It was social media and high school at their worst.
On a mobile app that lets users hide behind anonymity, Cherry Creek High School students began hurling insults at one another.
One student associated with a clique that bore the brunt of the abuse responded with a threat against the school.
Police got involved. The student was caught. Charges were filed.
That might have been the end of it, but it turned out to be the beginning of something else — a student-led campaign to harness the power of social media and students’ true identities for good.
At one of Colorado’s largest high schools, hurtful stereotyping and harassment would be fought with a hashtag:
#IAMCREEK
Social media networks come and go like high school romances.
And starting this fall at Cherry Creek, Yik Yak was all the rage.
Barely a year old, the app allows people to anonymously create and view “yaks,” or short comments, made within a 10-mile radius based on the Global Posititioning System-determined location of users’ smartphones. The proximity means many users know one another or at least run in the same circles.
At Creek, Yik Yak was harmless enough at first. But it did not take long for the conversation to sink into the cyber gutter.
Among the cliques ridiculed were the “tree people,” students who congregate under a big tree near a statue of a Bruin, the school mascot. At other schools, these students would be called stoners.
Last month, a student used the app to post a threat against the school. Acting on a tip from a student, school officials and Greenwood Village police began investigating.
The posted comment seemed to be “a real, active threat” that was specific, said Greenwood Village Police Chief John Jackson.
Asked about the nature of the threat, Jackson declined to give details because the case is open but said in general: “Anytime you link school and gun, we are going to perceive it to be a threat. If you talk about bringing a gun to school, it is considered a threat.”
Police contacted Atlanta-based Yik Yak, which was started by two recent college graduates. The app does not ask users to provide their real names, e-mail addresses or any other identifying information, according to the company website.
However, Yik Yak can pinpoint a post’s Internet protocol address and location using GPS. The company says it will provide that information to law enforcement in cases of a “valid emergency.”
Jackson said the company-provided data quickly led detectives to identify the source of the threat. The student, a minor, admitted responsibility and was charged in municipal court with harassment, he said.
The student could have been charged with a felony, but Jackson said the goal was not to be punitive.
Jackson said students are realizing that anonymity online is nonexistent, and they can be held accountable for their words.
“Social media can set you free and make you feel empowered with words that don’t seem attached to anything,” Jackson said. “Or it can be the noose around your neck when I come calling.”
Cherry Creek School District spokeswoman Tustin Amole said the district is aware of at least one other case of a student making a threat on Yik Yak, and the outcome was similar. Details on disciplinary actions were not immediately available because the district is on winter break, she said.
The district is working toward blocking Yik Yak on all its campuses through a virtual barrier called geo-fencing, Amole said.
Several colleges and school districts across the country have taken the same step to counter harassment and threats on the app — including Pueblo County District 70 and Pueblo City Schools District 60. Yik Yak officials did not respond to requests for comment.
“We’re never going to be out in front of all of this,” Amole said of emerging social networks. “There’s always something else coming.”
Hazing and threats
Ethan Widoff couldn’t let it go.
The Cherry Creek senior knew the culture that leads to online hazing and threats is a problem at most high schools.
So what could be done about it?
Widoff has a wider view than many. As a player on the baseball team, and a member of the student senate and speech-and-debate team, he fell in with different groups.
Widoff went to social studies teacher Matt Weiss, one of his senate advisers and the school’s spirit director.
Over Sunday brunch at Weiss’ house, an idea developed: filming a public-service announcement that would be uploaded to YouTube and spread by students on social media.
“We felt like people just don’t know about each other at Creek,” Widoff said. “We want to make people understand there’s a whole lot (more) to know about people than a stereotype. We want to make everyone feel they are part of this Creek family.”
Widoff and Weiss recruited another senior, Hannah Sanders, to shoot and edit the video. She, too, was well-suited for the assignment.
Sanders, who knew Widoff from senate, had served as yearbook photo editor, a role that exposed her to different student groups. An avid and ambitious photographer, she has her own photography business and an Instagram following of 26,000.
Her name also had surfaced on Yik Yak.
One posting called her entitled and used a slur against women.
“It was hurtful and rude,” Sanders said. “People think I am entitled and everything in life has been handed to me. But in reality, that is not true. I work for everything I have.”
Social culture
On a Friday afternoon, the students and Weiss set up an interview area in a small theater room at Creek. Students who walked by were invited to talk about the school’s social culture and how they fit in.
Cherry Creek is a high-achieving school on an 80-acre campus in Greenwood Village, one of Colorado’s wealthiest communities.
Of the 3,418 students, 71 percent are white, 11 percent are Latino, 11 percent are Asian and 2.5 percent are black.
The class of 2013’s mean composite ACT score was 25, compared with 20.3 statewide. Ninety percent of the class of 2014 went to college. Bruin sports teams have won dozens of state championships in tennis, swimming, lacrosse, football and more.
Yet when put before the camera, Creek students used these words to describe what their classmates probably think of them:
“Band nerd.”
“Shy.”
“Probably some quiet stoner chick.”
“Stereotypical punk.”
“Rich kid.”
“An Asian anti-social nerd.”
“Pretentious.”
“A wetback.”
“A Jesus freak.”
“A gangster just because I’m black.”
Students then were asked to take a hammer to those stereotypes, to tell people what they don’t know about them.
The punk is a very good artist.
The black kid everyone thinks is good at basketball can’t make a jump shot to save his life.
The guy people think slacks can speak three languages fluently.
“Some of these conversations were difficult,” said Weiss, a Creek alum. “These students, they are making themselves vulnerable. It takes a lot of courage and bravery for Hannah and Ethan to do this, and for the students who participated.”
The video was published Dec. 16 on YouTube. At the end, students are urged to post it to Twitter and Facebook with the “#IAMCREEK” hashtag, tag two of their friends and ask them to do the same.
It was social media and high school at their best.
Widoff and Sanders want to challenge other area high schools to take part, drawing inspiration from this year’s viral ALS Ice Bucket Challenge that raised millions to combat Lou Gehrig’s disease.
There is talk of a roundtable discussion or open forum at school.
And yet, there has been backlash, too.
Some Creek students feel that, however well-intentioned the effort, nothing will change. Or that not all student groups were represented in the video. Or they have a problem with the student organizers.
“Some people are looking at me and Ethan as people to bash,” Sanders said. “But I think at the end of the day, more people are taking it positively — looking past the faces and listening to the message.”
Eric Gorski: 303-954-1971, egorski@denverpost.com or twitter.com/egorski
