So… nothing that 2 decades of internet experience hasn’t taught us already… that anonymity brings out the inner Stanford Experiment in everyone.
Yep, that’s what a (jr) high school gossip board looks like. What is the story here? That teenagers are cruel to each other and cliquish?
Yik Yak? Seriously? Have they not heard of the 80s B-movie The Perils of Gwendolyn in the Land of the Yik Yak? How on earth did they not do a Google search prior to picking a product name? (that said the movie is now on page 3 of google, so whatever).
Well the only difference with the app is that it’s something that students have constant access to. Though seriously 50 years ago kids still wrote mean and nasty things on PAPER and then passed it around, but I guess the target was less likely to see it that way. We had gossip boards when I was in school and people just generally being nasty, but not the constant exposure from the phones.
Not sure what there is to do though. Having experienced extreme bullying in youth I know how it can pretty much run you into the ground, especially if it is happening on top of (usually because of) some other problem.
You must be one of those optimists that I’ve read about:
I’m sure some of the anonymous sniping is by people who are playing double games, couldn’t pull off attacks in person, or are otherwise enabled by the internet; but I’d be shocked if the harassment online isn’t a continuation by other means of the harassment going on offline.
For good, relentless, inescapable, bullying, of the type that properly drives the victim into supine hopelessness, multi-medium coverage is just an extension by other means of old-fashioned close-and-in-person work.
What’s with the photo on this post? There’s no indication in the story that it was all or even mostly girls using the app.
Maybe its the first hit for gossipy teenager on some stock photo site?
Do you really think it’s likely that girls are avoiding this? I think it’s a reasonably safe assumption that both boys and girls are using this site, and I would be utterly unsurprised to learn that that the userbase is over 50% female.
I’d put it more at roughly whatever the average of the school is. From what I saw of guys, they gossip and bully a LOT…
It’s from the poster for the movie Mean Girls which is all about rumors, secrets and gossip… just like Yik Yak.
I think that should read High School brings out the inner Stanford Experiment in everyone.
The photo is from the movie “Mean Girls.” And yes, I think it’s likely that all genders are using Yik Yak.
So if we just ban all girls named “Heather” from high school all will be well?
Ich wĂĽrde lĂĽgen, wenn ich sagte, das ist keine gute Idee.
So trolls are now tool-users?
That’s easy. You use it as a way to pass draconian legislation in the name of stopping cyberbullying. That’s what the provincial government of Nova Scotia and the federal government of Canada did.
Oh, you probably mean what to do to actually stop bullying rather than how to exploit it. I dunno either.
Well, it’s always nice to be reminded that French cinema isn’t all about intellectuals discussing Sartre and that they do produce crap like that as well.
Draconian isn’t good enough. It should also be really vague, to allow for lots of unintended consequences and legal challenges.
Best if it’s unconstitutional. That way, it can only used against people who can’t afford the legal fees of a Supreme Court challenge to the law.
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