Michael Hatchett
A&E Editor
“Independent minds, drinking together.” “I have successfully taken a piss.” “The Amish have better wi-fi than us.” What are these profound, thought-provoking statements? The latest writings on a library bathroom stall? Conversational asides overheard in Lowry? No, these are just a sample of the thoughts posted on YikYak, the latest social media phenomenon to hit Wooster.
YikYak is an app, developed by Furman University students Tyler Droll and Brooks Buffington, that aims to let people within a five-mile radius anonymously share their thoughts about the world. These thoughts are confined to 200 characters, and users can up-vote or down-vote these thoughts (or “Yaks”) based on their content. Depending on how many up-votes and down-votes you get and how often you up-vote and down-vote, you have a Yakarma score. In short, it is Reddit meets Twitter with an anonymous, regional twist.
YikYak itself can have several different purposes depending on user personalities. Some use it to garner excitement for campus events, while others use it to complain about campus events. Some use it to anonymously confess about a certain crush they have, while others (attempt to) hook up. For the most part, comments in our radius briefly analyze Wooster life, schoolwork, parties, the administration, Netflix and just about anything else.
While it seems harmless, YikYak has received a fair share of complaints. Some students feel that it encourages cyberbullying. I will say that most of the posts that I have seen on YikYak have been random, inane and explicit but none seem to be overwhelmingly directed at any specific students.
Granted, I have only had the app for a couple days and just because posts disappear once they hit five downvotes doesn’t mean that they don’t affect anyone. YikYak functions on the basic principle that people have things that they want to say that they want people to hear but without the possible consequences attached. Whether it’s innocent (“It’s hard to be a grown up. I want my mom.”) or explicit (“Who in Mom’s is looking to bone right now?”) is entirely dependent on the users.
I readily admit that it makes it incredibly easy to complain about someone and foster negative energy, but I will also admit to its thrilling mystery. Sunday night, I was alerted that someone posted that they had a crush on a student in my Gender, Sex and Texts class. Normally, a class-specific post would probably attain around 15 or 20 up-votes unless they’ve got a particularly funny spin to them.
However, a few hours, forty up-votes and 20 comments later and I realize that the class has a bigger presence on the app than I thought. The comments are filled with speculation, statements about heteronormativity, the class’s professor and one complaint about a student being too loud. (Dear anonymous poster, point taken. I’ll try to be quieter during class discussion.) Nonetheless, all of the comments were overwhelmingly positive.
As of this article’s writing, the identity of the crush and crushee are still unknown, but students of the class are planning coordinated outfits in order to figure out who it is. You can say what you want about YikYak, but it has an anonymous magic that is hard to deny.