Out of all the candidates in Wednesday's debate, Marco Rubio was the only one who had a majority positive reaction from Yik Yak users.
The social media app, which is popular among high school and college students, allows people to post anonymous, short messages. Typically, users can only post to a board featuring posts from other people within a short physical radius. However, Yik Yak set up a forum for the CNBC presidential debate on Wednesday.
Rubio was the only candidate to have more than 50 percent of his or her mentions on Yik Yak be positive references, according to an analysis from the app. Rubio also tied with Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) for having the fewest negative mentions.
Former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee had the most negative mentions of the night on Yik Yak. Ben Carson, a retired neurosurgeon, tied with hotel aficionado Donald Trump and Ohio Gov. John Kasich for second place in having most of their mentions be "disapproving."
Former Hewlett-Packard CEO Carly Fiorina came close to former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush in the amount of "meh" mentions on Yik Yak.
So what were the Yakkers saying about Rubio? Here are a couple examples:
A lot of chatter among the political class agreed Rubio had a strong performance, and could be crowned the winner of the debate. But Yik Yak, being largely confined to young people on their smartphones, provides a non-scientific glance at how young voters feel about the candidates.
When looking at the sheer number of mentions for the candidates on Yik Yak, the most talked-about candidate was Trump. Carson, Texas Sen. Ted Cruz, Rubio and Bush all had similar shares of mentions after Trump.
But being Yik Yak, there are also plenty of yaks, as they're called, that really didn't have anything to do with specific candidates. Those damn snake people.
