You’ve probably heard about a Facebook page called Spotted in one form or another, with its variations across the country acting as a local digital noticeboard, but have you heard of York Uni: Snapped? Or maybe you’ve heard of a little app called YikYak? Or perhaps you haven’t unplugged from the comforting glow of your computer screen since making your Bebo profile in 2007?
If your answer was yes to any of the previous, then the rest of this piece will probably be blindingly obvious to you, and so I suggest you stop reading and get back to ‘yakking’ instead. If, however, this has so far been incoherent nonsense, then read on as we take a look at the best ways you can tell people that hilarious joke you just thought of, but don’t want people to know you were gross/grim/indecent enough to think of it in the first place.
Spotted Facebook Pages
That girl eating her crisps too loudly. That guy over there with ass cleavage. The paucity of reason in the library’s door planning process. These are all things you can find people complaining about on the most popular of the local Spotted franchise at 6,286 likes, Spotted: University of York Library Revived. “Revived” because the old page had so much witty lad banter it died from ‘banteritis’, which Vision reported on in 2013. However, the new page seems careful not to repeat the mistakes of its predecessor with the page’s owners moderating any body shaming or catcalling-esque posts sent in – for now anyway.
For those who wish to do further reading, if you type “Spotted” into the Facebook search bar, a plethora of different pages will be presented to you: loads from York and probably a smattering from wherever back home is for you. I managed to find at least fifteen Spotted pages pertaining to the University, a selection of which you can find below:
- Spotted: Heslington East
The other campus lives up to its wild reputation with a grand total of four posts over 2014. None of them were particularly interesting.
- Spotted: Derwent
Recently started posting after a lull in activity after contracting the same banteritis that brought the library page down. Now only posts pure top-notch ‘Der-bant’ College banter.
- Spotted: Willow
This page should be renamed Lost Property in Willow. Just remember to leave your Jack Wills coat at home if a night is likely to end in Willow.
- Spotted: York Devil Sightings
While not strictly related to the University, this was definitely worth mentioning. At 71 likes, the page addresses “the current rise in devil sightings, Satan worship & occult occurrences in York”. Unsure if joke.
A Facebook page like Spotted, York Uni: Snapped also appears with regional variations, although is much less widespread. Leeds and York St John have Snapped pages too.
York Uni: Snapped posts funny photos sent in by users to their Snapchat handle (@yorkunisnapped), including one bemoaning Nisa being closed late at night, another depicting a student kissing a rat, and many, many photos of students passed out after overindulging in alcohol.
The page also features exactly five photos of PDAs (for the nerds out there, that’s 1/10 pictures containing a couple lobbing the gob). I managed to speak to one of the smooching stars, Freya, who recounted how her family reacted to the fame.
The first year archaeology legend said: “To be honest I found it hilarious at first, but it was surprising how quickly it spread around university – and at home too. I mean, my gran saw it. My gran’s friends were even asking her if she’d seen it, which led to a bit of an awkward conversation with her.’’
Still in its infancy, the page has only had about 50 published submissions. For all the ones that do make it to the page, there are probably several that do not, making whoever actually runs the Snapchat account privy to a large part of the campus gossip mill. On an unrelated note, anonymous news submissions are always welcome at [email protected].
YikYak
By far the most participated in on campus, YikYak is a microcosm of student life on campus, which is of course a bubble itself, insulated from reality. Bubbleception.
For those who haven’t heard of YikYak, and there’s probably a fair few of you as it’s still somewhere in the ‘early adopters’ section of the product life cycle curve (I knew GCSE Business would come in handy one day!), then think of it as an anonymous location-based Twitter. Barely two-years-old, the application has grown in such popularity that the development team behind it has grown from 2 to 26 people. In America, where the app was founded, the team promoted their creation with roadshows from college campus to college campus, with a rideable mechanical yak. So look out for this carnival – if it comes to York, I will be the first in line to ride the yak.
The way the app works is that people post 200 character-limited “Yaks” to a feed of everyone’s Yaks within a 10-mile radius where users can vote up or down generating an overall score shown beside the Yak. Be careful not to get a score of -5 though, as your Yak will be deleted. I haven’t even talked about Yakarma – just download the app and have a gander for yourself.
Students at York use YikYak to gripe about stereotypical student concerns, bang on about “Eurodam” not working, make jokes with heavy sexually frustrated undertones and direct an abundance of abuse towards the hallowed institution of York St John. You may spot people using the app in lectures even, with many lectures trending at any one time – leading to what can only be described as cult followings… (Everyone knows Statistics 1 lectures are where it’s at though.)
Forget trending locally however, the University was trending internationally last week, not for the first time, on the app’s ‘‘Peek Near’’ list which allows users from around the world to read the same local feed as a York student. A few days later, a certain misspelled “York St. Jonhn University” also debuted on the list.
In all seriousness though, the app, with its Ring of Gyges invisibility coat, does not appear to have descended into a hellish amoral trolling chaos. Instead, well in York at least, people are constantly trying to post the most popular Yaks with a flurry of humorously insightful observations and cod-philosophical statements, which seems a little odd at first: trying to get attention for something that will never be credited to you.
However, perhaps it isn’t so odd, in a world where our every online move is recorded and can be held against us years down the line, that many are finding solace in the fact that other people are sharing the same weird and wonderful thoughts as them, thoughts that one wouldn’t dare to show on identity-linked services such as Facebook or Twitter.