New app ‘Yik Yak’ piques student interest

Eljohn Macaranas/Contributing Writer
news@fiusm.com

Social networking has not lost its mojo, especially at FIU. Every week on campus, millions of Facebook posts, Instagrams, Vines and tweets flood the cyberspace.

Now they will be joined by the latest networking craze to hit smartphones — Yik Yak.

The Yik Yak phone app, created just last year by Tyler Droll and Brooks Buffington, combines elements of both Twitter and “geo-fencing” to create an anonymous environment for students to “yak” about school happenings all across campus.

These often can range from who’s physically attractive around the area to musings about class happenings to memes created by students on campus.

Unlike other social networks, Yik Yak has a specific lean towards college campuses, to the extent that it allows users to preview other colleges’ feeds with the designated peek category within the app.

The University was included on the peek list just this week.

The app borrows some elements from fellow social networking platform, Reddit, in that it uses a karma system where users can upvote and downvote yaks.

Yik Yak appears to be particularly popular to the freshman population of the University.

“I think Yik Yak is a great way to express one’s most guarded secrets with the FIU community,” says freshman management major Steven Daniel Aragundi who has amassed 4,259 Yakarma points on the platform.

People accumulate Yakarma points by the number of “upvotes,” or likes they receive for their yaks. They can also gain points for receiving replies or comments to their posts.

Aragundi also adds that it can help students catch up on what’s happening on campus. “If you’re on it when something big on campus happens, such as the burnt croissant in GL, you’ll know about it the instant it happens!”

However, it seems that not everyone shares the same point of view as Aragundi; some students have found some faults with the network. Some students do not even foresee the app having much longevity as its more seasoned competitors like Facebook and Twitter.

“It’s really funny and entertaining but distracts me in class,” said freshman biology major Katrina Akirmaian, who has earned 439 Yakarma points. “I’m sure I’ll lose interest in this soon, it’s like any other fad.”

Akirmaian is not the only one who think this way. Freshman biomedical engineering major Annabelle Santos has some words to say on the matter as well.

“I honestly think it’s a passing trend, but because it’s perpetuated by a college community, which gets new students every year that have tons of time on their hands,” said Santos, who has earned 3,800 Yakarma points. “I really wouldn’t be surprised either if FIU’s attention span drops Yik Yak for a new app.”

It is not only the critics of the app that agree Yik Yak’s days on campus as the social media darling of the moment are numbered.

“The tragedy of popular apps is that they do have their 15 minutes of fame,” Aragundi notes. “Just like Temple Run and Words With Friends, Yik Yak will become a thing of the past but as for now, I’m enjoying the ride!”

Whether or not the app will prove to be a lasting competitor in the neverending onslaught of social media crazes, Yik Yak seems like something Panthers will be yakking about at this very moment.

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