A professor takes a deep breath and ventures onto Yik Yak

I’m a Yik Yak lurker.

As a college professor I justify my skulking within the bowels of this location-based social media app — where anonymity reigns supreme — to gain insight into my students’ lives. After all, the young adults in my class often seem so restrained and inward focused, their expressions masked when I enter the classroom each day and greet them with, “How’s it going, everyone?”

You’re probably not surprised to hear that my greeting is met with a handful of wan smiles but nary a verbal response.

Online there’s no restraint.

There’s mostly just verbal discharge. Cascades of it on Yik Yak.

“I’m afraid of directly confronting my roommate about being sexiled so instead I pick his used condoms out of the trash and mail them to his parents.”

So wrote a student in the vicinity of Rochester, N.Y. — right in the throes of final-exam fury last semester.

It’s not pretty or idealistic or kind but it’s raw data nevertheless. And Yik Yak also offers a window into students’ lives, even if it’s a less than flattering depiction where the primary purpose isn’t just an uncensored vent-fest but the aim to gain “up votes.” It’s basically like a collegiate arms race of outrageousness and a cry for attention — without revealing the identity of those seeking attention, of course. It’s very post-modern. Duh.

My Yik Yak lurking is not unlike my experience reading Philip Roth as an undergraduate.

Back then, I was so repulsed by the graphic masturbatory scenes in “Portnoy’s Complaint” — oh, that poor piece of liver at the family dinner table! — that I threw the book across the room in disgust. I felt scandalized and in need of a shower. But then I got over myself, and with my interest piqued I picked myself up off the couch, retrieved the book and kept reading.

And reading.

Until I ended up writing my senior thesis on the Jewish American experience as described by Mr. Roth.

“Hate reading,” the kids call it. But somewhere along the way I found value in it.

I’m reminded of this when I scroll through Yik Yak and realize that the sheer outlandishness of these posts pulls back the curtain on college life with its 3.6 million monthly users.

I first learned about Yik Yak last spring when I happened across news reports of students sexually harassing three women professors on the site during class in a large lecture hall.

I was mortified and brought my abject terror to students in my News Editing class where we regularly talked about current events.

What is this godforsaken app, I wanted to know? The students downplayed the app’s role in their lives, denigrating it as “dumb” — in part, I think, to calm me down. No doubt they noticed the fear in my eyes. But they all had Yik Yak on their phones.

I downloaded the app onto my phone later that semester.

I was heading to Albany for a research trip to interview New York lawmakers about recent scandals that have plagued the state legislature. I hoped Yik Yak could afford me an unparalleled “back door” into the seedy side of Albany — from the comfort of my hotel room at night. But I found no posts from political aides or lobbyists or sex workers or those in the hospitality industry divulging juicy goodness about the machinations of the state’s Capitol.

Instead I was deluged with post after post by local college students who were perennially hungry, horny and in search of their beloved hugs and (functioning, dear Lord!) Wifi.

This past fall Yik Yak’s notoriety surged as I continued to scroll.

A University of Missouri student used the app to threaten physical violence against students of color; the FBI investigated a post on Yik Yak in proximity to Lee University that threatened an on-campus shooting; and Lewis & Clark students, as well as University of Rochester students, called on their schools’ administration to take action again Yik Yak as an unwelcome platform to broadcast hate speech.

As the fall semester neared its end I began to peruse Yik Yak on a daily basis despite its soured reputation.

I was curious to explore how Yaks complain about their professors as final exams, presentations and group projects revved up.

“Where’s a good place on campus to sit and cry? Asking for a friend.”

“All I want for Christmas is …sex and to pass my finals”

“I just want this semester to be overrrrr”

“To do my history presentation, or to go eat chipotle?”

Yaks encouraged the latter.

“Emailing my professors like “is it too late to say sorry”

[Yes, but we always appreciate conciliatory emails].

Once saturated with Yik Yak posts, and no longer (totally) fearful of this anonymous mob located outside my doorstep, I became curious to tap into the collective Yak brain.

What would happen if I shifted my status from lurker to poster?

A regional liberal arts college is located less than a mile from my front door. I began typing from my La-Z-Boy at home.

“What’s the one thing you want to say to your professors right now?”

The replies trickled in.

“Thank you for all you do,” said one.

That reply got three up votes.

Then came the second one:

“Thank you, and have mercy.”

That one got five.

Huh.

The next day I posted the same thing at my university, a large tech school, buoyed by the first round of Yik Yak positivity. The first reply rolled in:

“Can I suck yo –”

[You get the picture].

“OH MY GOD WHO THE HELL CARES?”

I haven’t posted again but I still lurk out of habit and curiosity. And there are moments when the mob mentality subsides to reveal a more nuanced Yak, such as the vociferous debate that emerged at the end of last semester — eliciting 20 replies — when a student took issue with TIME Magazine bestowing “person of the year” onto Angela Merkel instead of Bernie Sanders (the rightful recipient, according to that Yak).

The conversation moved from clubbing mainstream media to criticizing Sanders for making empty promises to defending him for “dominating an election without big money” to arguing that the accolades should have gone to Malala Yousafzai.

It was like a classroom discussion without the brick-and-mortar class — or the professor.

On the same day a student posted a complaint outlining the classic campus problem in the modern age:

“hope your burnt goddamn popcorn was worth it you piece of s[ — -].”

I could practically smell the pungency of blackened popcorn, the result of an overzealous microwave or an inattentive hall-mate, an unfortunate hallmark of dorm life. And I couldn’t help but envision what I would have posted on Yik Yak as an undergrad last century when I was first becoming acquainted with Philip Roth:

“That time when your required reading is so pervy it makes ya wanna puuuuuuke.”