The Korean idiom “귀가 간지럽다,” meaning “my ears are itchy,” is often spoken when you feel as though someone is talking about you behind your back. Talking about one another is a long-standing human habit that has been amplified through engagement with digital platforms centered around gossip. YikYak, which launched in 2013, quickly became popular among college students by allowing users to post anonymously to people nearby. After shutting down in 2017, the app returned in 2021. Fizz, a newer anonymous campus platform, launched at Stanford in 2021 and expanded to other universities soon after. Both apps give college students a place to discuss campus life, share opinions and, sometimes, talk about one another without attaching their names to what they say.
Most people can relate to being gossiped about. I’ve heard my name come up in conversation as I’m leaving rooms, on online forums (Fizz loves me) and even with my friends. I’ve felt my ears itching at random times throughout the day. Throughout my adolescence, I’ve had several instances of confronting gossipers and trying to figure out why they were saying what they were saying about me. While some own up and apologize, others deny until they’re red in the face. Although, I can’t stay on this high horse for too much longer, because I, like many others in their early teenage years, was a gossiper. Call me a hypocrite, but the truth is we’ve all done it at one point in our lives.
We’ve talked about someone’s outfit, who broke up with who, who blasts music too loud during quiet hours and so much more. It’s all gossip, though not always with ill intent. While gossip doesn’t inherently mean being malicious with our words, it does have an inherent connection with secrecy. Research cited by PCLOS ONE found that about 68% of conversations observed in a university cafeteria involved talking about people who were not present. Someone is always missing from the conversation.
On a college campus, there are a lot of itchy ears. You’re consistently surrounded by people who know who you are without actually knowing you at all. We live with the same people we talk about. We eat with them, pass them on the walk to class, at parties and other social events. It’s impossible to avoid each other. However, there’s a difference between talking about someone behind their back and behind a screen.
Apps such as Fizz and YikYak, anonymous social apps connecting students across campuses, have made anonymous conversation a part of everyday campus life. It gives students a way to ask questions, make jokes, rant and, more often than not, talk about other students without having to attach a name and face to a statement. While I don’t think this makes the apps inherently bad, it makes us question what anonymity does with how we interact. It’s easier to share your opinion when the person it’s about can’t immediately look you in the eyes.
A username can become a mask. Digital distance allows someone the confidence to say what they’ve been thinking without having to deal with the person on the other end of it.
Sometimes a mask is necessary. Not everyone feels comfortable putting their name behind a question, opinion or experience. In that sense, anonymity can give people a low-stakes place to ask questions, share experiences, or say something they might not otherwise. However, the same distance makes people less thoughtful about how their words affect someone else. On Fizz, for example, students make comments like, “I CANNOT STAND WORKING IN A GROUP WORK WITH A STUDENT ATHLETE,” or, “girls are so mean, like this is college, not high school,” without having to attach their name to either statement. When there’s not a face attached to the person reading your words, it can become easier to forget that there’s a real person on the other side of the screen.
The strange thing about gossip is that the person being talked about is almost always the last person to know. You can feel something being said without knowing who or what it is. That’s the uncomfortable part of having itchy ears. You know there’s a conversation happening somewhere, but you aren’t a part of it. Before Fizz and YikYak, there were still campus gossip blogs, of course. We’ve seen it in “Gossip Girl,” a fan favorite, but unlike the show, there was usually still a person attached to it. Someone had to start the rumor, someone had to pass it along and someone had to be willing to put their face behind it. Now, accountability is avoidable, and gossip remains rampant.
Realistically, Fizz and YikYak didn’t create a generation of gossipers. They’ve been here long before us. My grandmother is a gossiper in the highest sense of the word. The apps give us a place to say what we might not say in person.
Maybe the hardest part of itchy ears isn’t the constant fear of someone talking about it, but knowing that they had the opportunity to talk to you and instead consulted the online public.
