Anonymously bonding with strangers within a 5 mile radius has never been easier
If you didn’t have older siblings in 2013 you may have missed YikYak the first time around. The app, created in 2013 and then taken off the app store not long after its release, has recently returned to the internet and is once again providing places for people to post their opinions, observations, and judgements completely anonymously. Posts are solely text, similar to a tweet and a 200 character limit, but with no profile picture or indication as to who posted it. YikYak works based on location, which means your posts are seen by people within 5 miles of your location. What makes this app so unique is that there is no way to tell who posted what. You are given a randomly assigned emoji icon that acts as a sort of “profile picture” within reply sections, called a conversation icon, but it can be changed as many times as you wish. The way posts go viral is through up votes, and if a post receives enough downvotes to reach negative five it is removed. Users have a “yakarma” or a score that goes up by posting, having people interact with your posts, or interacting with others’ posts.
This app is fascinating to me because it creates a sense of community, yet people never reveal who they are. Yaks that go viral are moved to the “hot yaks” page, and if they keep going viral they are pushed to the national top yaks page or the national hot yaks page which allows people from other areas of the country to see the most viral yaks from around the nation for up to 24 hours after the post was made.
YikYak is especially interesting in a college setting because people can talk about who and what they see around campus and reach other people who may have been there without needing to know anyone’s names. An example of group bonding in the Madison area happened recently when we all received a weather alert for the “snow squall” which caused a plethora of yaks about what a squall is or even jokes with plays on the word squall. My personal favorite was “to the window to the squall” which landed on the Madison hot yaks page for 24 hours.
There are hundreds of YikYaks posted every day in Madison, but in smaller rural areas where there are less people on the app there might only be a few a day. This makes the app much more appealing to those who live in bigger cities or areas of concentrated populations of young adults, like college campuses. It builds a sense of community, but also provides a place for public debate and discourse without having to face the people you may disagree with. I think that if you live in an area that has an active YikYak following, it is an entertaining thing to join and everyone should check it out!