COLUMN: Yik Yack yuck
As a student who plans on turning my social media skills into a profession, I cannot help but feel disappointed in how our generation utilizes these outlets.
Whether it be trolling the web and comment sections or cyber bullying, negative activity on anonymous social media platforms needs to stop. I downloaded Yik Yak several months ago after hearing many students talk about the outlet and quickly became disappointed in the activity.
Yik Yak is a platform similar to Twitter in that it allows users to post anonymously. Other users can “up vote” or “down vote” specific posts called Yaks.
Before winter break, I was scrolling through the feed and saw a post with a specific name in it. The person mentioned is one of my close friends.
Someone decided to publicly inform the entire Yik Yak community that my friend was gay.
An anonymous user decided it would be funny to publicly shame my friend because he’s still in the closet.
Individuals can also comment on specific Yaks. These comments can be up voted and down voted as well. Some of the comments I witnessed were “It’s about damn time,” “faggot” and “totally saw that coming.” Fortunately, if a Yak receives five down votes, it disappears.
Although the Yak was taken down in a matter of minutes, it proves how powerful anonymous social media can be and the negative impact it can have.
My friend is still struggling with his sexuality knowing that many of his peers know his secret. Anonymous social media platforms can be funny and valuable in many ways, but there is a line between humor and bullying.
My advice to our generation—grow up. Stop using social media to inflict harm. If our generation takes pride in making the world a better place and accepting others, we have a lot of work to do.
