By Britton Boyle
Jackson Clark, Bishop Florence, Evan Hill and Brooklyn Phillips gave a presentation on March 29 about the popular social media platform Yik Yak, entitled Yik Yak: Finding Positivity in a Herd of Negativity. Their presentation was one of many that took place during Bluffton University’s Civic Engagement Day and was set up by their professor Chris Morrissey as a part of their Sociology of Religion class.
The presentation was well attended, with about 90 people packing into Stutzman Lecture Hall to observe.
Yik Yak, which was created in 2013, is a social media app that has become popular in recent years in high schools and on college campuses. On the app people can post anonymous messages, or yaks, which everyone within a five-mile radius can see. These yaks can then be commented on and upvoted/downvoted by other people who are within the five-mile radius.
There has been a lot of controversy as of late about the negativity that sometimes comes with the app, with many discussions taking place about if the positives factors of the app outweigh the negative ones.
During the presentation these positive and negative factors were discussed in further depth. Real posts from the app were showcased so the audience could see both the positive and negative side of the app first hand.
One example shown was a negative message that was projected at presenter Jackson Clark. The post in question gained a lot of traction and upvotes on the app despite its negative message. A series of posts were then shown about presenter Bishop Florence. These posts also gained a lot of traction and upvotes except this time the messages were positive and complemented Bishop.
Seeing these two examples that were on opposite sides of the spectrum showed the audience that both positive and negative posts could still gain traction on the app.
The presentation also included a survey that the audience was encouraged to take. The survey included different questions about people’s personal experiences with Yik Yak. Many of the questions asked on the survey garnered very divided responses when looking at the results. This made for some interesting discussions during the questions and answers forum that followed.
“I thought the presentation went well,” said Evan Hill, senior presenter.
The presentation was well received by the audience. Several people stayed behind to ask further questions, and multiple discussions about the presentation continued as people walked out the door of the lecture hall.
“I thought it was very interesting to hear people share about their different experiences on Yik Yak and the effects it had on them,” said Adrianny Ruiz Suarez, junior audience member.
Another presentation about Yik Yak was given later the same day in the Kreider Room. It was titled Yik yAAk: Authenticity vs. Anonymity, and was presented by Leah Bowman, Meg Widmer and Sidney Lewis as a part of the same Sociology of Religion class taught by professor Chris Morrissey.
Editor’s note: This article was produced as part of an assignment for MED 225 Writing for the Media.
