The growing popularity of the social media application, Yik Yak, highlights how the Internet can foster social isolation in its frequenters.
Yik Yak allows users to submit anonymous messages to an interactive message board that displays posts specific to their geographic locations. In doing so, it creates the toxicity of YouTube comments sections in a regionalized area.
This tendency is evident when reading some of the more popular posts, or “yaks.” Some of them are genuinely funny, while others are genuinely awful. The worst yaks rely on petty insults concerning specific people or groups. This behavior emphasizes a group mentality of hostility that tends to surface under the protection of anonymity.
Accompanying the rise of the Internet and social networking is a sort of tribalism, an unrestrained means of communication—people can say what would usually go unsaid and be sure others will support them, no matter what the topic or claim.
Online communities such as Reddit’s Red Pill and YouTube comments sections demonstrate the reckless abandon people enjoy in their sense of individual anonymity. When your identity is hidden, you often think you can say anything. Unfortunately, these things, uncensored and impromptu, frequently end up being crass and demeaning to people who can’t necessarily defend themselves.
With the ever-increasing permeation of social media into our daily lives, it is nearly impossible at this point to avoid using sites such as Facebook or Twitter for simple interactions. Yik Yak is one of the first to utilize the removal of personal accountability as its selling point.
When sites introduce anonymity to a population, we see a notable increase in hateful content. A lack of moderation combined with the complete anonymity on Yik Yak allows us to see the true thoughts and opinions of the people who surround us. Though the content of Yik Yak may be eye opening, it also allows the perpetuation of venomous ideas in our immediate surroundings.
Like most other social media applications, a minority of its users exploits Yik Yak for vindictive purposes. Although a lot of the messages are funny or harmless, a significant amount is anything but. These comments promote to the collective consciousness ideas of misogyny, racism and the safety accompanying groupthink.
In anonymity, people find it exceptionally easier to post malicious content because any consequences they may face will not be associated with their social identities. Those who abuse the application in this manner sustain no repercussions aside from their yak being deleted. This is not acceptable.
It is voyeuristic to an extent that users of Yik Yak can infiltrate nearly any situation in secret if they own a smartphone. The application encourages passive engagement in our environments; we believe we are truly free while hiding behind a computer screen.
Yik Yak is dangerous because it allows users to openly target people in a public forum without being held responsible for the damages they may cause. If a person brutally insults the physical appearance of another on Yik Yak, he or she is able to maintain facelessness, leaving the victim unable to retaliate. In this way, “Yik Yakers” can use the application to participate in cyberbullying.
The Internet, at its worst, promotes an unfettered free speech mentality that is so common in teenagers and young adults today. They insist, “I should be able to say whatever I want!” Yik Yak caters to this mindset of entitlement by allowing every opinion that appears on the screen to potentially be validated by other users in the form of up votes.
And, well, we should be able to say whatever we want. But we must also be willing to face the consequences if our statements are harmful or ignorant.
