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Students react to the Yik Yak app

Thursday, throughout Staples, students were huddled around their phones updating their friends on the latest comments from the app that had gone viral within minutes: Yik Yak, the newest anonymous social media trend.

Students’ reactions were varied.

Many compared the app to a social networking version of the burn book, featured in the movie Mean Girls, that contained rumors and comments about girls around the school.

“It’s like a real-life Gossip Girl. I don’t like the app, I think it’s hilarious,” said an anonymous student. “Some comments are uncalled for, but others are funny, and you can tell they’re a joke,”

Other students shared their opinion through their Facebook statuses. Sofia Weinberg ’15, who found out about the app via Principal John Dodig’s announcement on Thursday afternoon, said she was initially was in complete shock and disgust after reading the posts from her friend’s phone.

“Out of all of the great things you could be doing with your life, why do you choose to bring others down? Because it’s anonymous? Because you think it’s ‘cool’?” Weinberg posted as her status Thursday night.

Jacob Nadel ’15, who said he believed Staples was a “warmer, more welcoming environment,” described a changed opinion after hearing about Yik Yak. Nadel also posted a Facebook status.

“We all have emotions. We are all people. No one in Staples, or anywhere, deserves to get treated this way. Do the right thing,”

Although sending and reading messages was disabled at school Thursday night, according to students the app is still sometimes accessible at the front lobby and in the library.

“I think disabling the app in school will decrease the chances of people making rude and inappropriate comments about their peers,” Gia Marone ’15 said.

Another anonymous student who refuses to download the app agrees the majority of the posts are hurtful and no one deserves to be trashed, no matter how badly they treat other people.

“This app truly proves the power of the Internet and how quickly something can viral. It’s crazy that at 9:30 am the idea of the app was buzzing around school, and then by 1:30, almost everyone had downloaded it.” said the anonymous student. “The posts may disappear after an hour, but the Internet is forever; anonymity is powerful.”

 

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Amina Abdul-Kareem, Staff Writer
The brutal capture and murder of James Foley shook America, but it has not dissuaded journalists or budding activists from the concept of traveling to unstable countries, especially not Amina Abdul-Kareem. “Danger excites me,” she puts simply, “I think the best reporting can be done when you’re actually at the scene yourself.”  Even at the age of ten, Amina ignored danger to find out if a rumor of cannibalism around her estate in Kenya was really true.  “My uncle told us we weren’t allowed to play outside, but me being me, I snuck out and found out what was really happening for myself.” Amina, a daring and curious senior at Staples High School, was born in Dubai and moved to America when she was a year old.  Even though she had family from many different parts of the world in addition to Kenya, Amina did not always feel very connected to her ethnicity “Growing up, I kinda felt lost, I didn’t have any connection to my Somali roots.”  On the pursuit of finding herself, Amina has taken the Staples African Studies class and dedicated herself to fully appreciating her culture. In an effort to do exactly that, next summer, Amina and her cousin will be traveling around the Horn of Africa to Somalia, Ethiopia and Kenya to fully immerse themselves in their African backgrounds.  “We’re both in the middle of an identity crisis,” she says of her and her cousin, “that’s what we call it.” Amina may be in the middle of a cultural “crisis”, but she is very confident in her future career path.  “I want to pursue a job in the medical field so I can go back to Somalia and help the people who are suffering from famine and poverty.”  A very laudable ambition; Amina is set on getting her medical degree in nursing after graduating from Staples in 2015. Somalia is one of the most dangerous places in the world, but Amina’s passion for helping others is stronger than the fear of risking her life.  The real threat of being kidnapped in unstable third world countries does not cause Amina to falter, even considering the circumstances of Tom Foley’s demise.  As Veronica Roth might say, fear doesn’t shut Amina down; it wakes her up.

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