Dani Blum | There’s a Yak for that

The Danalyst | Yik Yak can be a force for good, if we use it the right way

By Dani Blum 09/29/14 11:13pm

I t’s be come part of my wake-up routine. Shut off the alarm, roll over, check the weather. Scroll through Facebook, make sure I didn’t miss any texts from last night and then finally — the part that makes the impending 10 a.m. lecture bearable — check Yik Yak.

The app, an anonymous gossip forum that lets users post 200-character messages accessible to anyone in a one-and-a-half mile radius , has been the source of recent controversy. Last week, Atlanta police arrested a University of Georgia student who posted a Yak threatening to blow up a campus building . Days later, students at Colgate held sit-in protests inspired by racist Yik Yak posts . A Vermont college president put his foot down on Wednesday and banned access to the app, saying he’d received too many complaints about cyberbullying .

It’s easy to see why Yik Yak causes problems. Grant any group of kids carte blanche to post anonymously and you’re bound to raise a few issues. An unfortunate chunk of posts on the Penn Yik Yak are flat-out mean, from targeting specific people to making general snarky comments like, “those four-inch heels go great with that Jansport backpack for your 8 a.m.” These Yaks appeal to the worst in us — we should be above middle school pettiness. Colleges that ban Yik Yak don’t eradicate mean-spirited ideas, they just take away one of its forums. We should be actively striving to address the motivation behind mean posts, but we shouldn’t curtail free speech.

But that’s only one side of Yik Yak. The majority of posts are a collection of random thoughts, from “Wawa is bae” to “Holla if you can’t understand your TA’s accent.” They allow us to bond over common elements of our daily lives at Penn — and in a school of 10,000, it’s refreshing to confirm that other people share your opinions and experiences. Plus, some of the Yaks are genuinely laugh-out-loud funny (my personal favorite: “College: Where condoms are free, but printing your homework isn’t.”)

More importantly, though, Yik Yak also forces us to face the aspects of Penn we’d rather ignore. Maybe we have to be anonymous to feel comfortable calling attention to the lesser-discussed elements of Penn’s campus. Yaks like “Penn is the school for smart kids who constantly need to counter their intelligence with binge drinking,” and, “Everyone on campus is a functioning alcoholic and it’s a beautiful thing” call attention to elements of Penn we accept without question.

It’s sad that we have to be anonymous to admit our imperfections, but I’m glad a forum like Yik Yak exists. We spend so much time tailoring our other social media outlets to portray unrealistic versions of ourselves — is anyone ever as put-together as they seem on Facebook? — that it’s nice to say what’s actually on our minds. Yik Yak lets us break the mold of the flawless Penn student. On a campus where you’re constantly trying to live up to your LinkedIn profile, Yik Yak can be a welcome escape.

Yik Yak also has the potential to be a force for social change — maybe not on a huge scale, but at least at an informal level. It’s encouraging to see a Yak like “Contrary to popular belief, the best way to get to know females is to treat them like actual people” make it into Penn’s hottest posts.

Yes, most Yaks are a lot more depressing, but they showcase a part of Penn that needs to be addressed, not silenced. There are as many posts about midterm stress as there are about people feeling marginalized by their race. The way to combat these issues is to create a campus-wide dialogue. Yik Yak allows us to start the conversation by demonstrating how prejudice fits into daily life at Penn. The app creates an opportunity we might not have otherwise.

Yik Yak can be a powerful tool if we use it correctly. Let’s not ruin the app by giving into our worst impulses. I think that’s worth an upvote.

Dani Blum is a College freshman from Ridgefield, Conn. Her email address is kblum@sas.upenn.edu. “The Danalyst” appears every Tuesday.

Please note All comments are eligible for publication in The Daily Pennsylvanian.