WHS Students Ride The Yak
Ellie Blake
Co-Editor-In-Chief
A large domesticated wild ox with shaggy hair, humped shoulders and horns, anonymous posts and a social media app are three subjects that wouldn’t seem to flow fluently.
But thanks to the magic of developers Tyler Droll, these things come together to create
a growing social media hangout: Yik Yak.
It is a social media site consisting of anonymous posts about random topics. Most social media sites are required to ask for the users’ name, email and preferred username. With Yik Yak, none of this is needed. To keep the site completely anonymous, all one needs to do is connect to their location, ensuring that posts are relevant to the users’ location.
Users are also allowed to peek into other areas by typing in a location or picking from the local colleges available. Once they search an area, yaks pop up from the desired location.
Unlike the previously popular app Ask.fm, this app is supposed to be a bully-free zone. Each “yak” is able to be upvoted or downvoted depending on the content or relevance. Once a yak receives five downvotes, the yak is deleted from the site. This helps users self-monitor the content of the app.
This new social media forum is attracting curious students from Waverly High because of the talk on the unusual new app.
“I saw people posting about it on Twitter, and it looked like fun,” junior Hannah Jackson said. “I decided to check it out.”
The bullying aspect of Yik Yak is on the verge of emerging, although students hope that it is stopped before it starts.
“There is bullying on every site you’re on no matter what the case may be,” senior Kody Cooper said. “Some of the stuff people say to each other is unreal but it’s a way to communicate. Yeah, it’s definitely negative. It’s going to be one of those things that can be resolved as well.”
Although most students are raving about the new Twitter-like feed, some students are not enjoying the few negative posts that pop up every now and then.
“It has a lot of mean and offensive stuff on there, either directed at others or to big groups of people,” sophomore Evan Horner said.
Despite the few offensive comments that every social media forum has, students enjoy the proximity function of the app.
“I like that it’s from around Waverly and I get to see and comment about everyday problems that happen at WHS,” Cooper said.
This uniquely-named social media site is taking off little by little. Will bullying take over the site, or will it stay a place to discuss problems and talk about daily issues? Only time will tell.
