Playing Strangers, Providing Care: An Ethnographic Study of Yik Yak at Swarthmore College

Abstract

Yik Yak, a location-based anonymous posting app, has been accused of fostering\ud overwhelmingly negative interactions and abuse. The app allows users to “play” at being \ud strangers in their own geographically intimate community. This paper, based on research \ud conducted at Swarthmore College, examines the ways in which interactions on Yik Yak\ud extend beyond the negative, exploring the community’s use of anonymity and \ud construction of support networks through field study and personal accounts of app users