votes it gets and has very high chances of being seen by its subject. If someone sees something negative about them on this website with a ton of up votes, they are sure to get hurt feelings or low self-esteem from it. It could start with some mean comments, but can quickly escalate to spilled secrets, cyber hate, or worse. Having something written about you online for everyone to see definitely feels worse than having it said straight to your face, especially when it is done anonymously and you are unable to find out who said it first.
Yik Yak isn’t all bad. It can be a source of funny comments for dining hall food, where the parties are that night, or a place to put nice comments about people/organizations. When you take advantage of a good thing like this, you are making it a domain for bad feelings and judgment. It is putting us back into cyber bullying, something everyone is trying so hard to stay away from. Just remember, next time you want to Yak about that creepy kid next to you in science class, think about how you would feel if you saw something similar about yourself with 20 up votes. Or if you would ever be able to say it to the person’s face. Think of how your Yak affects others before pushing send.
