December 6, 2021

By Mara Dumitru

Video by Ellie Lin

Mara Dumitru is a sophomore journalism student at MU. She is an opinion columnist who writes about fashion and lifestyle for The Maneater.

During the online age, staying anonymous is easy with a fake name, fake email and a fake account. Apps like Yik Yak, where users don’t have a name or a face attached to their accounts, facilitate animosity even more. After four years of being shut down due to facilitated racism, discrimination and threats of violence on college campuses, Yik Yak is back. Now, history is repeating itself once again.

It’s easy to talk smack on someone when you know there are no direct repercussions against you. Comments like “the sorority girls are laughing way too loud and obnoxiously in public today, I can’t deal” and “everyone is sexualizing [professor] and I’m here for it” flood the app Yik Yak on a weekly basis. 

Even if it blows over by the next day, the victim deals with the consequences for a long time. More often than not, users ignore Yik Yak’s guidelines of not posting real names. These trending comments go on to receive enough upvotes to make them stand out against the rest, and suddenly the whole app is talking about a person they don’t even know. Similar to likes on Instagram and Facebook, users express their love for a Yik Yak post through upvotes. The more upvotes a post receives the more users see it, becoming a trending topic. 

While the app has its fun and positive aspects, the negatives outweigh them by far. It puts students in danger, and incites a mob-mentality when it comes to attacking each other virtually. Just like four years ago when it was first shut down, Yik Yak remains a dangerous space for students to spend their free time. All social media apps are toxic in some way or another, but the power anonymity gives users is too dangerous to be left unchecked. The cyberbullying happening can’t be monitored or punished, and affected students are left to deal with the consequences by themselves. 

Cyberbullying affects students nationwide. According to Dr. Charisse Nixon in Current perspectives: the impact of cyberbullying on adolescent health, young adults affected by cyberbullying are 2.5 times more likely to use marijuana or engage in binge drinking than their peers. Students may also develop anxiety, depression and other stress-related conditions. Online drama that may blow over in a day or two has lifetime repercussions on the victim’s physical and mental health. 

The online hate isn’t restricted to just students. UM system president Mun Choi and various professors have been talked and joked about in inappropriate manners. “Talked about Mun Choi in my class today. And got wet,” an anonymous Yik Yak user says. 

Instagram accounts @fullsendmizzou and @mizzouchicks are part of the problem. Currently, the Instagram account @fullsendmizzou has been disabled for 30 days, and a new account has been created by an instagram user under the same handle. However, the new account isn’t affiliated with Barstool Sports or any of the other Full Send pages. This didn’t stop the online hate: it just allowed other users to take over the username under false pretenses. The accounts showcase some of the most embarrassing experiences students have without asking for consent or permission first. Indecent exposure, injuries and drunk accidents all get a platform on these accounts. Users love them: posts rack millions of likes and views from fellow students — a simple double-tap, and they move on with their day. We’ve seen this phenomenon for years now, with shows like America’s Funniest Home Videos, where videos with ‘funny’ accidents are shown to make viewers laugh. Shows like AFV helped normalize online embarrassment for entertainment, so now people don’t don’t see the problem with sending in videos and pictures of their drunk friends.

Sharing pictures and videos taken in public places, where one can’t expect privacy, is entirely legal. But is it morally right to post someone at their worst moment for their peers, professors and future employers to see? This is especially true if the accounts don’t get the consent of the person featured in the post. Students are ruining each other’s lives over 30 seconds of entertainment. 

Female students especially have to deal with the hateful nature some of the viral posts portray them in. Labeled as ‘sloppy drunks,’ the pressure of having to present yourself as a ‘lady’ is still around to this day. While male students drunkenly posing in front of cameras are hyped up for having fun, female students doing the same thing are told to be careful with how much they drink. 

Going directly against a big corporation and asking for change is hard, which is why MU students need to realize just how dangerous words and videos can be and change their own habits. We’re college students, one would assume we’ve got better things to do than sit on our phones and ruin someone else’s day for pure entertainment. 

The Maneater encourages you to support the End to Cyber Bullying Organization to help combat cyberbullying in the modern age of advancing technology. You can donate at the following link: https://endcyberbullying.org/donate/

Edited by Cayli Yanagida | cyanagida@themaneater.com