Yik Yak

Yik Yak is a phone app that "acts like a local bulletin board for your area by showing the most recent posts from other users around you. It allows anyone to connect and share information with others without having to know them." It became popular on Knox College's campus during the fall term of 2014.

A Pivotal Moment at Knox

On September 27th, 2014, Knox College's Yik Yak forum began to overflow with posts that contained the hashtag "#canadafacts". As the hashtag suggests, the posts were related to facts* related to the country of Canada. Prior to this, Yik Yak was as diverse as Knox could ever hope to be: there were all kinds of posts related to personal romantic strife, pursuits in day drinking, and celebrations of Knox sports teams' success. But that all changed when #canadafacts happened.

For the most part, #canadafacts were completely falsified and outrageous: for example, "In 2006, a group of workers' rights activists occupied the Toronto maple syrup mines to protest the slow response times of miners getting tuck to the walls #canadafacts". Before the #canadafacts explosion, Knox College's Yik Yak forum only had around 300 posts: after, 560ish Yik Yak posts had been made, spurred on by #canadafacts.

Swiftly into #canadafacts rise, a competitor emerged: #waterfacts became a clever retort to the ridiculous #canadafacts, and the two hashtags fought it out for a little over an hour for the right to dominance of the Yik Yak forum. #canadafacts, somehow, seemed to be more poised as champion of the Knox College Yik Yak, but #waterfacts was still pretty funny at points, if a little too literal.

More imitators of #canadafacts and #waterfacts appeared in the form of #batmanfacts, which skewed the account of Bruce Wayne's superhero story and Gotham (which was described as "the capital of Canada #canadafacts", a nice co-opt by the #canadafacts team); #buchananfacts, which seemed entirely a thread concocted by Sigma Nu (although #canadafacts seemd pretty Snu-ey too); #factsfacts had a short run too, who knows why. Countless #facts came up after but none very noteworthy besides a couple weird #micropenisfacts and very meta #yikfacts.

For anybody who didn't really care for #canadafacts or #facts in general, Yik Yak was subsequently ruined and abandoned in favor of bitching to your friends about Knox and the shitty people who ruined Yik Yak.