Our toxic love affair with anonymous messaging.
It’s 2014. Nicki Minaj has just released her iconic bop “Anaconda”, and up and down the halls of your high school, teenagers who have never had sex before are yelling “it’s bigger than a tower, I ain’t talking ‘bout Effiels”. Everyone you know has a grunge-core softporn Tumblr and is wearing skater-skirts and eyeliner from the $2 store. Kids with rich parents are waving around the iPhone 5C that they got for Christmas, and everyone, everyone is on YikYak and Ask.fm.
For those too young to have used Ask.fm and YikYak, or are just lucky enough to have escaped their influence; both sites were places to post anonymously. The anonymous format often led to—pardon my French—some fucked up behaviour.
The anonymous format often led to—pardon my French—some fucked up behaviour.
YikYak was an app that worked by broadcasting your anonymous message to anyone within a 5 km radius of you. People could “upvote” or “downvote” your message, and posts with the most upvotes stayed at the top of the app. Naturally, as the app worked by proximity, teenagers used it for real-time bullying during school hours. As my flatmate puts it, “it felt like gossip girl.”
Ask.fm was a site where users could ask a person anonymous questions. If you answered those questions, they would be posted publicly on your profile. It faced a lot of controversy while it was popular, with several teen suicides in the UK blamed on the site. When it reached New Zealand shores, parents and school administrations alike freaked out, and I remember sitting through several assemblies on the dangers of cyberbullying. At the time I rolled my eyes, but looking back, I definitely witnessed cyberbullying through Ask.fm, though I didn’t recognise it as such at the time. Homophobia was rampant, racism common, and teens were launching straight up psychological warfare on each other, putting through anonymous questions just to fuck with their friends.
Aniwa, who remembers the site, says she was curious what others thought of her, and although she knew it might have been negative she still “got hate that was really unexpected”. Like many others, Aniwa also experienced harassment. On a related note, Ask.fm has been described as a “stalker’s paradise”.
And whether or not you remember Ask.fm or YikYak, the descriptions of these sites might be ringing a bell for you, especially if you’ve been on Instagram in the past few weeks.
New app ‘NGL’ provides exactly the same function as Ask.fm. You post the link for the app in your stories, and people follow the link to ask you a question or send you a message anonymously. You can choose to publicly reply to these messages in your story. Over the past few weeks, I’ve watched as my friends have publicly posted all sorts of responses. They’ve ranged from cute messages like “I think you’re so nice”, to straight up sexual harrassment, such as one friend who repeatedly received anonymous messages like “show me your tits” and “you’re a slut”.
But although the latter responses are unpleasant, they’re far from unexpected. Since the invention of the internet, concerns have been sparked over the link between anonymity and bullying and harassment behaviours. Studies have linked perceived anonymity to an increased likelihood of cyberbullying others.1
Since the invention of the internet, concerns have been sparked over the link between anonymity and bullying and harassment behaviours.
Additionally, bullying is perceived as worse if done anonymously. This might lead to increased adverse effects compared to traditional bullying—because if someone’s stuffing you in a locker, at least you can see who’s doing it.,2 If you don’t know who’s bullying you, it seriously undermines your trust in those close to you.
All this begs the question: why the fuck do we keep making anonymous messaging apps? And why the fuck do people sign up for them?
Against my better judgement, I put my own ego on the line to find out. I put up my ‘NGL’ link and waited breathlessly. Was I going to be bullied? Was someone going to profess their love for me?
No. As it turns out, no one really cared. I eventually got a couple of messages that seemed to be from bots; I was relieved that no one I knew would engage in sending anonymous messages for fun.
But the memories of those Ask.fm days were still strong; I couldn’t help but be worried for younger users of NGL. History repeats itself, and when you’re a teen, what others “really” think of you seems like the most important thing in the world. NGL also has a feature where you can pay to reveal a user’s identity, which seems like a blatant exploitation of people’s insecurities.
why the fuck do we keep making anonymous messaging apps? And why the fuck do people sign up for them?
“There’s such a performative element to it too,” says Aniwa. She notes that people often used to send themselves “anonymous” questions on Ask.fm, and the person replying retained some power as they could choose whether to publicly address a question. That meant the type of questions a user replied to and the way they were answered was also an exercise in performing a self; prime bait for someone still figuring out their identity.
Perhaps that’s why anonymous messaging can be so popular with younger users. As one friend who remembers Ask.fm notes, “the anonymous questions helped me learn things about myself that I didn’t know.” And although they acknowledged the site was “mostly bad” they also said that “anonymous communication could be a really powerful tool for self discovery.”
So, anonymous messaging apps are usually bad, and their very existence can capitalise off people’s insecurities and self-doubt. Yet, it seems like many of us keep using them because of our insecurities and self-doubt. What does that say about us? In Aniwa’s words: “we haven’t really grown.”
1Barlett, Chris P., & Douglas A. Gentile. 2016. Predicting Cyberbullying from Anonymity. Psychology of Popular Media Culture. 5(2) 171–180.
2Sticca, Fabio, & Perren, Sonja. 2013. Is Cyberbullying Worse than Traditional Bullying? Examining the Differential Roles of Medium, Publicity, and Anonymity for the Perceived Severity of Bullying. J Youth Adolescence 42, 739–750. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10964-012-9867-3