YassifyBot and ‘Yassification’ Memes, Explained

“Girl with pearl earrings” in full face makeup. The first Queen Elizabeth drew on the rough of her neck. Severus Snape with jet-black hair extensions. Sasquatch is playing Smoky Eye.

These are some of the altered images that have been shared by YassifyBot, the Twitter account that started popping up in people’s feeds this month.

Applying multiple beauty filters to a picture using FaceApp, an AI photo-editing application to “yasify” something in the language of the account, until the subject matter – be it a celebrity, a historical figure, a fictional character or a work of art – becomes almost unrecognizable.

Since YassifyBot’s account was activated on November 13, he has tweeted hundreds of photos in which the subject’s shots appear thick and spider; His eyebrows look as if he has seen the end of the pencil business; Their hair is long and often colored; And their cheekbones and nose are heavily covered.

Note that YassifyBot is not actually a bot. His tweets are not generated by software. The account is run by a 22-year-old college student in Omaha who makes art under the name Denver Adams and told The Times not to reveal his legal name.

The process of creating each image is simple: take a face, run it through FaceApp, post it, repeat it until it looks normal or strangely sexy. Mr Adams said in a Zoom interview that it only takes a few minutes to create each image.

The timing of the account’s popularity is a bit confusing. Easy-to-use photo-retouching apps are not new. FaceApp is particularly the subject of news articles about privacy issues and its “hot” filters, which have been criticized as racist for lightening users’ skin color. (In 2017, The Guardian reported that FaceApp’s founder, Yaroslav Goncharov, apologized for the filter and blamed AI software for the skin brightening over the bias he took in his training.)

The word “yas” – which can be pronounced with “yas,” “yaas” or any number of A’s and S’s – LGBTQ has been circulating in the local language for over a decade. The term was further popularized by a 2013 video of a fan praising Lady Gaga. The comedy Central Show “Broad City”, in which Ilana Glazer’s character frequently uses the phrase “Yas Queen”, helped to make the term more widely used.

According to KnowYourMeme.com, the word “yassification” first appeared on Twitter in 2020. As it spread, celebrity memes were created digitally, featuring actresses. Tony Colette Her face suddenly stabilized in an artificial glamorized version while screaming in the horror movie “Hereditary”.

“I didn’t make jokes,” Mr Adams said, quoting Miss Colette’s meme as inspiration. “I just spoiled it.”

But, what exactly is a joke?

Mr Adams points to the sheer ridiculousness of the images, saying that the more silly they look, the more funny they become.

Like most internet jokes, the line between jokes and celebrations is blurred.

Rusty Barrett, a professor of linguistics at the University of Kentucky who has done research on language in homosexual subcultures, sees a link between images and drag culture transmitted by YassifyBot.

Prof. Barrett said in a phone interview, “This causes drag to drag into the drag queen and sometimes appears plastic and excessive.

“Part of it is that it looks good, but it clearly looks fake,” said Prof. Barrett said. “A positive attitude towards artistry is common in gay culture.”

The “Yasify” memes also share some DNA with the internet subculture of “Bimbofification”, which praises the vague and surgically enhanced brand of femininity.

Many bimbofification memes are just internet jokes about gender functionality, but some fanatics have taken to Reddit to document their real-life transitions, including self-hypnosis to become more “smooth”.

Likewise, yassifying is fun until then. It’s a pleasure to watch Harry Potter Dobby Or Bernie Sanders A digital glam team has them ready for the red carpet. But it is terrible to think that we are so sensitive to this level of shallowness.

All memes have a shelf life, and the fatigue of yasification has already arrived. The day YassifyBot joined Twitter, One user has tweeted: “I saw the best minds of my generation destroyed by Yasification.”

It was a matter of time before brands caught the trend. Last week, for example, Amtrak promoted the “Yasification” of one of its trains in 2022 on TikTok, using the hashtags #Yassify, #Slay and #rupaulsdragrace.

Could this be the death knell of the Yasifi meme?

“If I were not the account manager, I would have already blocked the account,” he said. Adams said. “Absolutely.”