YassifyBot and ‘Yassification’ Memes Announced

[ad_1]

“Girl with a Pearl Earring” opposite the make-up. The first Queen Elizabeth came up from the curve of her neck. Severus Snape with jet black hair extensions. Sasquatch looks at him with a misty eye.

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

To “snap” something, in account’s terms, is to apply various beauty filters to a picture using FaceApp, an AI photo editing app. fine art – formed almost unrecognizably.

Since YassifyBot’s account was activated on November 13, he has tweeted hundreds of photos of subjects’ eyelashes appearing thick and spider-like; his eyebrows seem to have seen the end of a pencil; her hair is long and often dyed; and cheekbones and noses have sharp lines.

It should be noted that YassifyBot is not actually a bot. Their tweets are not generated by the software. The account is run by a 22-year-old college student in Omaha who makes art under the name Denver Adams, who asked The Times not to reveal her legal names.

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

The timing of the account’s popularity is somewhat confusing. easy to use photo retouching apps are not new. FaceApp has been the subject of news articles specifically on: Privacy issues and the “warm” filter, which has been described as racist for lightening users’ skin tones. (in 2017, Guard FaceApp founder Yaroslav Goncharov reportedly apologized for the filter and blamed the skin lightening for the bias he received in the training of AI software.)

The word “yass,” which can also be written with “yas,” “yaas,” or any number of A and S for emphasis, has been circulating in LGBTQ slang for more than a decade. The word became even more popular in 2013. Fan-fan video of Lady Gaga. The Comedy Central program “Broad City,” in which Ilana Glazer’s character often uses the phrase “queen of mourning,” also helped bring the word into wider use.

According to this KnowYourMeme.comThe word “yasification” first appeared on Twitter in 2020. As it spread, so did memes of digitally made celebrities, including one depicting the actress. Toni Collette screaming in a horror movie”hereditaryHis face suddenly settled into an artificial, enchanting version of himself.

“I didn’t make the joke,” said Mr. Adams, citing Miss Collette’s breast for inspiration. “I just ruined it.”

But what exactly is the joke?

Mr. Adams attributed it to the sheer ridiculousness of the images, saying that the more absurd the images the more funny they become.

Like many internet jokes, the line between teasing and celebrating is blurred.

Rusty Barrett, a linguistics professor at the University of Kentucky who studies languages ​​in gay subcultures, sees a link between the images spread by YassifyBot and the culture of drag.

prof. “This conjures up that drag queens sometimes seem plastic and overly exaggerated,” Barrett said in a phone interview.

prof. “Some of it looks good, but it clearly looks fake,” Barrett said. “This positive view of artificiality is common in gay culture.”

“Yassify” memes also share some DNA with the “internet subculture”.hypocrisyThis adds value to a brand of bland and surgically enhanced femininity.

Most hypocrisy memes are just internet jokes about sex performance, but some hardcore devotees have taken to Reddit to document their real-life transformations, including self-hypnosis, to get more “intelligent.”

Likewise, leaning is funny until it’s not. Harry Potter is a pleasure to see dobby or Bernie Sanders It looks like a digital glam crew had them ready for the red carpet. But it is horrifying to think that we are so sensitive to this level of shallowness.

All memes have a shelf life and ageing fatigue has already started. The day YassifyBot joined Twitter, a user tweeted: “I have seen the best minds of my generation destroyed by mourning.”

It was only a matter of time before brands caught the trend. For example, Amtrak was promoted last week. “Atification” of one of its trains in 2022 Using the hashtags #Yassify, #Slay and #rupaulsdragrace on TikTok.

Could it be the death knell of the Yassify meme?

“If it wasn’t for me managing the account, I would have blocked the account long ago,” Adams said. “Completely.”



[ad_2]

Source link

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *