Social Media has become a staple in our modern culture. Apps like Instagram and Snapchat give students the opportunity to interact in their own unique style. However, there is one app in particular that is stirring controversy in ways other social media platforms haven’t been able to. 

The platform Yik-Yak has taken the Saint Anselm College community by storm. The platform allows people to create an account on the impression of anonymity. While this platform’s anonymous angle seems very enticing for college students, it also can harbor a toxic environment for student culture. 

While there are moments where the app can bring humor as social media can procure, it can fester behaviors that can only be gotten away with through an app with an anonymous user base. Some of these behaviors include and not limited to, harassment of students and staff, threats, and objectifying members of our community. These acts and posts on the site have continued to escalate in ways our community has ever seen. Behaviors like this, while unfortunate, can be expected from a platform like Yik-Yak. However, this can’t be an excuse to be able to post some of these awful things. 

 We as a community need to look at this app at face value. The app, while unique, shows an ugly head to this campus that many don’t want to see. Action should be taken as to what to do about this platform. While the options may be limited, it is more important to signify that the behavior that festers on Yik-Yak cannot be tolerated in our community. We should not allow this behavior to become the new norm and let it spew off the screen and on to the Hilltop. If we remain idle on this matter, there is fear within the community that this snowball that keeps building and growing will grow to the point where something bad may happen on our campus.

 Many people I have spoken to on this matter believe that something should and needs to be done in regards to this platform. Don’t get me wrong, there is a charm to this platform, but there is the issue of when these awful things are posted. That’s the problem. What can be done? Is there something that can be done? These are questions we need to ask ourselves as a community because if we don’t speak up and do something about this, we will be seeing worse and worse acts of hatred on this app to the point where this powdered keg of a platform explodes into a much worse situation to which no one wants to see.