Zoë O’Connor on an app which has become bullying central in Tralee…

A NEW phenomenon has swept over the youth of Tralee, and definitely not in a good way.

There really is an app for everything and honestly at this point they should just make a bullying genre.

Yik Yak is a new app that you can probably find on most teenagers phones in the past number of weeks. It is where you can anonymously post on a forum and basically say anything that you want, no filter.

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Not only that, but whatever you post, people can vote it up if they like it. And obviously, it is totally and completely anonymous.

Which, in simpler terms, just means bullying central.

People honestly have no filter on this site and most of it is borderline abusive. Not only that but people have no problem with name dropping on this site either.

Can you imagine what it feels like to be scrolling through the feed and seeing your name at the heart of some rant? It would be completely and utterly soul crushing.

Honestly, I was checking to see had my name featured after I took the idea of the Easter theme at school very seriously and dressed up as a bunny. Considering I was one of two bunnies on the day, I received a lot of judging looks.

And apparently Yik Yak is the new place to vent about these things.

I don’t understand how someone is allowed to come up with such a concept. Has everyone not learned their lesson after all the other anonymous platforms, such as ask.fm, led to horrific consequences?

People are defending it because you are only able to see what is being said in Tralee, and it can’t escalate.

I think that it is even worse to be purely based in Tralee. This town is steeped in rivalry (just like anywhere else) and it gives people a place where they can feel superior to their enemies.

Have we not learned anything? People are so super conscious of bullying nowadays that we have “PC” down to a science. Yet we still let these things go on.

I know that the icon for this app is a cartoon yak (which makes no logical sense, it’s almost like they are trying to appeal to children), but it is not cute.

Not even in the slightest and it needs to stop.

Follow Zoë O’Connor on Twitter on @Zobo2402