Yik Yak Anonymous App Analysis

Anonymous, local, and addicting. The three things that make the new anonymous app, Yik Yak, desirable to college age students. Yik Yak’s website says “Join the conversation. Share your thoughts with people around you while keeping you privacy.” More often than not, the thoughts of the people are not appropriate. In this day and age, it seems like there is always a new app being created, and it seems like they all have major drawbacks, especially Yik Yak. Yik Yak was created in November of 2013 by two college students. Originally, Yik Yak was planned to be used by college students. The App Store even asked if the buyer was over eighteen. Although, it was easy to lie. All the buyer had to do was click “Yes, I am over eighteen years old,” even …show more content…
Many high school and middle schools have blocked the app on and around their campuses using geo-fencing. Yik Yak workers are happy to block the app on high school and middle school campuses, but are more reluctant to do so on college campuses. Colleges have tried to ban the app, but can only prevent the students from using it on their school Wifi. The things that are posted on the app can distract student’s concentration and learning during school. One example of how horrible and distracting Yik Yak can be, is the story of Colgate University. Melissa Melendez went to Colgate on a full ride scholarship. She grew up in the Bronx, and she was a child of first generation Puerto Rican parents. Melissa had grown up around people that spoke all kinds of languages, so she had quite the shock when she arrived at her new college. She went to Colgate, and found out that there were not many people like her. It was mainly a white college, and the students were shockingly racist towards people like Melissa. She said that she did not think that racism was still an issue, she had not even thought about it before going to Colgate. Melissa said that everyday there was a new stereotype, and her classmates were not afraid to confront her about them. Melissa was very angry, but she decided to do something about her frustrations. She gathered up other students that were of different backgrounds than the majority of the students at Colgate. They formed a group and called themselves the Association of Critical Collegians (ACC). Forming the group made the students that were like Melissa feel safer, and more accepted. The group was fed up with how their classmates were treating them. They decided that they were going to do a sit-in at the administration office. Their sit-in lasted five days. Within those five days, students that were in the group shared their stories about how they had been treated