Yik Yak has come to Norfolk and to the phones of some Northeast Community College students.  The year old, anonymous Twitter-like social media smart phone app has steadily gained in popularity and caused some controversy across the country. The difference between Yik Yak and Twitter is that Yik Yak is localized to the surrounding community, reaching only about a mile and a half radius.

Some say Yik Yak is a gossip app and harmless fun, while others find the content offensive. A recent bomb threat “Yak” on the campus of the University of Nebraska at Kearney (UNK) caused the evacuation of the campus library and resulted in the arrest of a student, according to UNK News.  The Yik Yak staff cooperated fully with UNK police in tracking the threat which resulted in the arrest of the 19 – year – old UNK student. There have been other incidents around the United States which have caused communities to ban and block Yik Yak because of cyber bullying.

Northeast students we talked to for our Talkin’ Hawks video segment seem to take it or leave it, some saying it is entertaining while others said they didn’t have anything nice to say. The Yik Yak founders are themselves newly graduated college students who wanted to create an anonymous message delivery application “without having to create a blown-up persona or worry about how they “package” themselves, like with Facebook,” according to Trish DaCosta, a PR rep for the company.  The creators say because college becomes like a small town for students during their time on campus, they wanted them to have a way to easily communicate.