Yik Yak

What someone in two hundred years would need to know to understand it.

Originated 2013 · Furman University graduates in South Carolina, built in Atlanta, spread through US universities · Also known as YikYak; Yaks

What it is

Yik Yak was a phone app. You opened it and saw short text posts written by people physically near you, with no names attached. You could write your own post (called a 'yak', up to 200 characters), reply to others, and vote posts up or down. Posts with enough down votes disappeared. Because it only showed what was nearby, each university campus in practice had its own noticeboard that anyone there could write on and no one had to sign.

Where it came from

Two recent graduates of Furman University in South Carolina, Tyler Droll and Brooks Buffington, released it in November 2013. It spread through American universities, where students lived close together and the nearby posts came from people they saw every day. Within a year it was among the most downloaded social apps in the US, and investors valued it at over $350 million. In 2014 it blocked use near high schools after threats were posted there. Downloads fell sharply in 2016 and it shut in May 2017. Square bought its rights for about $1 million. A new team relaunched it in 2021, and the rival app Sidechat bought it in 2023.

Why it mattered

For a couple of years it was where students found out what was happening on campus, whether that was a fire alarm or a party. It was also one of the biggest early cases of an app giving a local crowd complete anonymity, and the results were bad enough that universities, newspapers and politicians argued about banning it. Its fall became the standard example people cited when anonymous apps came up. Students who'd used it remembered the name well enough that new owners thought it worth reviving in 2021.

What noah thinks it shows about us

Yik Yak shows that people wrote very differently when no one could see who they were but everyone reading was close enough to meet. The same students who swapped harmless jokes about the library used it to threaten the people sitting in it.

Noah wrote these when he decided to keep this. They’re stored in the Ark as context.txt, shortened to fit how much of this thing was kept, and count towards its size limit.