Monday, March 9, 2015

Gary from Granneville Sends This In.

So, today I saw a new social app called “Yik Yak” which is apparently becoming popular on college campuses. It’s twitter, but designed to be anonymous and only show twits from within 1.5 miles of your current location. I tried it out this morning and was not disappointed:


4 comments:

  1. Contingent CassandraMarch 9, 2015 at 7:47 PM

    I've heard about this, but haven't seen it in action before. Interesting, but even when I get around to getting a smartphone, I think I'll pass. Sometimes ignorance really is bliss (or at least more comfortable than being fully informed).

    On the other hand, I can think of at least one proffie who might benefit from spending a day or so watching this thing, and Ben's twitter feed, scroll by. Neither is representative of the student body as a whole, of course, but they are informative, in a horrifying sort of way.

    Also, I'm feeling very sorry for the cleaning staff at Gary's school. Doesn't that first poster realize that somebody's going to have to deal with the bodily fluids he left in a place not designed for the purpose? Talking about punching (or, in this case, peeing) down. Ugh.

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  2. EC1March 10, 2015 at 4:18 AM

    Ditto on a certain proffie who may benefit from looking at yik-yak.
    Here's a lengthy article on some of crap that students have done with it.
    Some flavour:
    “Fave game to play while driving around Emory: not hit an Asian with a truck,”
    Racist, homophobic and misogynist “yaks” have generated controversy at many more, among them Clemson, Emory, Colgate and the University of Texas. At Kenyon College, a “yakker” proposed a gang rape at the school’s women’s center.

    http://www.nytimes.com/2015/03/09/technology/popular-yik-yak-app-confers-anonymity-and-delivers-abuse.html?_r=0

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    Replies
    1. Contingent CassandraMarch 10, 2015 at 10:19 AM

      I noticed the NYT article, too. And now I'm going to be even more nervous about what my students are up to when they're staring down into their laps, moving their hands, and smiling. 3 classes are fine, but one needs a fresh start after spring break (and I'm spending the break, in part, thinking about how to enable that).

      Delete
  3. dmckeeMarch 10, 2015 at 10:59 PM

    Installed Yik-Yak briefly after it was mentioned in the comments here near the end of last semester.

    A mixture of the mundane, the banal, people trying way to hard to be funny, and few things that confirm your worst suspicions about how bad people get.

    Too little redeeming value to make up for the time spent looking at it. Remove App.

    ReplyDelete

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