I spend too much time on Yik Yak. Whether I’m reading it in bed like the morning paper, or using it to procrastinate in the library, I love to Yak. It’s a guilty pleasure that, for now, I’m content to indulge.
You can talk about current affairs without it feeling a bit like shouting into the abyss – the people around you are in the same lectures as you, reading the same things as you, and often having the same thoughts as you. It’s comforting to be able to state an “unpopular opinion” without facing the wrath of the student body (the same cannot be said for writing said opinions in a student newspaper…).
In a world where the Internet exists, where everything you do say online can and will be used against you, it’s no wonder that our generation is turning to anonymous boards to vent. Yik Yak is just another app in a sea of ‘spotted’ pages, another place to let someone know you’re into them before gold rush hits. But in-between making Tron jokes, potentially hooking up and discussing the price of chocolate oranges, Yik Yak can go too far. It’s fair enough to bond over a lecturer’s inability to use PowerPoint, but to name and shame them or call them rude names is bordering on bullying. The relentless slandering of a particular first year history lecturer last year meant that the department felt the need to step in, and sent round an email requesting that the attacks stop. Yes, that’s right – lecturers can check Yik Yak too, and they can be hurt by such comments. If you wouldn’t say such things if your name was attached to it through fear of it coming back to bite you in the arse later in life, then maybe you should think about what it says about you as a human being if you would say it anonymously.
‘Keyboard warriors’ are everywhere in this world, from fake profiles on Facebook, to the comments section of the Daily Mail, to 4chan and Reddit. And there’s no way to stop them effectively – you can ban them, but a new account will pop up, or 10 more like-minded individuals with just as much hate to spread. The only way to stop such hate is to look objectively at what you yourself are posting. Are you posting anonymously because you are too embarrassed to admit that you sleep with a teddy every night, or that you miss your ex, or that you had an awkward sex dream that you can’t get out of your head? Or are you posting anonymously because what you are saying is mean-spirited, and would genuinely hurt someone if you said it to their face?
Social media is brilliant, I won’t deny that, and we feel almost instantly connected to events from across the globe – or even across campus. But in light of recent events I would emphasise that too soon does exist, even anonymously. Dark humour is brilliant, and I’ll often catch myself laughing at something I know I shouldn’t be, but you should always think of the effect your words have upon other people. To start making jokes about the fire in James before even knowing if everyone was okay is insensitive. How shaken would you have felt if it had happened to you? And then, to go on Yik Yak and to see your distress and panic being turned into humour instantaneously?
This isn’t about drawing a clear line in the sand between funny and unfunny, or defining a time limit before a subject becomes okay to laugh about. It’s about treating public figures, or even BNOCs, for what they really are: friends, housemates, brothers, sisters, daughters and sons.
Don’t allow your humanity to disappear as soon as your name or face does.