Yik Yak: An online app for offline events

University of Maryland students have been creating social events such as performative male contests, Ed Sheeran look-alike concerts, raiding buildings and rap battles through social media apps. 

On Aug. 30 on McKeldin Mall, men in cardigans, carrying books, clear vinyl records, matcha, and even a saxophone, stood at the center of a crowd of students, their phones serving as flashlights to illuminate a performative male contest. 

Performative male contests have been dominating college campuses across the U.S. to see who can best emulate men who pretend to like certain things, like matcha, to attract women, according to The Hill. 

Multiple different contests have been sprouting through the digital cracks of campus life and are blooming into physical gatherings across campus. Information on the contests spread from students knocking on doors to get each other in on various meet-ups, to using Yik Yak, a location-based, anonymous app. 

YikYak’s feed can be curated based on the user’s university. The content is primarily memes about campus life, news, stories, the occasional political post and meet-up planning. 

Two students, Parker Landau, a freshman psychology major, and Ashley Morrison, a freshman marketing major, found inspiration from events like the look-alike contests and male performance contests, and decided to create a campus event of their own, coming up with a rap battle idea. 

Morrison said,  “We saw the performative male contest, and I thought it was a joke, and then I saw a bunch of people actually went. So I was like, ‘Why don’t we just create an event on Yik Yak?’” 

Like other event creators, they created a poster on Canva, posted the event on social media and received hundreds of upvotes.

Jade Blackmoore, a junior environmental science and policy student, was walking with a friend on the night of the preformative male contest. The commotion in the area piqued her interest.

“I was like, ‘Why do I hear cheering?’ So like a bloodhound, I sniffed it out,” Blackmoore said. “I love it when students on campus can come together and actually do fun things. It’s so easy to stress out on this big campus when you don’t know when things are going to happen, so it’s nice to see people coming together.” 

This sentiment was followed by Seven Forson, a junior majoring in American studies, who almost immediately brought up the raids on Pyon-Chen. The two of them laughed in memory of the occasion, Blackmoore saying, “No, you should not raid dorms, but I love a good, friendly rivalry.” 

While Blackmoore heard of the events from word of mouth and from going in-person, Forson learned of the contests through Yik Yak.

Both had the app since 2022, using it as a way to get anonymous glimpses into the lives of Maryland students, including group chats, memes, discourse, and alerts when the orange chicken is back at Yahentamitsi dining hall. 

In the middle of the interview, another student overheard and piped in. Mateo Brown, a senior computer science major, exclaimed, “Have you heard about the dreadhead contest on Friday?” 

He heard about it through the Fizz app,  which is similar to Yik Yak but primarily for Black Students.

When asked about the community on Yik Yak, both Blackmoore and Forson said the app “gets kind of toxic.” 

Due to the political discourse that can arise from current events, all parts of the political spectrum are represented within the app, leading to some tense arguments. Being an anonymous forum, conversations can devolve into heated political debates and trolling. All while you’re one swipe away from a meme or event planning.