Avi Joshi ’26 is an English major. He is a member of the Alpha Tau Omega fraternity and consistently hitchhikes on the spirit highway. Contact him at asjoshi@wm.edu.
The views expressed in the article are the author’s own.
Dear YikYak users, I am speaking directly to you. Since I first arrived at the College of William and Mary, I have seen and experienced the cesspool that is YikYak. Whether it’s the constant useless political debates, Flat Hat opinions articles getting shit on (please, shit on this one too) or stupid Greek life drama, YikYak on this campus breeds hatred and idiocy.
But why am I talking about this? In reality, the best solution would be to keep YikYak off my phone and simply ignore what happens on it. However, I find myself constantly feeling disappointed in the student body that participates in “YikYaking.” There is so much toxic fecal matter to address, I don’t even know where to begin. With homecoming courting coming up soon, I’ll start there.
Fraternity and Sorority Life is one of the constant discussions on YikYak, and when courting comes around, the levels of toxicity somehow become even more exacerbated. The amount of pure hatred from members of different organizations against each other is disheartening. Fraternity and Sorority Life members will get name-dropped, and whole organizations will get targeted and picked apart by anonymous users. And the worst part, I think it is pretty much only members of Fraternity and Sorority Life who expound their hatred during courting. Of course, I don’t know this for a fact, and that’s another huge problem with YikYak: anonymity does not create spaces of any meaning. In other words, I believe all the conversations on YikYak are utterly useless. Everything that is said on there can be summed up as shitty rage bait, insults towards all kinds of groups of students and horrible jokes. Not just horrible as in offensive, but genuinely unfunny and bozo-level humor. If you are someone who finds things on YikYak funny, you are dull.
And can we please stop with the political debates? Almost all of them begin with someone saying something crazy, not just because they may actually believe it, but because they want the polarizing conversation. It was always bait and will always be bait. Don’t fall for it, use common sense, something that will never make it onto YikYak.
What about users who go onto YikYak and actually voice an opinion they believe and want to discuss? The anonymity of YikYak does not make serious conversation feasible. There are countless other forms of discussing and expressing what you believe in — like The Flat Hat opinions section ;).
So what about the passive YikYak users? Students who have the app but only scroll through it. I am telling you right now, you will be doing yourself a huge favor by uninstalling that worthless app. Similar to apps like TikTok, the only thing that YikYak is going to do is turn your brain into yogurt. Nothing on the app is made of any substance, and the only way to “enjoy” YikYak is to understand how worthless it is. But even in recognizing how insane YikYak is, by engaging with it, the cycle of toxicity continues. YikYak needs an audience, preferably one that does not prioritize rational thinking, so do not be a part of that audience.
The thing that worries me the most about YikYak is that, whether I like it or not, it is a part of campus culture. The problem is I fear that people who use YikYak may be conditioned — knowingly or unknowingly — to believe that what happens on YikYak is an accurate representation of the College. I think it is safe to assume that that is not true. YikYak does not represent the College, however, the College is represented by the activity of its student body on YikYak. So, be better. Take the mask off and speak with your chest. Get rid of YikYak. Get it off your phone, and stop talking about what happens on it. It is meaningless.
