Controversial Yik Yak 'gossip' app gains popularity

Some share secret wishes: "I want the number of this guy in my class so bad."

Some express angst: "I wish I could get low-key hospitalized so my grades would freeze and I wouldn't have to take finals."

And some hit a nerve: "Thank god he can't see how many times I've viewed his Snapchat story."

That last one mentioned became one of the most popular posts to come out of Arizona State University on an app called Yik Yak. Yik Yak tweeted it in October, where it was favorited more than 1,400 times.

Yik Yak is a relatively new app gaining popularity in Arizona for its combination of anonymity and location-based restrictions. It lets users post 200-character musings (like Twitter), do so anonymously (like Whisper and Secret), and respond to people within a 10-mile radius (like Tinder), making it a sort of anonymous bulletin board or a hyperlocal Twitter.

The app's main target audience is college campuses.

After its release last year, it became one of the top 10 most downloaded social media apps in the country. It has a small following at Arizona State University, but has yet to take off like other places.

Some experts have called the app a breeding ground for gossip and harassment, and some schools in the country have banned the app, which people have used to make bomb and shooting threats.

Recently, students at Rowan University in New Jersey used the app to talk about a sex video involving other students, and authorities charged two University of Southern Mississippi students with felonies for threats made on the app.

But so far, the feed near ASU's four campuses mainly consists of complaints about finals and grades, jokes, poetic odes to exes and the occasional attempted drug deal.

"It's good for entertainment, but it's not always used in the best of ways because it's essentially like anonymous Twitter," said Amanda Hurst, a 19-year-old freshman at ASU. "There are really funny and relatable Yaks on it, but there's also really racist, rude, just inappropriate."

She's been checking the app every day or two since September and has never seen another student's name in a post, but often sees Yaks bashing teachers or classes.

The app's creators willfully banned its use on middle-and high-school campuses, where "geofencing" blocks people in the area from accessing the feed (although in many places, users can just go across the street and access it there.)

ASU spokeswoman Julie Newberg said her team had not heard of issues related to it.

And Retha Hill, executive director of the Walter Cronkite School of Journalism and Mass Communication's Digital Innovation and Entrepreneurship Lab, said her high-school and college students barely mention it.

Users have to be at least 17, and iTunes' list of reasons why is entertaining : frequent or intense "Horror/Fear Themes; Alcohol, Tobacco, or Drug Use or References; Mature/Suggestive Themes; Profanity or Crude Humor; Sexual Content or Nudity; and Cartoon or Fantasy Violence."

Yik Yak's Sherpa, which is its 45-foot bus, has toured five states since September and visited ASU for a week in early December. A yak mascot met with and posed for photos with students on campus, and organizers brought pedicabs to shuffle students to and from classes, according to the Yik Yak website.

Outside of college campuses, the app functions more like the world's most-efficient bulletin board. For example, a tourist in Mexico City recently asked other app users for suggestions on the best nightclubs.

The app used to let people see posts within a small radius of their location, but a recent update brought the Peek Anywhere feature, which lets you see other locations' message boards — but you can't post in, vote on or reply to them.

That means users can eavesdrop on the conversation at other universities, which is mostly more jokes and complaints about finals, but it also can be an effective way to just see what's up during a big event.

So far, the app is only available for iOS 7 and up or Android 4.0 and up (sorry, Windows Phone).