The Happiness Effect

by Donna Freitas

  One such young man, Justin, a junior at a private southwestern university, brings it up early on in our interview, after I ask whether he thinks people are honest when they post on social media.

  “So, for example, Yik Yak is a social media where you’re entirely anonymous and I think [people] are authentic oftentimes in ways that you wouldn’t want them to be,” he answers. “When you’re entirely masked by anonymity, you can say exactly what you think. I think on something like Facebook, the temptation is to present yourself in the way that you want someone to see. So that can be both authentic and a little bit disingenuous. I mean, you’re authentically telling people what you want them to think you are, but you may or may not actually align to the image that you present.”

  Many students find the anonymity of Yik Yak thrilling. But in a social media culture where everyone has grown so careful, so image-conscious, and “a little bit disingenuous,” Yik Yak can also be terrifying. Anonymity is liberating, but sometimes it unleashes impulses that might better be kept in check.

  “Oh, I do post,” Justin says. “For me, Yik Yak is kind of a game of trying to get bigger ‘upvotes.’ ” Like Rob, who lives for “likes,” Justin enjoys the affirmation he gets on Yik Yak even though it’s anonymous. “Even though I don’t necessarily get the credit for it, I get the self-validation,” he explains. “I mean, I know I posted that ‘yak’ and then it got ‘upvoted.’ But I also just really like seeing it… . It really lets me peek into other people’s lives because they tell you exactly what they’re doing at that moment on Yik Yak. So it gives you a feel for, I guess, what the ‘kids on campus’ [making air quotes] are doing.”

  Even though Justin posts on Yik Yak, he sees himself as different from the majority of users. He doesn’t feel implicated by what gets discussed because he doesn’t see himself as a primary participant—he just watches everyone else talk about it and chimes in here and there.

  “They confirm every stereotype,” he says. “They’ll literally tweet, ‘I just had sex.’ A graphic description of what kind of sex they’re having. They’ll talk about drugs. They’ll talk about, I mean, it just spans the gamut. Not everything is completely wild and inappropriate, but it’s interesting to see that they’re willing to do that. And obviously sometimes you read that and you’re like, ‘I think you’re making that up,’ because they know that they can tweet whatever, or ‘yak’ whatever, and no one knows.” It’s interesting to note that Justin uses “they” when discussing what he sees on Yik Yak, as though the people who comprise this “they” are distant and disconnected from him and not his very own peers, and as if Justin doesn’t participate in all of the commentary, when he regularly does.

  Justin then gives me examples of a couple of his more successful “yaks,” which involved comments about the stupidity of the football players on campus, and how rich his fellow students are. “I wouldn’t say it if I thought my name was right next to it, but [these were] just observations that I had that I knew I could get away with saying and everyone thought that was funny so they upvoted them,” Justin says. “I mean, [what I said] is not extremely offensive. It’s just one of those universal statements that’s interesting.” Justin, in other words, has a complicated relationship with Yik Yak’s anonymity. When using Yik Yak, he is more free than on other social media platforms, but he’s also playing to the crowd.

  And sometimes that crowd resembles a mass audience. “Yik Yak would definitely reinforce the movie stereotype of college because that tends to be what I see on there,” Justin says. It depicts Animal House behavior, I heard on several occasions. Some people said that Yik Yak would be the “death of Greek life” on campus, because of both the way Greeks get torn apart on it by non-Greeks and the way the Greeks themselves tear each other apart on it.

  In the online survey, 272 students chose to answer an essay question about whether they think the opportunity to comment anonymously on apps like Yik Yak is something they desire; about 28 percent of those who responded felt these sites were an important opportunity to be honest and, at times, bitingly so. Many students stressed that anonymity is important—they crave it, love it, consider it a positive thing, debauchery and all. They felt these sites were fun, addictive, and at times silly (in a good way), as well as liberating, freeing, creative, and important in an era in which online privacy seems not to exist. Another 21 percent felt “anonymity is a mixed bag,” mentioning the positive aspects but going on to discuss how anonymity leads to bullying, racism, and sexism and reveals some terrible things about your peers. Nobody likes this aspect of it. There is no doubt that even students who are adamantly against such sites as Yik Yak, and against anonymity on social media in general still can’t tear themselves away, and are lurking, reading, commenting, and using these apps in great numbers

  And many of the Greeks fear, in too great a number.

  Mark, a junior and a member of a fraternity at a Midwestern public university, says that some of his brothers have called Yik Yak a “cancer” on Greek life. When Mark first mentions Yik Yak, though, it’s with the typical “I can’t pull myself away” attitude I see among so many students. It comes up because Mark is talking about all the “drama” that happens on social media. “I personally look at Yik Yak as more of a comic relief, just seeing people go back and forth,” he says. “There’s definitely issues that are kind of immature… . It’s kind of stupid but funny at the same time.”

  For Mark, the entertainment value is too great not to go on Yik Yak, but there’s also something “unstoppable” about it. The anonymity allows people to take things too far. “Sometimes you can only do so much to stop it. [With] Yik Yak, you can’t tell somebody to stop it because you don’t know who that person is. But on Facebook, where you can obviously see their name, or Twitter, you can single that person out or send them something like, ‘Hey, don’t, don’t do that.’ ” Mark pauses a moment, then seems to feel guilty about being on Yik Yak at all. “Just, honestly, I probably shouldn’t have it… . I mean, I downloaded it, I don’t know why, but I just don’t understand the thing behind it. I think it’s a faceless Twitter so you can tweet without people knowing who it is. But, I don’t know how to explain it, it just seems so bizarre, and Yik Yak really dampers things. It’s basically, I think of it as a place to trash-talk other fraternities and sororities.”

  Though Mark initially referred to Yik Yak as “comic relief,” he quickly shifts to how the anonymity makes it hard (even impossible) to control what goes up, then to the guilt he feels about being involved in it: “That [trash talk] really happens a lot… . Earlier in the year there was a lot of bashing between Greeks and then it kind of died down a little bit, but I feel like it’s just to bash people. It’d be interesting to hear the guy who developed Yik Yak, and just see what he said.” Interestingly enough, Yik Yak was created by two frat boys from Furman University in South Carolina. Perhaps it’s not so surprising, then, how people operate on Yik Yak, since the offensive behavior and the debauchery seem to go hand in hand with stereotypical college fraternity culture.

  There is a backlash against Yik Yak by the Greeks on Mark’s campus because of all this “bashing” between different houses and the way frats and sororities use Yik Yak to start rumors about each other.

  Yik Yak, a number of students tell me, is used to spread lies on campus.

  And fear. At one school I visited, a student announced on Yik Yak that he was going to “shoot up the school.” Other students who saw this went to campus security and the administration to let them know about the posts. Other students started responding as well, posting that to say such things on Yik Yak, “isn’t cool.” “It was crazy,” one student told me about the incident. “We get alerts to let us know what is going on, on campus, so it started sending stuff, and people were going crazy.” The posts about the shooting kept rising to the top of the feed, and because of the anonymity of Yik Yak, no one knew who was behind them—at least not at first.

  But, of course, if the pol
ice get involved, exceptions can be made, IP addresses can be traced, and Yik Yak doesn’t have to stay anonymous. The person who had made the posts was eventually identified and caught. “You think of [Yik Yak] as anonymous,” a student commented. “But they can find out who you are.”

  Now add slut-shaming to all of the above problems with Yik Yak.

  There is a lot of slut-shaming on Yik Yak, students say. A horrific amount. It is sometimes used to call out women on campus by name—using names is supposed to be forbidden on Yik Yak, but people still do it, or they use clever ways to identify a person without using the actual name. Much of what is found on Yik Yak is also incredibly racist. During the interviews, students described Yik Yak as a sphere where you go to see the dark thoughts and feelings of the student body revealed, and they marveled at how shocking it is to see exactly how awful people on their campus can be. They also remarked on how there is plenty of silliness on Yik Yak—humor and fun, too—but the side of Yik Yak that stands out most everyone is the ugly one.

  Angela, the student with the secret Twitter account, mentioned how her brother started going on Yik Yak at various campuses when he was deciding where to apply to college; he was so stunned by what people said that he crossed certain campuses off his list.

  Another student at Angela’s evangelical Christian college, Alex, said something similar about his own campus. Alex is kind of an oddball among his peers—skinny and gangly, he makes funny faces while we talk and at one point tells me, in his best pseudo-suave voice, that he’s “not smooth with the ladies.” At another point, he explains that he is concerned about “where this is heading”—meaning social media in general, but especially anonymous sites like Yik Yak. All of social media, he worries, is “getting more and more like Yik Yak.” “It’s funny at times, because people post stuff that’s pretty hilarious.” But the anonymity of it is “kind of scary,” Alex thinks. “A lot of people just don’t care, you know, what they post about the school and stuff like that. And they’re just going crazy on there. They’re anonymous though, so it doesn’t really matter, they think.”

  Alex thinks it matters what people say, though. A lot.

  “I can see this evolving into something like people posting threats toward other people, and/or giving away private information on there about, you know, someone or something, and it could be used very harmfully and could spread like wildfire, and you don’t know who posted it,” Alex says. “Once you post something, everybody knows about it. Everybody’s on Yik Yak all the time, and so that’s a scary thing. That’s worse than Facebook or Twitter because, I mean, people watch what they say [on Facebook and Twitter] because it’s attached to their face and everything, but now you’ve got this anonymous thing, so people are like, ‘Oh, I can post whatever I want,’ you know. It’s not cool.”

  Yik Yak, and the negative exposure it allows, can really hurt a person “because it’s seen by everybody on campus,” Alex thinks. He feels like universities really need to start paying attention to Yik Yak if they haven’t already. “Because it’s anonymous, anybody can post anything. They’re like, ‘Oh man, this power!’ you know? ‘I just spread terrible ideas without any consequences!’… . I see it becoming a bad thing soon.”

  ANONYMITY: IT DIVIDES US

  While anonymity can be problematic, there’s no doubt that students crave it.5 Many of them long for the freedom to be themselves without worrying about future repercussions. Sometimes, they just want to be silly and have fun. Social media is an enormous part of their lives now—it’s nearly inescapable—so seeking relief from having to appear happy and perfect all the time not only makes a lot of sense, but it seems healthy.

  Students are very much aware of the potential for anonymous sites to foster sexism, racism, and bullying (more on bullying later), and they are extremely concerned about all of this. But they also seem to feel that these are secondary issues. What they are mostly concerned about is that they are locked in to social media as a means of communication but don’t feel they can actually be themselves unless they are anonymous. They are so afraid of some future human resources person finding an offending post from five years earlier that they long for an outlet for their true feelings, a place where they can express their emotions without fear of dire consequences. It’s no wonder they crave anonymity and freedom from responsibility.

  Apps like Yik Yak and Snapchat are offering college students a much-needed playground. They may be imperfect vehicles for this desire, but at the moment it’s all students have, and they don’t want to give it up.

  But in light of this trend, we must ask ourselves what it means that so many young adults feel they can only be honest about their opinions or their less-than-serious sides when there is the promise of anonymity or that their post will disappear within seconds. Students seem to experience the world of social media in terms of extremes: either what you say could haunt you forever (i.e., on Facebook) or what you say is utterly free of consequences (i.e., on Yik Yak). The options before them seem to be curating the highlight reel versus letting one’s ugliest thoughts fly for everyone to see. Even the students who regard themselves as “lurkers” on social media are pulled into this unhealthy zigzag as they witness the frenzied display of perfection and joy alongside the equally frenetic display of darkness, bullying, violence, and hate. We must also ask ourselves what it means that these extremes are being exacerbated during the college experience, a time when students are supposed to be asking big questions and learning to critically analyze (what are usually false) dichotomies exactly like this one. The humanities and social sciences are supposed to help us develop a sense of nuance and an awareness of the tremendous complexity that the particularities of gender, race, class, ethnicity, sexual orientation, religion, politics, education, privilege, and poverty bring to bear on our opinions, our experiences, and our choices (or lack of them) as we grow up and become citizens of the world in our own right. We need to take the resources we have for thinking about so many particularities and diversity in general and apply them to what students are now living online.

  Today there is the physical college campus, and there is the virtual one. In the virtual one, extremes and intolerance seem to reign. And whereas Snapchat is certainly the kinder, gentler (and funnier) option for young adults today, the rise of Yik Yak should concern everyone. Students certainly worry about it, even as they use it and read it. Yik Yak seems to have become a forum for bullies and trolls rather than one for provocative opinions and playful commentary. It’s no wonder that college students are so afraid to show any sign of vulnerability to their peers and their larger publics that they hide their realities beyond a veneer of perfection and positivity. Signs of vulnerability not only may sink you with your future employers but also might end up on the anonymous feed of your university’s Yik Yak, to be ridiculed and picked apart in front of an audience of your peers.

  But how often does that negativity turn into outright bullying? After so much talk of the darkness on Yik Yak and the vicious things that students are saying about each other on the app, the subject of cyberbullying has never seemed so important, and it’s the subject that we will turn to now.

  7

  AN ACCEPTABLE LEVEL OF MEANNESS

  THE BULLIES, THE BULLIED, AND THE PROBLEM OF VULNERABILITY

  I do not like anonymous social media sites and do not participate in them. I think they are an avenue for online bullying. People can be very cruel and heartless on these sites because their name is not attached to what they are saying.

  Tania, sophomore, Catholic university

  I mean, there’s a certain point where, you know, [Yik Yak] becomes just blood sport.

  Ian, junior, private-secular university

  CORBAN: FINDING THE LIKE-MINDED ONLINE

  When Corban walks into the interview room, I do a double take. What in the world is hanging around his neck? I try not to stare. Corban is blond, short, pale, and skinny, with shifty eyes—he doesn’t really look at anything for m
ore than a second or two—and has what look like goggles hanging around his neck. Swim goggles? Or old-fashioned aviator goggles? I can’t tell. But I do know that the lenses are bright yellow, and they are big—probably too big for swimming, now that I think about it. He sits down across from me, eyelids fluttering almost constantly, and we begin our conversation. I soon learn that Corban is a first-year electrical engineering major. Corban is also a non-Greek at a school where nearly all the students are involved in Greek life—though he barely seems aware that this makes him stand out. Corban is in the robotics club and the cybersecurity club. As our interview moves forward through the beginning questions, I finally can resist no longer.

  “What do you have around your neck?” I ask.

  Corban holds the lenses up to his eyes. “Oh, these?”

  I watch as Corban blinks at me from behind yellow plastic. “Yes, those.”

  “These are goggles—I made them,” he tells me and proceeds to put them all the way on, pulling the strap so it fits snugly around the back of his head. “I’ve also made gloves and chain mail.”

  Chain mail? I’m thinking as I sit here, staring at Corban, who’s looking back at me through his goggles. “You make this stuff … . for fun?”

  “Just for fun,” he confirms.

  Corban continues to wear the goggles for another fifteen minutes or so before sliding them down around his neck again. During this time he informs me that he is currently on Facebook and Tumblr, but that his first social media account was a “Lego forum.” I also learn that his Facebook account was started not by him but by his parents because they wanted to be able to tag him in photos. Corban likes to post photos of his “inventions” online. He is, needless to say, not your average college student. And as he explains these things to me, I find myself worrying that I will soon learn that Corban is a target for cruelty on social media.