You may have recently noticed a trend in the styling choices of Whitman students toward tousled bangs, thick wool coats and pointed horns up to three feet in length. Before you try to imitate this distinctive look, be forewarned: those aren’t Whitman students. They’re yaks.
Yes, yaks have arrived on the campus of Whitman College, and not through coincidence or detours in migration, but with an objective of paramount importance: to voice their displeasure with the anonymous social media app which bears the name of their species. This is one stop of many on a nationwide tour for the Nauseated Yak Coalition, or NYC.
“It’s a misleading acronym, because we’re actually based in York, England,” explains NYC’s president, Yorbert Yakworth. “When we found out how harmful YikYak was across the pond, we had no choice but to take our show on the road. Originally, we thought YikYak was a real gossip-spreading yak whom we could trample with our hooves.”
Difficulties in the area of app trampling proving insurmountable, NYC has employed other tactics. These have included footbridge blockades (only one yak required!), letters to administrators calling for YikYak to be banned on campus Wi-Fi and even bovine pyramids, in which a group of yaks pile on top of each other and refuse to disassemble until the target of their protest has acknowledged the approximately elephant-sized mass of hair and horns in the room. The largest bovine pyramids are formed in the open air (as Yakworth promises will be seen tomorrow on the tennis courts), but due to the effect of sharing enclosed spaces with yaks on the olfactory receptors of the average liberal arts student, the most persuasive ones are formed indoors.
“We’ve had some success with the pyramids, but most of our results have been frustrating,” Yakworth said. “The thrill of making outrageous statements anonymously, the in-crowd feeling that keeps students opening the app – it’s created a disregard for the truth that sickens me.”
At this point, his nauseation transcends the boundary between nominal and physical, and Yorbert Yakworth, yanked from York by the yuck of YikYak, yacks.
NYC’s mission statement, inscribed on the sides of the Hit The Road, Yak 2006 Chevrolet Uplanders that serve as their main mode of transport, is ‘to bring an end to an era of misinformation and mean-spiritedness where rumor-mongers get away scot-free. We believe that those who use YikYak to lie and demean should in consequence be made Scot-ful, i.e., have several bagpipe players follow them around at all times.’ NYC’s efforts at learning the bagpipes have so far been unsuccessful, but many yaks demonstrate mastery on the trombone, which they play with gusto at anyone they catch using the app.
For those wishing to follow the yaks’ journey on the remainder of their tour, links to social media accounts (on platforms with at least the bare minimum in terms of personal accountability) can be found on the bumper stickers of the Uplanders. For those wishing to disseminate thoughtlessly damaging rumors about NYC, I can’t stop you, but be wary: You mess with the yak, you get the horns.
