Yik Yak. Oh Yik Yak. It’s been a huge phenomenon on college campuses, booming into existence as a subversive platform for students to anonymously post anything. It has its share of problems, giving assholes a new way to threaten, bully, and express all of their terrible thoughts and commentary without societal norms pressuring them into acceptability.
But it has also done this for those who aren’t assholes. It has given us (I hope no one considers me an asshole) generally normal people a way to free ourselves from societal norms as well. I go to a school where expectations are high; from the classroom to the court houses (our greek row), from the running trails to your closet, there is a certain standard at Davidson that we all are expected to uphold.
The problem is, it is an unrealistic standard. But even that’s pretty typical of type A personalities, and hi, that’s the majority of us. The bigger problem is as we all fight to maintain this image that we’re meeting these impossible standards, we are also refusing to allow anyone to see our struggles.
Not on YikYak. On Yik Yak we can turn our problems into the funny anecdotes most people share with their friends. On Yik Yak, our shortcomings, stumbles, and slips become hysterical snapshots into this sub-culture of embracing imperfection…because guess what? Not one of us is flawless.
Yes. Ok. Queen B, you are flawless.
“Just watched 8 hours of Netflix. What is life?” is responded to with enthusiastic “ups” and comments along the lines of “me too!” People with relationship issues ask if they should go up to their unicorn or just back to the library. Encouraging (and sometimes overly explicit) love advice is shared. “Go for it dude!” or “I tried last night at F with my unicorn. They shot me down, but it was so worth it!” These are the instagram snapshots of life on campus pre-filter. These are the things we cannot say about ourselves out loud, when they might be connected to who we are (interpret that on the deep “who we are” level too). We can complain on the Yak about work and get sympathetic encouragement instead of devolving into a competition about who’s got it worse. We can share our failures without people judging how stupid, how lacking, how not perfect we are.
None of us are perfect on campus. I can promise you that. No one else seems willing to show the effort and the work that goes into performing to this impossibly high standard (and doing it ALL. THE. TIME). Everyone seems to do it flawlessly, so I should be able to do that too right?
The flawless façade falters on the Yak. Suddenly I read about people apologizing for all the drunk texts they sent last night, and complaining about their mad bout of Commons Shits. It’s a problem we all face, and we all should acknowledge, those crazy gastrointestinal after-effects of Commons.
Might as well study as you suffer. #multitasking.
While Commons Shits are not Davidson’s largest social issue, it’s an equalizer. Along with drunken regrets, insecurities, relationship complaints, and witty observations like “bunk beds are basically shelves for humans” are thoughts we all have. They’re also thoughts we’re not always willing to share, but let’s be honest, that’s the fun part anyway, that’s the experience that you’re trying to capture and internalize and make a part of your story. That’s what we all want to read about while we hide in the bathroom to pass time during those seminars… or after Commons brunch.
*Disclaimer: I love Commons and have not had weird GI issues from their food. #blesscommons #allyoucaneat