YIK YAK
Kayla Fratt, senior
Alex Peebles-Capin, sophomore
Eviva Kahne, sophomore
Jenny Welden, junior
Shyien Sinclar, sophomore and Shayna McClure, sophomore
AND THE STUDENTS OF CORNELL COLLEGE AND MIZZOU
Jenny Welden, Cornell College
Victoria Lewis, University of Missouri
Emily Gaston, sophomore
Nebeu Abraha, sophomore.
Emily Lucas, junior.
Avukile Jennifer Zoya, junior.
YikYak is a social media app that allows anyone within a five mile radius to make and read anonymous posts of 140 characters or less. Posts can be upvoted or downvoted. If they receive five net downvotes, they disappear. It is popular on college campuses for sharing information and inside jokes about the school and college life.
But Kayla Fratt, a senior at Colorado College, also feels that “Yik Yak- a totally anonymous social media- seem[s] like the place that ugly would come out if it exists.” “Ugly” can be understood as derogatory and hateful comments and the anonymous function of the app holds no one accountable. Similar to other universities, Colorado College students are active on YikYak in both these positive and negative ways.
AND THE STUDENTS OF COLORADO COLLEGE
On the night of Nov. 9th, while most students were studying for their third block finals, many racist posts were made in close succession on YikYak. Emily Lucas, junior co-chair of the Native American Student Union, commented, “I think this is the greatest predominance of multiple really racist posts I’ve seen on Yik Yak at once, at least up until that point in time.”
By the next morning the school was a in a flurry of conversation. People flooded YikYak and Facebook with their thoughts. Some of the racists Yaks were quickly voted off, but their residue persisted as screenshots of the posts that circulated on Facebook. Many students were outraged and some didn’t feel safe on campus anymore. School president, Jill Tiefenthaler, sent out an email the following morning on Nov. 10 condemning the posts and declaring that “hate speech under the veil of anonymity is the work of cowards and bigots, who have no interest in community.”
“Hate speech under the veil of anonymity is the work of cowards and bigots, who have no interest in community.” - Jill Tiefenthaler