Yik Yak Reviews

by Chlorhexidan

I did not use this app 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 YikYak 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?

by GeometryHERO

YikYak 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. YikYak 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 YikYak 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 YikYak 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 YikYak. 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.

by Ur So Bad

YikYak used to be under a different name about six or seven years ago. The first time it was created, it was a disaster; it’s not any better. With this new generation and the division between politics and opinions, YikYak is a dumpster fire for educational buildings and public areas. If someone disagrees with your public appearance, they can anonymously bully you if you both have YikYak . It was not at all a good idea the first time, and it’s not a good idea this time. So many kids in my school alone are being bullied by people that they don’t know, which really doesn’t help their mental state. Don’t get me wrong though, the idea for YikYak is out there for sure but it needs some adjustments so that it isn’t as bad as the first time. Change how it works, and I would gladly raise my review. Thanks.

by Shades Frost

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 YikYak, 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.

by JayyTownn

When opening YikYak , 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 YikYak 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

by Spellxheck

We all know why this app 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 YikYak 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. YikYak is the same as it used to be. Reporting a post or comment does nothing. Hate continues to grow on YikYak. All of the issues I have mentions have no consequences. I do not recommend YikYak and hope to see more steps taken to combat these issues, as they happen everywhere.

by Calvin.york99

I love checking YikYak and engaging with my fellow people on campus, but YikYak 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.

by Nickwants Yikyakbetter

I’ve been using this app 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 YikYak has several things holding it back from being more enjoyable. First and foremost is that YikYak runs very poorly. YikYak 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 YikYak and it’s return. It’s TikTok account is so bad and so unfunny it’s how bad YikYak 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 YikYak could handle a large influx of more uses for reasons previously mentioned. YikYak ’s aesthetics and animations are fine, nothing to write home about. I want to see YikYak do well and become a part of my social media circuit but it obviously needs the funding for YikYak fixes first and then to hire a new marketing team next.

by VernalEclipse

Aside from some of the other issues mentioned, the automoderator has an issue regarding false flagging posts and comments. If names are posted (including only using first names and celebrities), regardless of context, they get flagged and removed instantly, because it “may have violated the Community Guardrails bullying on Yik Yak.”

The issue stems from the fact that context DOES NOT MATTER, so literal harassment is fine unless they bring names into it. Likewise, commenting on a current situation involving celebrities are really inconsistent: Amodio’s run on Jeopardy and the Petito case are alright, but the recent Baldwin situation gets taken down immediately, regardless of meaning, just because it references his name.

At least offer an option to contest these stupid flags, if you actually care about having a quality product.

by Beedav94

I remember using YikYak 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 YikYak 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 YikYak 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.

by EricTheGay

YikYak is okay and fun when it’s working how it SHOULD be. However, most of the time, especially on WiFi YikYak NEVER opens or states an error and I need to force close YikYak . However, while using cell data, YikYak 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.

YikYak was fun back then but now it isn’t. And this app 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.

by Ahsmdnfhfn

I live off campus and I’m far enough away where I don’t get any of the campus feed which is somewhat annoying because the feed around me is dead most of the time. The only real way I actually get a feed is if I open Yik yak on campus which I don’t do very often considering when I’m on campus it’s usually to either do stuff for class or hang with friends so I’m rarely on social media then. During the period of time however when Yik yak glitched and had expanded the herd size I was having the time of my life because when I was on there was actually a good amount of posts coming from my college. I hope in the future they add the feature where you can set like a “home base” feed of your college so even if you’re outside of the 5 mile radius you can still interact with them.

by Mylzad

The idea of YikYak itself is incredible, just overall the idea is objectively great. The issue arrises with some of the implementation of that, sadly. YikYak needs an entire backend redesign and needs to be MUCH more optimized as everything takes a good bit of time to load, especially with just opening YikYak itself. Additionally, some features could be added like sending a reply to someone privately should you want to add them on another social media to possibly hangout or something like that. Lastly, but definitely most importantly, YikYak absolutely 1000% needs more advertising. Whether that being through generic google ads or promotion through universities, YikYak itself is just not very popular and because of that its not able to live up to its potential IMO

by Yakker Peach Emoji

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 YikYak doesn’t show which ones or why.

I would probably enjoy using YikYak 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 YikYak .

by 58Villager

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 YikYak is getting the backend care it needs, and it’ll just get better from here.

by ItMightBeGrant

Can make a comeback and still has its charm but the success totally depends on people start using YikYak in any given area. No point in using this anywhere that isn’t a city or high density area.

There is also no way to contest a ban as far as I can tell but what make it worse is that you don’t get a warning. I made an obviously sarcastic oregano joke and was banned but someone who posts about there being an “orgy” nearby was not (the post has been up for a long time). Its frustrating to say the least that there is no warning and then no communication to try and appeal.

You can get around a ban by using apps that give you temporary phone number but I figured I’d write this review and not use YikYak on principle.

by Uberuserwhendrunk

I adore Yik yak and always have. It’s one of the most entertaining and freeing apps I’ve used. However, 2 major issues with this new version. 1) the lagging and app crashes make it really annoying to log on. It always says “you’re the first one here” until I refresh like 10 times
2) the moderating is really bad. Especially the automoderating. I got my post taken down for writing peacock. Like the bird. Where I was telling a story about being chased by a peacock !! But I read yaks every day about how h*rny someone is or sucking t*tties. The picking and choosing of which “cuss” words are ok and which aren’t is STRANGE.

And my peacock story was very funny!!!

by Eegnegnwbrq

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 YikYak 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 YikYak a lot and would hate to see its momentum stopped by technical issues.

by I'veeliminatedallzejuice

I really wanted to like this app 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.

by A A Ron (with Bacon)

PLEASE BRING BACK THE MUTE THREAD FEATURE!!!!! I love Yik Yak. I had it when it originally released and when it came back I was really excited about it. I love it still and have a lot of fun with YikYak . People are really funny. My biggest grievance with YikYak is that if you make a post or comment on one and other people comment my options are to turn my phone on silent and miss other notifications, turn off YikYak notifications and miss posts I actually want to know about, or deal with the constant buzzing and ringing whenever someone comments something new. On the older app it was a feature I often used but took for granted. It’s still a great app, but it could be a little better

by Danllin

Seems like they’re fumbling the launch of YikYak. Posts don’t load, upvoting/downvoting doesn’t work, launching YikYak displays a blank screen half the time, comments do not update meaning sometimes I tap on a post with 3 comments and it just shows nothing. I’m sure the devs are gonna get to fixing all the issues ASAP but as of the time I’m writing this review YikYak is basically non functional.

by Richard Alec Balli

YikYak should introduce the ability to silence notifications on certain posts. For example: if you comment on the “nationwide top yak” you will receive never ending notifications that some one has also commented on the post. These posts often have 1k+ comments. They should also off the ability to directly reply to another comment on a post. YikYak also has bugs where comments & upvotes disappear.

by Chemmyfromtheblock

Yik Yak is back! Except we’re all 4 years older so we’re just sharing existential young adult things on it.

YikYak itself is buggy. Comments and upvotes either take forever to show or don’t load at all. Refreshing doesn’t feel like it works at all.

Overall YikYak seems outdated, the ui is unintuitive, you’ll notice once you start trying to figure out how to use it. It’s a start and a “new” interesting way to communicate with others again.

by Jonnyghan

Seems to have a lot of bugs, unable to load comments, up or down vote, long loading times on both Wi-Fi and mobile network. I’m sure these will be handled. Other than that very happy to see its back!

by Ctdavlantes

Glad YikYak is back. Needs a dark mode though. Every other social media app has one, so it’s kind of silly no one thought of including that feature before the re-release.

by Macandcheeseyo99

It is a little glitchy but I'm so glad it's back! I'm sure it will improve over time. I'm just sharing with all my friends so that we can get as many people on as possible so that things are poppin 😊

by Idkwhatnick2put

Great to have YikYak back and there are some good changes from the original. Definitely needs the ability to change location!

by Shadow99999

I know it JUST came back after 4 years, but I hope some of the older features return. Like titling posts, adding images and peeking different areas. Also the font size is pretty nasty. Still glad to see YikYak come back though

by ChooChooNesby

Awesome app if it worked how it’s supposed to. Slow/Never ending load time for most things. Sometimes stops working completely and won’t detect commands. I’m assuming some of those issues will clear when user rate evens out.

by Christinemarielalala

Yaks don’t refresh, you can’t upload anything, I can’t see any comments, half the time it doesn’t even load or crashes. At least yak is consistent with how it was five years ago

by ThoughtHarbor

App still needs work, but it’s back. Sometimes, the comments won’t load in. Sometimes I can’t up or downvote, but it’s back. I’m grateful.

by Sierraboy95

YikYak was the highlight of my college days. I even met a long term girlfriend through YikYak. Everyone was obsessed and it was the perfect way to find new parties. However, YikYak will never be like how it was. There isnt a single user in my area yet, and I doubt it will have the same fan base it had back in 2015. Im just glad it’s finally back though

by The Guyy!!

I never deleted YikYak off my homescreen because I loved it so much. Thanks for bringing it back!

But please fix lag and bring back usernames/chat features those were the best part

by Marie's Friend

I have since graduated college, gotten married, and have a successful career. But yik yak is the reason I was kicked out of school. Yup. Good times on YikYak from pulling an expulsion worthy prank, to finding a few people to actually hook up with, to endless stories and crap talking. I recommend YikYak in all of its glory. Please tell me I’m not the only one to get kicked out of school from using YikYak?!

by VCR12

Love that YikYak is back but so far it’s been slow and glitchy. Takes forever to upload any comments