Finals week.
Students head toward the library doors, open up their Smokin’ Notes, pop an addy and start the grind. There is nothing like the slap in the face every student gets when they realize how much procrastinating they have done throughout the semester. However, the procrastinating has just begun.
A dark cloud of social media has brought a storm to Gainesville. An unstoppable juggernaut of gossip has provided UF students with the ultimate form of procrastination: Yik Yak.
Yik Yak is a smartphone application that allows users to anonymously post comments that can only be read by users in their respective area. Very similar to Twitter, but brilliant in that no one knows who’s posting what, but everyone knows that the post was sent within the UF campus. It’s genius.
For about 48 hours, Yik Yak consumed the lives of trolling, media-obsessed students during the times that they were supposed to be reviewing for exams. It was the perfect storm of trash talk, and it happened to become as popular as ever during the busiest week of the academic year. 
Students see Yik Yak as an opportunity to voice their opinions mainly about Greek organizations or bitchy professors. I must admit that I contributed to the mockery, but when it quickly escalated to the point of sheer cruelty, I became a spectator. Let’s just say, I hope the financial accounting professor is out of the local social media spectrum or she would have really fucked over students on that test…which she probably did, anyway.
But what really stood out during the initial phase of the Yik Yak craze was the banter about certain fraternities. I’m not going to name drop, but you know who you are. It’s an honest shame that people had to shit on each other so hard right before everyone leaves for summer. What’s the fun in that?
I was at Dog the night Yik Yak really took off, and it was like a Battle Royale of anonymous shit talking between guys at the bar and at different tables. Though it was cowardly and foolish, everyone was trying to get the upper hand on the others. Whether it was over the amount of laughter or the amount of “up likes,” we wanted more!
We all felt untouchable — so much so that I knew there had to be a catch. Lo and behold, the location specific on the app denies users their full anonymity. Yik Yak has been the direct source for multiple arrests this year. Between cyber bullying, false criminal reports and threats, Yik Yak abusers have been put behind bars multiple times for a simple 100-character post.
Being anonymous is almost impossible these days. We can’t even search something on Google without being monitored. It’s one thing to post something like, “Those guys drink Strawberitas!” and it’s another thing to post about girls needing to lose weight this summer. So when you are sitting behind your iPhone screen giggling about your clever Yak, just know that someone is watching.
