Caro Malley had no classes on April 14. It was 90 degrees outside. So, the 20-year-old sophomore at SUNY New Paltz decided to go sunbathing in Parker Quad with her friend Nicole. They listened to Fleetwood Mac. Malley read She Came to Stay by Simone de Beauvoir, which, as an ardent reader and thrifter, she was thrilled to find at a yard sale for only $2. It started out as a really good day.
One line in She Came to Stay particularly resonated with her: “She alone released meaning of these abandoned places, of these slumbering things. She was there and they belonged to her. The world belonged to her.”
The world kind of felt like it did belong to her that day — until she received a message from an acquaintance letting her know that comments were beginning to fly on Yik Yak, a social media app popular on college campuses. Apparently, the fact that she was wearing a bikini was fuel enough to fire up the engines of many anonymous SUNY New Paltz commenters.
The app had been shut down in 2017 after a slew of college controversies surrounding online bullying and racial attacks, but Yik Yak relaunched in 2021, claiming that it has more safeguards in place. Malley did not have the app installed on her cellphone, but was sent screenshots of comments being posted about what she wore to go sunbathing:
“Hot take: You shouldn’t wear be wearing a literal bikini to class.”
“How am I misogynistic if I just don’t want to see bareass cheeks while walking to class?”
“Does bikini girl actually bother me at all, no not really. The thing is I’m a hater tho so it’s my job to spread negativity.”
“So was bikini girl in a thong bikini or reg?”
“The bikini girl was doing tew much. I love women and I’m all for body positivity or whatever but bitch no need to walk down LC with ur cheeks out.”
There was even a poll that asked if “bikini girl should be expelled from school.” The top comment on the poll: “death sentence tbh [to be honest].”
Other screenshots of posts that were sent to Hudson Valley One included statements that alleged that Malley had mental disorders or suffered from fetal alcohol and/or shaken baby syndrome, just to highlight a few.
While Malley is aware that some of these anonymous commenters may have been employing dark humor, she for one was not laughing. She told HV1 that she didn’t care “if any of it was sarcasm. I do not care if any of it was a joke at all. It boggles my mind that anyone would feel they had the right to talk about my body. And much more, attribute it to any sort of malice.” Malley further claimed that in the ensuing days she was sent “rape and death threats online and in person.”
While all of this was disturbing to her, a group of friends and supporters began to rally around her. Together they decided to put on a protest this past Friday afternoon to decry the sexualization of the female body, ask SUNY New Paltz to ban Yik Yak and, most importantly to express their desire for harassment laws in New York State to be tightened, “so that the victim can hold the anonymous poster accountable,” according to Malley. She had returned to Parker Quad, but this time as an activist, wearing a white wedding dress with red cowboy boots and a tee-shirt that read, “We Are Raging,” with hand-painted “Bikini Girl.”
When asked where the college stood on the use of Yik Yak, Chrissie Williams, a spokesperson from its Media Relations Department, said, “As a public university, SUNY New Paltz has not banned Yik Yak or other social media platforms, because doing so would be a violation of our Free Speech Policy found here.”
Williams went on to say that “SUNY New Paltz takes online threats seriously and promptly responds to such instances in order to protect our community. While we cannot comment on any specific student experience due to FERPA, the University and UPD have investigated anonymous Yik Yak posts in the past and used the subpoena process when content meets the legal standard of threat and have ultimately held the responsible parties accountable.”
On the question of whether or not the college imposes any type of dress code for its students in classrooms or in communal spaces inside or outside on campus, Williams said, “The University does not maintain a dress code related to what students have to wear to class, nor is there a dress code for outdoor public campus spaces.”
So, what’s all the fuss about a bikini? “I have no idea!” said Malley.
Her friend Mariabella Rivera-Todaro, who helped organize and speak at the rally, noted that what happened to Malley was, in their estimation, only a symptom of a greater cultural disease going on. “I don’t know if this would have happened if Roe v. Wade hadn’t been overturned,” they said. “But we’re getting abused by our administration. Our rights are under attack. Our bodies are under attack. We can’t have abortions, we can’t get gender-supported health care, we can’t even wear a bikini to sunbathe without being harassed and threatened, and then we’re told it’s our fault. It’s not your fault, Caro Malley. It’s not your fault!”
Malley credited Rivera-Todaro with offering her respite and shelter from this social media onslaught, as well as being the galvanizing force to turn it into “something proactive and positive. I’ve been an activist my entire life,” added Malley. “I was a real chunker as a kid, and was told that I was the ‘fattest kid in the school,’ and that never really leaves you. I’ve always championed the underdog, and I literally occupied the Occupy City Hall when I was 17, sleeping on the concrete. I’m a conventionally ‘pretty,’ white, blonde woman with privilege, and I need to use that privilege to fight for legislative change, to get things done on a policy level – which is why I’m asking that everyone consider signing the Bikini Girl Law petition.” (www.change.org/p/bikini-girl-law?recruiter=628534889&recruited_by_id=ff244150-a7c9-11e6-ac78-3d5ec51a49d7&utm_source=share_petition&utm_campaign=share_petition&utm_medium=copylink&utm_content=cl_sharecopy_36082752_en-US%3A8)
Rivera-Todaro is the founder of Millions of Butterflies, a local not-for-profit organization dedicated to supporting those in need, including helping to launch the New Paltz Free Food Fridge located by Village Hall. While they wanted to encourage those in attendance to let their outrage be voiced and be heard, they also noted that the “most revolutionary thing you can do is to be happy. All great movements are rooted in some form of joy, which is why we’re going to have music and sing and wear bikinis, play kazoos and blow bubbles!”
They were joined by singer/songwriter Ella Goodwin, who opened up the more festive part of the protest with a song that she wrote especially for this occasion, titled “Bikini Girl.”
Protestors and supporters joined in for the refrain, “Wear your bikini at the park / I don’t mind / Why should I?”
Ironically, one of the comments that wounded Malley included an anonymous post that read, “Are we seriously this uncreative with our fits that we’re just wearing a bikini?” “That one really bothered me,” she said. “I may be a lot of things, but I am not uncreative!”
The English major with a concentration in Creative Writing went into great detail about the outfit she was wearing at the park that day: “I had on these red cowboy boots, which I got thrifting two years ago,” she said proudly. “I only get clothes secondhand or from thrifting, because I don’t believe in the fast-fashion industry environmentally or their labor practices.
“The bikini top I was wearing was an IGM, which normally would cost a lot of money, but I found it in a ‘free’ clothes bag on Plattekill Avenue the day before. I was on my period, so I had black period underpants, which people wrongly assumed was a bikini bottom; and I had that red cape,” she said, pointing to a cape that a friend was wearing. “I think I was very creative.”
There were several posts that Malley didn’t even want to reread to Hudson Valley One because they were too upsetting, but she didn’t fail to point out that she “did have many supporters in my cause of tanning on a hot day. They do not go forgotten. The marriage proposals I collected were appreciated.”
What particularly dumbfounded Malley and her supporters was the fact that a bikini could lead to so many nasty comments. “What any person wears is not your problem or theirs; it does not invite commentary or action. It is simply cloth. Get over yourself,” said Malley. She then went to hand out kazoos and bubbles and sing along with her friends on a less hot, but not less beautiful day in April.
The college administration responded to Hudson Valley One’s queries and strongly encouraged anyone who felt that they were a victim of cyberbullying to reach out to them: “Students who are seeking to report an alleged violation of the Student Handbook/Code of Conduct are encouraged to contact the Office of Student Conduct and Community Standards directly to review their options and understand the student conduct process.”
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