If you live on or around a college campus, you know all about The Yak. (For those of you who are completely lost, Yik Yak is a social media app where you can post 200-character-thoughts anonymously. People then do one of two things: "up" vote it to show their support or  "down" vote it to show their disapproval. People can also comment on the original post.)

Here's the problem, when you give college students anonymity, you give them lack of accountability, which means they feel empowered to post the most disturbing, judgmental, hateful comments towards any party who disagrees with them or any party they want to stereotype.  

At first, you think, "Oh, people have their off days; sometimes people are just grumpy," but over the past week, I tried my best to survey Yik Yak with an objective eye, and this is what I found (note, some are full fledged conversations, some are just replies, and some are the original post): 

This is the animosity I'm talking about. What's worse is that these are college-aged people. We're supposed to be adults. We're supposed to treat everyone with dignity and respect, regardless of our personal feelings. I don't understand why it's so difficult to refrain from responding. Do we have no self-control? Are we animals? 

This IS cyberbullying, as a fellow part of the Auburn family, I'm pleading with my peers: Don't behave this way. Don't disrespect people this way. Most certainly, when we become parents (particularly when our kids are younger) make sure that your child had absolutely no part in bullying. It can have lasting, unintentional and seriously harmful effects.