Forget Twitter. Forget all-stu. Forget debates between peers. Kenyon hosts a one-stop shop for funny memes, helpful information, (un)productive discourse and social ridicule. And the best part: It’s all anonymous. Scroll through Yik Yak on any given day, and you will see a stream of unattributed posts discussing topics ranging from political debates to lustful urges to if anyone else is cooked for that bio midterm tomorrow. Some people love it, some people hate it, but no one can deny that Yik Yak is a pillar of the Kenyon social scene. 

The pseudonymous app, which launched in 2013, was subsequently relaunched in 2021 after concerns about cyberbullying. Yik Yak does not allow users to type full names, but permits them to include other identifying information, like initials or class year. From there, an onslaught of anonymous opinions can pour in to discuss any topic or any person. “I sometimes get the impression that maybe it’s the same small number of people that post a lot of the things on Yik Yak that maybe give a sense of that voice representing a larger spectrum of the student body than is maybe wholly accurate,” Chaplain Rachel Kessler ’04 said in an interview with the Collegian. “But at the same time, if there is a default narrative being built around something on Yik Yak, it can be hard to ignore.” Whether users harness the app for good or evil, its impact is widespread.

One of Yik Yak’s most obvious benefits is that it gives users access to a larger Kenyon community. For students looking for advice on things like housing or class registration, Yik Yak offers them a place to ask a council of Kenyon students that they may not be able to talk to in person. And if you’re sitting in your room on a Saturday night, Yik Yak provides an excellent space to unabashedly inquire about campus goings-on.

Yik Yak has the power to bring people together, not just on the app, but in person as well. Last week’s snowball fight on Peirce Lawn was organized on Yik Yak. Mina Ruffle ’28 even developed a real-life relationship that started on the app. “Somebody was like, ‘Oh my god, I really love her Instagram stories.’ And then I started talking to them,” Ruffle said. “He will probably hate that I said this, but I don’t care. We had a little situationship that was overall pretty positive for me.”

As a director and actor in many Kenyon productions, Charlie Sacha ’26 has had a positive Yik Yak experience. “Every performance that I’ve been a part of, there’s definitely a little bit of excitement, after, like, ‘Let’s check Yik Yak and see what they’re saying,’” Sacha said. “Overwhelmingly, it’s usually very positive. When you put something on, and the community enjoys it, that always makes you happy.” Yik Yak’s anonymity is significant for this nature of feedback. “A compliment from a stranger sometimes means more than a compliment from your friend, because a stranger owes nothing to you,” Sacha explained. “Sometimes I know it’s probably one of my friends, but sometimes I’m like, ‘Oh, that’s fun.’ It’s like a little admirer.”

Yik Yak is a reliable forum for post-performance gushings. But the app also has a darker side that comes out to play. Yik Yak has been used to debate and destroy anything from outrageous all-stus to whole organizations to specific individuals, mutating Kenyon’s small, tight-knit community into the immobilizing straps of a purple, androgynous owl-covered straitjacket. Kessler, who was appointed as priest-in-charge of Harcourt Parish and chaplain in 2011, told the Collegian that she will sometimes scroll through Yik Yak. She recalled that during the era of Take Back the Night, an international movement against sexual violence, Yik Yak users posted direct threats against the Crozier Center for Women, which hosted many related events. While most of the threats were empty, supplies for Take Back the Night were stolen from Crozier’s living room. 

On a campus where anonymity is an almost foreign concept — from your comment in Quest for Justice that was maybe a little out of touch, to your 40-ounce water bottle falling in the reading room — Yik Yak provides its users with the rare and coveted opportunity to be completely unknown. “There is no filter, and there is no choice. By using the app, you are subject to any post created by anyone around you, even if it’s only up there for a matter of seconds before being flagged down, if it’s flagged down at all,” reads a 2014 Kenyon Thrill post published in response to the robbery at Crozier. Sometimes, especially at such a small school, these threats have impacts that extend into real life. These vary from the vortex of Internet cancellation to, in the case of Take Back the Night, real harm that affects students. 

Dylan Gibson ’27 noted the disparity between Kenyon’s generally open-minded student body and the vulgarity he is subjected to on Yik Yak. “I’ve seen a lot of very weird hatred, specifically from some people who don’t feel comfortable saying these things non-anonymously. I’ve had some very transphobic stuff directed at me, which I’ve never experienced in person on campus. … There’s a weird amount of people bashing people for their weight on there. A weird amount.” Gibson, who wears a tail on his belt, also noted the blatant violation of privacy and opposition to self-expression on the app. “I’ve gotten a lot of people posting pictures of me, like, ‘Furry! Furry! There’s a furry here,’” he told the Collegian. 

However, Gibson doesn’t give Yik Yak a complete downvote. Although the app’s anonymity may embolden its users to post things they would not say in real life, Gibson said that it has been a useful tool for helping him re-home four stray cats on campus. Ruffle experienced criticism on Yik Yak after publishing an opinion article about State Senate Bill 104. She encourages Yik Yak users to “say it loud, say it with your chest,” rather than hide behind anonymity. However, she also appreciates that Yik Yak provides a space for free discourse that Kenyon lacks. 

Associate Director of Counseling Holly Baker echoed that sentiment, as well as pointing out that the anonymous platform doesn’t always promote the healthiest conversation. “I think [Kenyon] wants to be a place where people feel like they can embrace free speech, but I think we also want to be responsible about the idea of free speech and what that means,” Baker said. “[It] doesn’t mean excessively tearing people down. Let’s call people in to have conversations versus calling them out.”So, as you farm your 10,000th Yakarma to distract from the 10,000-word paper that was due this morning (and that you must put your name on), remember to reevaluate the good, the bad and the anonymous of our omniscient Yik Yak. “It’s kind of like any social media or technology in general,” Baker said. “I think there can be really good things and there can be really challenging things that come about because of that. So how people use it really makes a difference.”