Yep, I’m back to have another “old man yells at cloud” moment. I’m here to complain about the anonymous message board app, “YikYak.” If you don’t know what YikYak is, good. Keep it that way.

If you are a concurrent user of both YikYak and TikTok, please answer me this question: How is your brain still solid in your head and not leaking out of your ears? Please don’t misunderstand, I’m not calling you stupid. I’m saying those apps are making you stupid.

It’s well documented what TikTok has done to our attention spans and our productivity. I too was an avid user, but after spending my 12th night in a row up until 4 a.m. seeing some shirtless dude do the bare minimum on a guitar for clout, I shrugged it off for good. What YikYak is doing though, is on a whole other level.

One of my least favorite parts of the internet is the anonymity it affords. There’s no accountability for the most asinine, preposterous statements known to mankind, and they’re most plentiful on the ol’ ‘Yak. I’ve seen some of the wildest, least fact-checked claims about Luther on that app–and some of you suckers believed it!

If you really thought the Caf, Luther’s main source of food––where they are obligated to feed you–was going to close down, please drop out. You are not built for what college requires of you. One of the first lessons we all learned was, “Not everything you read on the internet is true.” That should go triple for YikYak.

Back to accountability for a moment––some of you throw around statements you wouldn’t say out loud in a million years. A group of students argued with some townies about how they don’t feel “welcome” in Decorah, and I dare you to march down Water Street with that. No wonder you don’t feel welcome in town. How would you like some drunk minor stomping around your yard every weekend, acting like they own the place? 

Let me step back from my rant for a second and sum up: respect others by not sharing fake garbage on the internet. Respect Decorah and the people who live here. And please, for the love of God, delete YikYak and respect yourself.