Dear Yik Yak Creators,
Anonymity can be a beautiful thing. We have the freedom of speech for a reason, so why not use it to its fullest capacity? With the creation of this new application, we are able to express what’s on our mind about the world around us, in 200 characters or less, without any repercussions. How liberating…until someone gets hurt.
Concealing your own identity shouldn’t mean creating a new persona for yourself. Would you typically call a woman a slut; bash a fraternity’s reputation; or make snarky comments about your professor to their face? If so, congratulations! A mission of yours is to make people feel bad about themselves! Cool. Sike. When did rudeness become the latest trend? Especially in the form of anonymous posting? While I completely see how Yik Yak creates a social community in which people can relate to one another and “LOL” together, of course-based on a post or two, many of the posts about our Bucknell community are negative. There’s no denying that; we’ve all read ’em, liked ’em, chuckled at ’em, or been offended by ’em.
Best of all, Yik Yak enables people to make claims about whatever, and whoever, they want. Recently, one anonymous poster wrote that one of our fraternity’s presidents got arrested over the weekend. Did it really happen? Nope. Is what the poster wrote considered legal defamation? Yup. Slap a name on the post, and the person would face some serious repercussions. But just because they don’t identify with the post makes what they said totally fine, right? Wrong. While people may think Yik Yak is purely good, clean fun, the greater implications are real and can realistically harm an individual. Beyond Bucknell, Yik Yak is making a splash in all the wrong ways. Google “Yik Yak News,” and posts from CNN, CBS, ABC, and The Huffington Post pop up, revealing app crackdowns, bullying problems, and a host of other major issues associated with something small enough to fill an iPhone screen.
Who’s giving Yik Yak all the power? Us. We’re the ones feeding and feeding this monster; we’re the ones adding fuel to the fire. And our actions are speaking much louder than the words on-screen. They’re harming individuals and creating a worldwide social media storm that may rival the disasters in The Day After Tomorrow. Because of these hurtful anonymous posts, there may not be a tomorrow for some of the victims. That’s a scary thought. Let’s stop the hate; let’s use our yicking and yacking from a “glass-half-full” perspective rather than a negative one.
Sincerely,Her Campus Correspondent