How Yassification Satirizes the Instagram Face

What do Spock, Eminem, and Geralt of Rivia have in common? No, this isn’t the start of a bad joke; they are the latest out of many digitally transformed by the Twitter account @YassifyBot.

“Yassification” is the latest social media trend that edits images of (mostly) celebrities into hyper-feminine “yassified” versions of themselves. From the extreme, perfectly blended contours, fake digital makeup, and long, full-bodied hair, the retouching takes FaceApp tuneups to the extreme. In many of these instances, the original subject is almost beyond recognition.

While some have documented the origin of the term yassification to 2020 LGBTQ+ social media spaces, there are still many guesses as to where it all started. Even the creator of the @YassifyBot account, 22-year-old Denver Adams, is hesitant to give a definitive interpretation. “I don’t know if there’s a deeper meaning behind this meme trend,” they tell Teen Vogue.

“If I had to theorize it, it would be that it’s kind of making light of how ridiculous this AI technology is, how smart it is, how it’s able to read faces and completely retouch them into something so artificial with a click of a button, within one second,” they add.

Even though there’s no definitive answer, you can see a pattern after viewing multiple yassified images in succession. For example, while the image selection may be random, all the edited pictures embody the same generic, sexualized characteristics attributed to well-known influencers after receiving prominence.

Specifically, how their popularity usually requires beauty treatments to help them fit into the ideal homogenized “look.” The same applies to celebrities; for example, many note how Megan Fox looks more like Kim Kardashian than her 20-year-old self. In other words, yassification satirizes the “Instagram Face.”

Even though some influencers make these changes out of their own volition, it’s clear the majority do it to compete in the industry. Yassification then is fighting against the sameness of digital beauty. Through memeifying seemingly unrelated images, the trend critiques the ridiculousness of current beauty standards.

Furthermore, the trend points out the artificiality of AI technology and how easily susceptible the public is to it. Therefore, the presentation of yassified images as “glow-ups” indicates how we are both in on the joke and the joke’s subject. For that reason, this isn’t a trend to take lightly.

While yassified images of the actress Toni Collette are funny, people must reflect on the deeper messages hidden under the humor.Disguised as harmless fun, the yassification trend says a lot about what is deemed profitable and yasssss worthy in today's society. So perhaps we need to treat the real-life yassification of influencers and celebrities with the same absurdity as we do the memes.