The Yik Yak mascot ambled onto a busy Quad Monday afternoon, and was just as soon swarmed by members of the Syracuse University student body.

As part of its 2015 Spring Campus Tour, Yik Yak, the anonymous social media phone app, is traveling across the country visiting colleges in order to connect its brand with its users. It is visiting 59 colleges across 34 states in 71 days, according to its website.

The company’s teal “Yakarma Kart” was parked behind Crouse College on Monday afternoon as the mascot and his videographer jumped out of the back, heading straight for the Quad.

“People love him, he is the cutest thing there is,” Yik Yak employee Joseph Berry said.

Berry said the tour is about giving back to all its users and putting a face to the application. He said the mascot has been teaming up with various student organizations, and has done charity events at various colleges across the country.

He said the best part of traveling with the mascot is seeing all of the different people and hearing their stories.

The Quad was packed with students studying, playing Frisbee and hanging out with friends enjoying the warm weather. The mascot proceeded to interact with students, momentarily interrupting a soccer game and initiating a game of duck-duck-goose, for instance.

The mascot tapped sophomore Shannon Bradley on the head, who got up and chased the mascot around the group. The entire group was laughing as the mascot strolled away.

“I think it’s good advertising — we just learned about it in COM 107. They know who their target audience is,” said Bradley, a music industry major.

The mascot continued across the Quad as students stopped to interact and take photos with him. A group of three male cheerleaders saw the mascot and grabbed his attention.

“Well I saw him running around, and I was like, ‘I want to stunt with him, that’s dope.’ That would be a cool opportunity,” said Taylor Dellarocco, an environmental science major at SUNY-ESF.

The trio of juniors hoisted the large brown mascot into there as students nearby snapped photos and laughed at the spectacle.

“I think it’s funny. As a cheerleader, our reaction if we see something fun is, ‘Let’s put him in the air.’ We saw the yak, and we said, ‘Yeah, let’s see if we can put a Yak in the air,” said Eric Klein, a finance and accounting major. “We put Otto in the air — why not a giant yak.”

Published on April 6, 2015 at 5:22 pm

Contact Jacob: jagedets@syr.edu