You know there is something seriously messed up with your campus when issues like sexism, homophobia and racism pervade Yik Yak. Has anyone ever wondered before why this campus is so segregated?

I’ve noticed that whenever there’s an event that takes place on campus supporting a specific group of people, Yik Yak blows up with some of the most horrifying comments I’ve ever seen (and I have seen some pretty disturbing things in YouTube’s comment section.)

However, there are some filthy things that come up on Yik Yak’s feed. Now, normally I would ignore these comments and shrug it off. I would like to think to myself, “Well, I’m sure most of these people are uneducated, ignorant or just plain hateful.”

The scary part about thinking that is that it probably isn’t true. We’re all collegiate folk here and should be striving to educate ourselves. And yet here we are on Yik Yak, indulging in racist, homophobic and sexist nonsense.

What’s even more frightening than the comments themselves are the amount of people up-voting the original, hateful comment and replying that they agree. It’s terrifying living on a campus where I know I’m secretly hated by hundreds of kids in one way or another.

Why aren’t we doing anything about it, anyway? We sit there laughing at the comments or forgetting about them because eventually they’re lost somewhere into cyberspace. But it really isn’t that simple.

Has no one ever thought about the lasting impression that is left on people who might take the comments personally? I thought Eastern was supposed to be a safe and civil environment for us all? We shouldn’t feel threatened or stalked by other people here at our home away from home.

If anyone outside of Charleston were to log into our Yik Yak, I could only imagine the disgusted impression they would have of our university and student body as a whole. People won’t necessarily consider us as individuals because that’s human nature. We judge people—we are always prejudiced.

Of course there are ways we control that if we’ve learned to consider people’s emotions first and not measure them by their beliefs, lifestyle or skin tone.

If Yik Yak had existed before I applied here at Eastern, I would feel slightly skeptical in living on a campus that almost constantly expresses such hatred through their social media. I would be living in fear and feel terribly ashamed of those that surround me at my Alma Mater.

Marge Clemente is a senior English major.

She can be reached at [email protected].