Yik Yak

I like yikyak and I think it’s fun when you live in a college town, because then you can talk to your peers on campus. The one issue though is that a lot of users are in fraternities and sororities and they leave a lot of annoying posts related to that. So to make the app more usable for me I started blocking people who made posts related to Greek life. It was wonderful. I stopped seeing the frat posts that others would complain about. Until today when I was doing my thing I got the fatal and devastating message that I had already blocked the maximum number of people. I would love if yikyak would add the mute words feature that twitter has. Then instead of blocking individuals I could stop seeing the words “ksig”, “beta”, “pi”, “delta”, “pike”, etc. which would be A LOT more effective at filtering out the content I and many others are not interested in seeing.

I love checking this app and engaging with my fellow people on campus, but the app really needs to update its notification tab to show more of a preview of what Yak it’s referring to. The notification of “someone else commented on a yak you commented on” is helpful, and I want to check in on the thread, I love that. But, it doesn’t tell me which Yak that is. I have to tap that notification, wait 10 seconds for the Yak to load and then I end up checking the responses on that entire Yak. Right after that, you turn around and go back to the notification tab, and the indicator light for the notification you left is still on. You might be thinking, “Oh, just refresh it!”. Nope, if you do that, it gets rid of all the indicator lights for new notifications. So now, you have to guess what the next notification you should check is with no help from the exactly the same notification descriptions. I would suggest having a feature that changes the notifications from individual updates on each new message in the thread, to instead being one that says “New comments on Yak, ‘XYZ’” standing for the first couple words of that Yak. This way, it’s labeled and it’s streamlined because in the old system, I was getting all the updated messages in a Yak from just clicking on the first notification but then I still had to wade through all the other notifications about the same Yak.

I’ve never left a review on an app before, so this will be my first. I first got this app in high school because I had a really large school and thought it would be fun. This was when you could still interact with your local community rather than just college communities. Removing that feature was the start of this app’s downfall. It was funny to see everyone talking about teachers and what was going on around town. At some point I got a timeout for whatever reason. I never made rude comments on there or anything, so someone had to of reported one of my comments or something that caused the timeout. I didn’t understand and it never let me post anything else again, so I just deleted the app. I just re-installed it today because I’m in college now, and I wanted to join and post on the community. I joined the community and scrolled through a few comments. I then wrote up a post about our fall break that just started today. I tried to post it….and it told me I was in a timeout. A TIMEOUT FOR OVER 2 YEARS????? What sense does that make?! This app seriously downgraded, and it doesn’t seem like there will be any effort made to return it to its glory days. Unless you’re in college it’s a pointless app, and if you want to join a college community that actually functions normally just use Snapchat. I really, really, REALLY despise this company for ruining such a good app. Deleting it for the second time now and never downloading again.

The entire reason I wanted YikYak in the first place was to connect with my local community. YikYak used to be perfect for that, until a few weeks ago. You can no longer talk to your local community; there’s just universities and then the great beyond. I don’t need another place to make long-distance friends, that’s what Discord is for. I don’t need to divide the strangers I talk to by giant nationwide interest groups, that’s what Twitter, Reddit, and Tumblr are for. What I need is my herd, and no one gave me my herd quite like YikYak used to. If YikYak is to meet the same soulless money-grubbing fate that every other platform inevitably faces these days, I hope the developers are at least aware that the changes they’ve implemented into YikYak have stripped it of all the things that made it unique and authentic. The features that made it meet and fulfill a unique and niche market demand have been replaced with sad knockoffs of other platforms. It’s okay to experiment with other options and ideas, but it’s frankly insulting to assume that we’d completely trade in our herds for that. Unless the developers change their mind on this decision, I will be spending my time on the other platforms that do everything new YikYak does, better. I’ll be missing my herd every step of the way.

There’s hardly any moderation it very political. It’s giving a poor version of Reddit They allow racism cyber bullying you can post inappropriate content on here naked pictures on here. Ppl can dox your information. Not to mention they’re are minors also on this app. You do not have to be a college student to have access this app. This is not a safe space for people. They remove small things but the inappropriate content the racist comments and the cyber bullying hate speech death threats they’ll leave that up. You can report all day and it won’t do a thing. Also parents be careful with your children getting on this app. There are predators on here and they can send inappropriate Messages to your child. There is no age verification for this app. Just give a phone number and say I’m not a college student and you’re in. Also it’s hard to delete your account I’ve contacted support so many times nothing. This app needs to be demolished immediately. This app should’ve stayed banned. It got banned the first time because this app allowed two students to send death threats to a African American student Also cyber bullied a female college student Read about it especially parents. GET YOUR KIDS OFF THIS APP IMMEDIATELY.

I’ve been using YikYak for the first time over the last week and I’m in love with the idea of an anonymous Twitter for your home town. However this app has several things holding it back from being more enjoyable. First and foremost is that the app runs very poorly. The app is slow, sometimes completely unresponsive, loads yaks and info about them 30 seconds when you’ve already seen them, and has a myriad of other performance issues. And that’s just my complaints about app performance. It’s marketing is also lackluster, especially regarding their official TikTok account of which I found out about the app and it’s return. It’s TikTok account is so bad and so unfunny it’s how bad the app seemed that made me curious and wanted to download it. But it’s probably good that their marketing team isn’t very good because I don’t think the app could handle a large influx of more uses for reasons previously mentioned. The app’s aesthetics and animations are fine, nothing to write home about. I want to see this app do well and become a part of my social media circuit but it obviously needs the funding for the app fixes first and then to hire a new marketing team next.

I LOVED YikYak, it was absolute perfection two weeks ago. This update is atrocious in every way, shape, and form. It is hideous. Sickening. Everything about it is absolutely awful. I’ve never reviewed an app in my 23 years of life but when I returned to my herd after spring break and opened the app, what I saw sent me here to write an obituary for what was once one of the greatest social media apps ever created. There is not a single new feature that is beneficial or interesting. The beauty of YikYak was its simplicity, now it feels like I’m making a discussion board post—it is literally nauseating to look at. I cannot bring myself to continue using the app because of this. I am devastated. This has been the ultimate failure of mankind, I’m so devastated that I am going to email the YikYak team to ask them why they felt compelled to throw away years of work and reputation. This update is absolutely shameful, there is nothing to be proud of here. RIP the Yak; RIP my herd; RIP my faith in app development. YikYak was the last unicorn of GOOD social media apps, I thank her for the laughs we shared, the woes she validated, the sacred hours in which shame and decency no longer existed. She was taken too soon, may she rest in peace. Til Valhalla.

YikYak and Sidechat were perfectly fine apps separate from each other and each served their own purposes, with Sidechat being for college students and YikYak being more community focused. This merge of the two apps into one serves zero purpose whatsoever. They were not the same apps to begin with and each had their own unique in-app features, but now basically all of these features have been stripped away. YikYak is entirely unrecognizable now and all previous user karma and history has been wiped. Sidechat is now overrun by people who were former YikYak users and are now being forced to post on Sidechat forums and streams. This merge is honestly beyond ridiculous and I’m surprised anyone at Sidechat actually thought that completely taking over another, (much older and well-established) beloved app and ridding it of all of its defining features and merging it with Sidechat was even a remotely good idea. Everyone on each app is posting on the same streams now and everyone is confused and frustrated trying to use the new versions of each of these apps. The only way to solve this problem without tanking the ratings and reputations of both of these apps is to return them to their previous states.

I love the idea of anonymity to the point where fun icons like everything from skateboards to cows are used w/ no names or profile info... Basically, this app is like Reddit without subs and profiles, but this doesn't come without error. YikYak allows you to block anyone, say, if a post offends you or whatever... But when you block them, they can still comment on your posts, which means you can still probably see their posts, even though I have seemingly found out Yikyak blocks comments of users you've blocked. Also, the down/upvote system is so dumb, I love Yikyak for the fact you can post just about anything in text... But how can you post when people at any given moment will downvote you 5 times and your post gets removed? I've had a decent amount of times where I've posted something that shouldn't offend anyone and my post gets taken down from downvotes. I guess if that's Yikyak's system then cool, but also very annoying. And while this isn't Yikyak's fault, trolls LIVE on this app, literally. I got called out for s*xual a**ault and I literally have never met anyone in person from this app. People can act so dumb on this app, so beware, its full of toxicity and ppl that might try to ruin your life.

This app is a gateway for bullying. Yes, theoretically it is a fun way to anonymously connect with people around you, but the creators neglected to think about their target audience. Yik Yak is literally being broadcast to insecure teenagers who feel better about themselves only when they are tearing down another person. This app truly makes everyone lose their humanity because they know they’re safe behind the “anonymous” tag. In only 10 minutes of scrolling through to see why my school is making such a fuss over this app I’ve seen death threats, talks of wishing to commit suicide, hate speech, vulgar slang, school shooting threats, people being sexualized by name, and so so so much more. This is not an app that should be allowed on the app store. If it had people actively moderating messages and posts, it MIGHT take a step in the direction of being remotely human again, but this simply isn’t possible. If you value yourself at all, do yourself a favor and don’t download this app. It is a horrible horrible space and there are so many more healthy groups that you could enjoy instead. Ignorance is bliss, it isn’t worth stumbling upon your name and being absolutely crushed. Stay safe out there.

YikYak/Sidechat has completely ruined this app. Their refusal to listen to their users and desperation for profit has led to this app being unusable and defeats its entire purpose. Restricting it to universities, only Apple users, and requiring more identifiable information to create an account alongside a terrible user-interface has removed everything that made this a special app. I am no longer able to gall with the people I knew on the old YikYak because they were using the spaceship feature and/or do not want to share personal information. There is an extremely limited ability to make connections with others, and the removal of old YikYak features and post/comment history means many users lost over a year’s worth of data. Forcing users into Sidechat (the exact same app, same posts and everything) with no warning and through the deceptive narrative of bringing back YikYak is a real slap in the face to the users who kept them running. Thanks for choosing profit over people, I hope the pay is worth ruining what you spent years trying to build. I do not recommend downloading this app at all, you’re better off just downloading the Reddit app.

I got this app in fall 2022, when it was still location based. It was really fun, and I felt so connected to my community. Granted, I’m on a college campus, so my college community now is pretty much what the location thing used to be. But it was fun to look at Yik yak while traveling to see what other people were saying from different areas. Anyway, it’s just overwhelmed now with how many communities there are. There is zero moderation of the creation of communities, as people can just MAKE them. There are even repeats. It’s basically worse Reddit now. Oh yeah, there used to be a feature where you had an emoji and color, and now that the feature is gone it’s so sad. You could develop a reputation while still being anonymous, and while the emojis still exist, it’s now the default to have them off, and that’s just really sad :( Before, this app had a point to it. A very specific scratch to a very specific itch that I didn’t realize I had, and maybe the same for a lot of people. But now the location feature is gone, just completely gone, and YikYak is a weird mix of Twitter and Reddit. What even is the point anymore, if you could just use those apps? I still use this app because I feel connected to my college campus, and a couple of the communities are interesting. But overall, it was better before. Before, it was about connecting with your *literal* community, but now it’s about sucking you in and trying to take as much of your attention as possible.

I have no idea what the developers put in the most recent update but whatever it is it’s caused the app to become extremely glitchy. Usually at it’s worst after 9 at night. The most common glitch is that all yaks, DM’s, and notifications will sometimes disappear, and your yakarma will show as 0. This might persist for as little as a minute and as long as 20 minutes. Occasionally yaks will repeat as you scroll down or show as completely blank. DM’s will take more than a few minutes to show up as sent, and comment notifications will come minutes after seeing the actual comment appear on a yak you commented on. And of course there’s the random crashes that seem to happen with no rhyme or reason. My advice to the developers would be to roll back the app to a previous version (if that’s possible, I’m not well versed enough in iPhone apps to know if it is or not) until they have thoroughly tested and patched the updated version so these problems no longer persist.

I’m at a university so most users are uni age. The concept of the app is really neat. If there weren’t so many mean people. People being nasty to each just because they have the anonymity status. All of the parties that get planned is a little annoying to see. Friday and Saturday nights just become a flood of students wanting to get drunk which I guess isn’t abnormal. But it’s really annoying when it’s your neighbors right behind your wall blasting music until 4am every weekend. Someone even fell out their window. Then people telling those who complain about noise to grow up and get over the noise. Growing up would be not breaking your landlord’s lease. So that’s only 50% of the herd here. But the other 50% is pretty chill, laid back, students. There’s honestly a lot of bullying over gossip. Or people asking for head. Also I really don’t recommend this app for high schoolers and younger. There’s way more trolls and awful posts. It’s just mean. This app isn’t really that great for quiet students who want nothing to do with the Greek life or jocks

Yik Yak quickly became the main online presence at my college. My college is rather small and basically everyone had yik yak. It was the place to go if you wanted to meet people, talk about anything, get reviewes of the food, homework help and so much more. The anonymity on the app allowed for it to be a place where anyone regardless of cognitive bias, background, friend group or school to get together and chat. The app’s simple concept and design is what brought most of the appeal. None of the unnecessary features of other social media. This new update removed around half of the user base and felt more like a copycat of other social media. We now have too many features, a design that is far too intimidating and no rocketship. Yik Yal now feels like it changed to fit the corporate status quo that other social media follow. I understand bullying was a big issue on the app but it did not warrant such changes. Yik Yak used to be a simple app for anonymously chatting to people in a 5 mile radius but now it is a corporate shell of its formal self. I really hope you guys can restore the magic of this app.

New update loves- anonymous commenting, gifs, and polls. Bad update bad- basically turned into Reddit I hardly use Reddit and I don’t want a second one. The stream of consciousness of everyone nearby was what made it fun. Now you have to go to ur subreddit school, AITA etc. you can no longer copy comments. It was a fun way to create a stream of comments and just adjust it slightly. Also if you’re going to remove the distance then remove blocks!!! I have a stalker who literally just blocks and unblocks me to see if I post anonymously and then proceeds to harass me. I know I can report them but I’d rather keep tabs on their craziness. So maybe just remove the blocks otherwise removing radius is mute point. I like the idea of groups but miss the world wide featured college posts. Posting the apps own gifs and getting a timed ban is ridiculous. I got flagged for not saying anything but posting a picture of the apps own gif 💀 so does that mean yy is flagged like what?

Social media has a major issue: it's impersonal. And I don't personally think that anonymity is entirely to blame. The fact that people could be from anywhere, and there are millions of people on most social media sites makes it incredibly dehumanizing. If you want yer dopamine hit, you have to appeal to the lowest common denominator or your post will die unseen. YikYak fixed that! It was inherently personal: if something happened near you, everyone could talk about it. The limited user base for any given area meant you got to know the regulars, and a culture could develop. You as an individual contributed to your local scene. That has been completely deleted. Now there are only generalized subject-based groups which span, as far as I can tell, the entire US. You can’t even see how far away anyone is. Not three days ago, I met a stranger and made an irl friend off yikyak. Now I’ve got a better chance with a sandwich board and a megaphone. The app’s identity is dead and it does not have long before the corpse gets cold.

I had no idea about Yik yak until the week it was brought back, but it’s pretty neat being on a college campus. I have not seen the bullying which it seems to have been previously known for, and it’s fun to get a sense of what the community is feeling, along with just funny posts. However, in my first week of using it, 2/3 of the time it would say there were no posts in the area, even sitting in the exact same spot, and would often not load all of them at once. Now the first issue is resolved, but it sometimes takes a couple tries of opening and closing the app or refreshing and waiting to get posts from further back to load. I understand that there are probably 100 other posts saying this exact thing, but I enjoy this app a lot and would hate to see its momentum stopped by technical issues.

I enjoy using YikYak and interacting with the local herd. There are a few features I wish it had to enhance content, such as image uploading and live links for posted URLs. But my main concern in this review is privacy and user behavior to each other. There are users who like to be bossy about kinds of content they want to see and will organize downvote-to-remove drives for Yaks they want to intimidate. Not talking about anything political, or personal, just not to their taste or idea of "What yikyak is for". Such as classic poetry or local weather reports. They will post their dislike, and if one responds with "Just block me please, you won't have to see this any more " they make it clear they just want to intimidate and mock and down vote. For :me: to block :them: does no good, they still see my yaks and can downvotes at will. What yakkers in my position really need is a "reverse block", which we can set and has the effects like they had blocked me -- they cannot see my yaks or comments and cannot vote on them. Thus it's like having a "hide me from this user" on the menu. Thanks for giving this a look!

This app has been comical, informative, fun and engaging when it works. There’s a solid 10-20% of the time where I am constantly refreshing hoping for posts to load. Where the app will state that there are no posts. Despite seeing hundreds seconds prior. Notifications are buggy, comments take forever to load, I’ve seen “-1 comments” on a post. Which doesn’t make sense. Sometimes I will post, and it never displays on the feed. But the worst is having a post with a large number of comments, and having to scroll all the way to the bottom just to see the most recent comment. To see if there was any new comment, you have to go to the buggy notification page, refresh, click the notification, scroll all the way to the bottom, wait for it to load, scroll more and the comment is finally displayed. Recently if I comment on a post, it’ll state “comment posted, scroll to the bottom to view” and I’ll be the only comment, there nowhere to scroll down to and yet my comment still isn’t displayed. The app crashes consistently. Outages often for long periods of time, ranging from 30 mins to a few hours. When it works, it’s enjoyable. But there are large amounts of time where it doesn’t work. It’s hard to keep track of conversations. I am just hopeful these issues are addressed to make this a top tier app.

This is a cool idea. Unfortunately it’s predicated on the idea that people are good people. While many are, there are always going to be people that aren’t. This is the perfect app for such people because it provides no way to hold anyone accountable for what they say. In my time at college I’ve seen multiple instances of severe cyber bullying and emotional abuse. None were taken down by the apps “bullying” filters. This includes girls name dropping guys and labeling them as “stalkerish” or “predatory.” Effectively ruining those guys reputations just because they didn’t like them. Guys name dropping girls and sl*t shaming them. People joking about killing themselves. People making fun of those with disabilities. People heavily sexualizing student athletes. People making death threats or doxxing others. People being racist and more. While I love the idea, the fact that you have no way to verify whether those who use your app are good people makes it impossible to maintain without enabling bad people to do terrible things.

I remember using the app when it was first out and loved it. I'm so happy to see it's back, and excited to see where it goes, but right now it's not performing well. More than half the time when you open the app it says there are no yaks in your radius even when there definitely are. Even when it does show posts, it will take ages to respond to you scrolling or trying to open a post, often freezing or crashing in the process. Clicking on your notifications often won't even load the relevant post. Their auto-mod system will just pull down posts and comments with swear words in them and I have no idea if reporting an actually bad post does anything. The dev team seriously needs to work on this app before it's going to be functional for even the small number of users currently on it, much less when it starts to reach its previous popularity. I hope it can measure up.

This app is great and is exactly what it says it is. Lots of people leaving low reviews are reviewing the people on the app rather than the app itself. Considering how quickly they update and patch things, it’s clear the team is working hard to make sure this app is good. They even listen to our advice with things such as adding the ability to upload things from our camera roll. So thank you to the Yik Yak team for creating an app and constantly improving said app to ensure we are all having a good time using it. If you’re feeling upset that the app is full or drags and people wanting to get drunk, consider the environment you’re living in and how you can change that rather than expecting people from an HQ in Nashville to do so.

When opening the app, it just shows the blank loading page forever and ever and never loads any yaks. This be problem isn’t new and could usually be solved by force-quitting a couple times and then trying again, but after the recent update that “solution” doesn’t work anymore and now it just loads the blank white screen with no yaks and no yakarma until the app eventually crashes and closes by itself. Also, please allow users to switch to a dark mode for nighttime. I made a Siri Shortcuts app automation to run “classic invert” screen when opening the Yik Yak app, and another automation to turn the inverted screen off when closing Yik Yak. But since there’s no way to disable annoying notifications for the Shortcuts app, it’s better to just have a dark mode built into the Yik Yak app like every other social media app does so users don’t have to rely on inverting the colors on their screen in order to not strain their eyes at night

I sometimes have posts/comments removed that do not reveal any identifying information. In fact, I had a comment removed for saying that one of OP’s comments made it super obvious who they were. I never stated any names. Meanwhile people get to drop initials and outright mention people, and those things never get removed? There needs to be a way for us to appeal mod decisions. Other notes: the app is super buggy. It’s difficult to leave your own comment on a post instead of replying to someone else’s. You have to exit out of the post, then go back in and start typing without touching anything else first. Also, if you “violate” the guardrails (in my case, I didn’t) it makes you agree to them again over and over rather than just once. Can’t tell if that one’s a bug or an intentional choice.

YikYak was fun because you could only post locally. If I wanted whatever is going on since this most recent update, I’d go on 4chan (and no one wants to go on 4chan). As someone who goes to a small college which was heavily impacted by COVID, YikYak has become a weirdly important aspect of campus life. It helps with community building and cultural understand not only on campus, but in creating connections with people who live in our college town. This new update not only mitigates that by separating local yaks with “college specific” yaks, it’s also visually unpleasant and difficult to use. The text only medium of old meant that people had to be creative, or take pictures, and it made it feel fun and simple when so much social media now feels cluttered and overwhelming. This update has destroyed everything that was unique about YikYak— everything people liked about it. Sometimes, things are better when they’re simple. Please bring back the old YikYak.

Shouldn’t even get one star, working on reporting to BBB for the illegal practices. This app breaks their own “Community Guiderails”, which were legally mandated after the original Yik Yak crashed and burned. They routinely take down posts and freeze accounts from posting because they disagree with campus administrators, while leaving up posts that their own page says they HAVE to take down because they condone illegal activities. One of the top posts on my campus is promoting a party with underage drinking and illegal drugs on a dry campus, that has been reported for being illegal by 5 different people and yet has stayed up for more than a week, but a post complaining about the ruin of an award program on campus that didn’t identify anyone and was just stating facts was taken down, the poster being put in a timeout (we’re adults, what’s even up with putting adults in timeout, anyways?!) for more than a day for breaking rules that don’t exist.

This app has come to light again after it was used while I was in high school and coming back when I’m in college. In both places this app just creates a platform for people to bully others, defame others, and say anything they can to get their “yakarma “ up. People I know have had serious accusations made against them and all of them are completely false. And individuals solely care about using this for bullying. If you say anything about how poor of an app it is or how it induces bullying, your message is reported for violating guidelines. It should continue to be reported because it’s endorsing people to say whatever they feel about others without consequences and without a name or identity to stand behind. This app just ruins peoples reputations and makes them feel worse about themselves every day they look at it. I’ve even seen someone post fake news about running over a friends cat. This app is horrible.

I am so upset by the new update. Yik yak was very good as it was because it fit in its own niche that no other app could fill. People could voice their thoughts and opinions anonymously that other people could read. Now the main purpose of this app is going to be drowned out by pictures, memes, and polls. This new update has made it just like almost any other form of social media. Everyone can share memes and images with people on Instagram, Snapchat Facebook, or Reddit. The only difference now is that this app is anonymous. If the developers are just going to make this app like any other, why wouldn’t I just use another form of social media that is a lot better established with features that have been around for a lot longer? People appreciate uniqueness, and updating Yik yak to a form that makes it almost indistinguishable at a glance from any other form of social media means that people won’t even give it a second one.

I am begging you for the live of god to bring back the old yikyak when you could see what was around you. Now it’s just turned into Reddit and I can’t find any posts around me. Also having it be by colleges messed up my yikyak, it randomly added me to a college that I’m not apart of just because I live close to it and when I tried to add my actual college but you need your college email and mine doesn’t accept any emails outside of school related ones. So now I’m stuck with a random college, and I’ve even messaged customer support to get out of it and they couldn’t figure it out either. Again this would be fixed by old yikyak. Plus it used to be nice to see what events were going on nearby, especially when on vacation or visiting a new area. Just again yikyak please get rid of this Walmart version of Reddit and bring back old yikyak🙏

The app is okay and fun when it’s working how it SHOULD be. However, most of the time, especially on WiFi the app NEVER opens or states an error and I need to force close the app. However, while using cell data, the app opens fine. Like….????? Also, there’s really disgusting individual(s) on the platform in my area. I don’t know if they are true or trolling but it’s absolutely disgusting and the fact that I consistently report the post and the user hasn’t been banned yet is astounding. For example; said user/pedos are making statements such as “there’s nothing wrong being a MAPs (minor attracted person)”, “NAMBLA party at pride”, more than 4 times a week. It’s disgusting. The app was fun back then but now it isn’t. And YikYak needs to do something about those kinds of post rather than just removing them. Such as banning them or adding a report function for mentioned issue above.

I did not use yikyak back in the day when it was popular. But I picked it up this time to see what all the fuss was about. Anonymous social networking? Sounds interesting. But does it really work? It depends on what you’re looking for. If you want a shallow discussion that doesn’t really lead to anything other than general disgust and frustration with the people who live 5 miles around you, this is the place to go. You really get to see just how dysfunctional everybody is from their messages. I deleted it off of my phone today because I just couldn’t take it anymore. Every time I went on the app I left feeling worse than when I went into it. Not a good thing. Would not recommend. Plus there’s no way to share anything other than text. It’s like they cut the legs off of social networking to see if it would function, and I guess it does, but why would you want to use this?

What’s wrong with this app in one week I have been suspended three times. One was for uploading a meme that wasn’t remotely offensive, the second time was agreeing with another user, and recently the three was the absolute fastest for sharing an experience I had. Its honestly making me use the app less and less and its pretty clear if you don't agree with the majority people will wrongly report you. You need real mods stop leaving it to your AI Oh another time I was suspending all I said was….”what” yep that's it Edit: as of less than an hour ago I have now been banned from a completely different post I said one thing on that didn't break guildlines. Its pretty clear you have mod problem judge by the other viewers it makes sense why some of the communities haven't been as active. Your crazy mods have banned and reported everyone. Get real mods

trying not to swear in this review because im not sure if i can but holy cow you all really screwed the pooch on this one. the new UI is stressing me out along with most of the people i come across on the app now. my post history is gone which is heartbreaking because i loved looking back at my greatest hits on the app and now i’ll never see them again. not to mention that the original user base is dwindling because of this and i feel more out of touch with my herd than i ever have been. many of the people i’ve met through the app are no longer reachable because they have androids and don’t have access to the new update??? and even the notice before the update about dms getting erased was too short notice that i couldn’t properly exchange info with anyone i wanted to keep talking to. this new update has made me feel more alienated and stressed out on this app than i ever have before, and that’s saying a lot for someone who’s been using yikyak in a college town. to quote the most popular post in my herd right now, “i think this new update has cured my yikyak addiction”. i think i’m going to go outside and finally touch some grass, feel the wind in my hair, perhaps take a look at my surroundings for once. literally anything else that gets me to stop thinking about this godforsaken update.

Fun app to interact with others from the same school and those with similar interests. The option to block a user is useful especially if it’s a person who is antagonistic. However, if that person is blocked, they can still see your posts and comment on them. But you can’t see them on the actual post, only in notifications. If there were a feature where a blocked user couldn’t access your post at all, it would improve safety and peace in the community. As of right now, someone who was very hurtful on the app beforehand, is still able to comment on my posts and I can see what they post in the notifications. My problem is I can’t access the comment to report it for being hurtful/harmful or do anything about it. Please fix quickly!!

They continuously make the app worse and worse and worse. Don’t fix something that isn’t broken! From removing the most adored features to changing the UI to be less user friends and more hideous, to random timeouts/bans for something that doesn’t even come close to breaking the guidelines with no way to appeal a timeout, it seems they can’t make a single correct decision when it comes to the direction of this app. I had the app way back when it first came out, when it was taken away, years later brought back, then made into a sidechat duplicate. I have thousands and thousands of yakarma. But I just can’t get down with this app anymore. Please for the love of god or whatever you believe in, stop making the most annoying, frustrating, ugly changes to the app update after update. Goodbye for a a year or so, maybe they’ll have figured it out by then…

Yik yak was way better before. I like the new design and all that. But the biggest issue I have is that my yaks/comments will get taken down for whatever reason and the app doesn’t show which ones or why. I would probably enjoy using this app more if I was able to pull up some kind of window that has all my yaks that I’ve sent out, and putting the “flagged for removal” notice next to the individual yak so that I know which post is no longer visible and I will have an idea of why. Also, I really don’t like how I get an individual notification for every comment I get. I want one notification per yak, similar to the way fb works. If I’m going through my notifications to see who commented or voted on what and I end up navigating to the same post three different times for three different notifications, it’s simply confusing, and a waste of time. If someone comments on my yak, and then someone else adds another comment, the most recent notification should overtake all previous notifications for that particular post. Overall, I just don’t like how difficult and confusing it can be go through the app.

I loved YikYak before the major update last week. I loved being able to make posts in my area and see what’s going on in my campus’s community. However, the new update is extremely confusing. You only have to be a college student to use it, but you can see posts all over the nation, so that doesn’t make sense. Also, the main reason I’m leaving this review is the Chatboard. Every time I look at the Chatboard, it’s filled with people being extremely inappropriate. I’ve seen many stranger’s privates posted on there. Yes, there’s an option to report and block the user who posted them, but people posting that horrific stuff shouldn’t be there on the first place. I miss when YikYak was a nice, safe app to use before the update. Now, every time I open the app, I’m met with an onslaught of pictures of people’s bodies. It’s disgusting and made me delete the app.

The new update tried to make Yik yak like Reddit. Yik yak used to be able to let you see anonymous posts in a 5 mile radius, but now you have to be connected with your college. The thing I hate the most about this update is the chat board which is nation wide. It is just filled with horny people and people have posted nudes there. I miss when yak was only local and the range was a 5 mile radius. Now I can’t even access other popular yak locations using one of the previous updates features the space ship and I haven’t tried yet but because you choose your college I don’t know if I’ll be able to see local yaks when I move to a different area. Many people deleted the app after the update and honestly isn’t worth it anymore. Would rather use Reddit for the same features but more. Yik yak had a great thing going on but in my opinion they destroyed it. RIP

I previously loved the YikYak app, but the latest update ruined the experience entirely. I am likely going to delete the app now. Here are my main complaints: 1. All of my old yaks are no longer accessible to me. I hate this because my yaks are like little reminders of my college memories so far. 2. The default feed is now the most popular yaks as opposed to the most recent. I don’t like this because yaks sharing information about events on campus, safety information (such as someone hearing gunshots), etc are no longer at the top by default. 3. The communities feature overcomplicates the experience. YikYak is trying to be something like nextdoor, and it will lose its relevance if it continues to do so. 4. The UI feels horribly cramped now. I can’t really pinpoint why, but it feels suffocating. I think it might be the darker color for the top bar? I will give YikYak credit for restricting the app to college students. I think that was a good decision. I’m not 100% convinced that my anonymity would be protected since we have to provide an email now, but that alone would not be a dealbreaker for me. I think that the concept of chat posts has potential as well, but overall, the update has degraded the app’s experience too much for me to continue using it.

This app is ridiculous. There is absolutely no monitoring or policing of the ridiculous amounts of hate speech on here. It’s left up to individual yakkers to take down racist, homophobic, transphobic, and misogynistic posts. We’ve seen users saying multiple slurs, talking about killing all women, and saying disgustingly racist things but their posts will stay up despite the amount of reporting done. People will get banned for saying dumb jokes but the amount of harassment I’ve faced on here for my identity is absolutely unacceptable, especially since blocking users doesn’t prevent them from commenting on the same post. Do better, yikyak. I assumed the community guardrails are meant to protect against the kind of bullying that shut down the app in the first place, but it’s clear that the developers just wanna sell their silly little socks and don’t care about the kind of crap that marginalized groups have to deal with on their app.

I never got the chance to use Yik Yak when it was first popular, so when it came back I downloaded it on the first day. It’s just as engaging to talk with those around you anonymously as I expected, and I haven’t even tested it in a dense area or college campus yet. I cannot stress enough that yik yak is an incredible concept. There was a huge lag problem in the first few days but devs have taken the failure rate down from 90% to like 40%. I’m gonna add a star to my review each time the UX gets better. It’s clear that the devs are doing their best to fix this, and I know it must be devastating to be crippled by, of all things, too high demand. I can tel this app is getting the backend care it needs, and it’ll just get better from here.

We all know why YikYak was originally taken down. Yes, they do have systems in place to try to prevent this. In my herd, anyone that speaks out is threatened to have their identity revealed. Multiple people have been bullied off the app because a few people didn’t like their non-offensive content. A common issue in my herd is downvoting anyone that speaks out against frats, especially accusations of misconduct. We also have an issue where users are using the platform to spread discrimination. Another person was heavily bullied for being disabled and for having a chronic illness. This app is the same as it used to be. Reporting a post or comment does nothing. Hate continues to grow on this app. All of the issues I have mentions have no consequences. I do not recommend this app and hope to see more steps taken to combat these issues, as they happen everywhere.

I really wanted to like YikYak again. It was great in college. But now it’s just littered with high schoolers who post stupid stuff and spam the local thread. It definitely depends on your area. I’m also near an airport so it’s either people complaining about flights, being perverted, or high schoolers acting stupid. Plus the new community guide rails are odd. I totally get removing hateful content, but all kinds of stuff gets removed. Just not as fun anymore :/. Maybe after I move I’ll try it again! It would also be nice to be able to explore yaks around the world! I noticed you could explore on a map but it wouldn’t generate any yaks from that area for me.

The update. That stupid update. It screwed with what we could post, became this cesspool of either people getting banned for absolutely no reason or people posting stuff that aligned with the developers / moderators political views. They have removed vital features like verifying an email and this has made it so for the bad characters, they can VERY easily make a new account, and immediately start posting horrible stuff again. The Devs have also doubled down on a broken feature that used to be very fun in. Nearby. Nearby was a community that was the 5 mile radius of where you currently are. Best feature. Aaaaand they broke it in the new app, and after I emailed them about it, they doubled down on it and just removed the feature all together. To sum it up, the moderators and developers are horrible people and have extremely ruined this one decent app.

(Context: College experience with this app) This app has ruins several of my close friends mental health. This is due to individuals commenting on their life events with no understanding of what’s actually happening. All people due on this app is slander and beat down each other because they are behind a screen and anonymous. This app literally paved the way for cyberbullying. Yes, you can report the message and get them removed but not before half your area sees it and takes a screenshot. We as people need to stop tearing each other down for their mistakes. We are all human! I’m sure you have mistakes you don’t want to be publicly slandered for. All in all, if you want to maintain a positive self esteem don’t download this app at college. P.S. it is not entertaining to slander and degrade someone. So stop promoting the defamation of peoples character who are just like you and me.

Yik Yak banned me after defending a friend who was being bullied ON yik yak. None of the people using discriminatory or vulgar language were banned, but when I said “people keep saying ‘Sarah’ stalked ‘Ben’ people also are saying ‘be ‘ stalked ‘Sarah’ can we let them figure that out themselves and the rest of you leave them alone” I got banned and had my posts removed. If defending victims can get me banned, why isn’t yik yak banning the people bullying and harassing those people? It is even against yik yak guidelines to bully or harass any being or third-party person, especially exposing them on an anonymous app. Yet, I got banned, while NOT violating yik yak guidelines. My guess, is people reported my posts because they wanted to continue the bullying and harassment towards those individuals. It is morally and ethically wrong to allow bullying and harassment, especially when it is against the guidelines, but to ban someone who is following guidelines, and trying to stop that reoccurring harassment. Don’t download this app, it’s filled with toxic drama and is not worth it. Yik yak won’t even follow their own guidelines. Fun fact, in 2017, yik yak was shut down for this same reason, and now it is back up and reoccurring for the same issues it was shut down for in the first place.

Did you all get clearance to work with the colleges in your area or did you just decide that it’s going to be a college specific app on your own? Colleges most likely won’t recommend your app and probably have their own community portals that they relay information through. Taking this away from everyone but college students is really dumb, and if that was your business tactic, you should have said so from the beginning instead of changing things around last second. Now even if you change it back, you won’t have as many people as you had before. I’m actually just deleting this app now and not even going to wait for you to make it public again. Great idea for an app, wrong developers to lead it with poor leadership and way too many wrong decisions.

As much as I hate the new update there is so much more to be upset at than a merger. 90% of posts on the chat board are nudes and other disgusting things. It’s not that hard for a kid to get on this app and see all of that. It asks you to confirm your age. But it’s not like you can’t just set it as older. I got called out by name and still haven’t figured out who it was. They told me to answer my texts and found out the only two people that know me here and have my number didn’t post it. People have gotten doxxed. It’s terrifying. I live in my college town. I’m a resident here. There’s so much bullying and hate speech. I honestly prefer when it was just local. I haven’t seen a single person who likes the update. I like the polls and I like talking to people nationwide. But seeing everyone’s junk when I know there are minors on the app. It’s gross.

If it was possible to give no stars, I would. The FORCED update is not user friendly at all and looks like we went back in time to 2008. It is TERRIBLE to look at. Truly appalling. Everyone is going back on yikyak to see the update, but the activity will PLUMMET. It’s trying waaaay too hard to be Reddit. All your old yikyaks are completely gone, missing, and you’ll never read your funny yikyak posts and reminisce ever again. Super disappointed. All yikyak users want the old layout back. It was so sleek and calming now I’m bombarded with blocks and rectangles outlined in the color red. Absolutely appalling. Whoever decided this layout design was okay to pass, should be FIRED. Idc if it’s the CEO, or whatever, your decision sucked. Do better yikyak. Bring the old layout back. Bring our old yikyaks back.