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Yik Yak is making its comeback to Syracuse University’s campus after it shut down due to bullying and hate speech in 2017. Now that it’s back, most students don’t take it that seriously.

“It’s a good app for getting things off your chest and having a good laugh,” Adore Ellis, a junior fashion design major, said.

The app’s popularity grows every day, with the posts on the “hot” page getting around 250-300 upvotes. With each post a person makes, their “Yakarma,” or how many upvotes someone gets for each post, grows. Everyone starts out with 100, but based on how popular or unpopular a user’s posts are, their “Yakarma” can grow or decline incrementally.

The app is anonymous, but the comments seen on the homepage change based on precise location. Freshman John Fiore said that is the most fun part of Yik Yak.

“I’ve been in buildings and pulled up Yik Yak and laughed because I was in the same building as the nasty cougher being posted about in Bird Library,” Fiore said.

Sophomore Avery Schildhaus said the app borders on bullying in how it anonymously makes fun of or “subtweets” other students.

“I think it’s really fun, but it can get very toxic. There are lots of indirect subtweeting, which is usually very negative,” Schildhaus said. “It’s really unfortunate people take it to such extremes. A lot of it makes you understand why it was originally shut down.”

The content on the app varies: some serious, but mostly just jokes about the campus or groups on campus such as fraternities or clubs. The posts range from “Upvote if you wish the (Carrier) Dome was a real rollercoaster” to “Anyone else scared to cough in class?”

People also post details about events happening on campus, whether it’s protests or parties. Fiore said that on the day of the football game against Liberty, he used Yik Yak to find his friends.

“I had no idea about what time to go to Castle (Court), but I checked Yik Yak, and people were like: Castle, right now,” Fiore said.

Freshman Leila Hashemi said she loves the app, and many members of the SU community agreed, with 132 upvotes to the anonymous post, “Who else spends the majority of their day on Yik Yak instead of doing work anymore?”

In September, when students staged protests against rape culture in fraternities, people posted on Yik Yak to spread the word on the times and locations for the demonstrations.

“I had no idea about the sexual assault protests but people were talking about it (on Yik Yak), and I followed the story and got good information,” Fiore said. “I wouldn’t have known about it if it weren’t for Yik Yak.”

Nell Schwartz, an SU junior, said it’s impressive the app could have such a big role in organizing events like the protest on Sept. 21. But, the junior said she fears that the information about sexual harassment could get misconstrued or messy on an app like Yik Yak. She doesn’t think that anonymous posting about such serious topics is the safest way to come forward with an allegation.

Schwartz does believe the app can be fun as long as everyone knows that the anonymity can create room for lies and rumors.

“The problem isn’t that people are getting exposed or making funny jokes, but you want to make sure you have the full story and you know the real facts,” Schwartz said.

DISCLAIMER: Avery Schildhaus is a photographer for The Daily Orange. She does not influence the editorial content in her capacity as a photographer.

Published on October 5, 2021 at 12:06 am