Yas (slang)

Yas (/jɑːs/), sometimes spelled yass, is a playful or non-serious slang term equivalent to the excited or celebratory use of the interjection Yas was added to Oxford Dictionaries in 2017 and defined as a form of exclamation "expressing great pleasure or excitement".^[1] Yas was defined by Oxygen's Scout Durwood as "a more emphatic 'yes' often paired with 'queen'."^[2] Yas can alternatively be spelled with any number of A's and S's in order to increase the grade of excitement^[2] or add more emphasis.^[3] In other words, the exclamation often appears in the form "Yas, queen!" and sometimes "yaasss!".^[4] Most commonly used by Females or people of the LGBTQ+ community to symbolize excitement or being happy.

History of the term

The earliest use of the spelling yas quoted in the Oxford English Dictionary is from George Colman the Elder's play Spleen in 1776: "Rubrick. We'll go in, and prepare the advertisement. Machoof. Yas, we mun invastigate its axcellent faculties."^[5] However, this usage is not the modern slang one. Similarly, yass was used by the character Dean Moriarty (based on Neal Cassady) in Jack Kerouac's 1957 novel On the Road.^[6][7]

Yas was used by Ragtime era music artists such as Blind Boy Fuller in his songs “Throw Your Yas Yas Back in Jail” released in 1936 and “Get Your Yas Yas Out” in 1938.

Yas, with its currently popular meaning and various spelling variants, has roots in late 1980s ball culture, a predominantly black and Latino LGBT subculture in the United States,^[8] and was adopted by the wider LGBTQ/queer community in the 1990s,^[9] remaining current into the present.^[3] The term was used during performances by drag queens, as an expression of encouragement and support, and can be heard (pronounced [jæːs]) in the 1990 documentary film Paris Is Burning, which chronicles New York City's ball culture.^[8][10]

The expression entered the general public lexicon in the 2010s after being used by a Lady Gaga fan expressing his admiration for the singer's appearance in a viral video, and by Ilana Glazer in Broad City^[3][8] By 2016, yas had spurred discussion as to whether its use by white or non-LGBT people constituted cultural appropriation.^[8]

The verb yassify was coined in 2021 as part of an internet meme. To "yassify" an image is to apply AI-based beauty filters to an extreme extent, with humorous results. Image yassification became a meme on Twitter and other social media, particularly when applied to incongruous subjects such as historic works of art, or a frame of actress Toni Collette screaming in the horror film Hereditary.^[3][11]

See also

• LGBT slang
• List of LGBT slang terms
• Throw shade (slang)
• Slay (slang)

References

1. Hafner, Josh (27 February 2017). "'Yas,' 'squad goals' and 'sausage fest' added to Oxford Dictionaries". USA Today. Gannett Company. ISSN 0734-7456. Retrieved 17 November 2017.
2. Durwood, Scout (12 July 2016). "7 Pop Culture Phrases That Were Appropriated from Black and Gay Culture". Oxygen. Retrieved 17 November 2017.
3. O'Neill, Shane (24 November 2021). "What Does It Mean to 'Yassify' Anything?". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved 27 November 2021.
4. "yaasss", The Free Dictionary, retrieved 4 December 2021
5. Entry 'yas', Oxford English Dictionary. Retrieved 8 February 2022
6. Sante, Luc (19 August 2007). "On the Road: The Original Scroll - Jack Kerouac - Books - Review". The New York Times. Retrieved 2 August 2018.
7. Kerouac, Jack (1957). On the Road.
8. Amatulli, Jenna (19 July 2016). "Here's the Real Origin of the Word 'Yas'". HuffPost. Retrieved 17 November 2017.
9. Carey-Mahoney, Ryan (24 August 2016). "'RuPaul's Drag Race' is more than a TV show. It's a movement". The Washington Post. ISSN 0190-8286. OCLC 2269358. Retrieved 17 November 2017.
10. Marine, Brooke (30 October 2017). "Frank Ocean Vogued the Night Away with Tyler, the Creator and Joanne the Scammer at His 30th Birthday Party". W. Condé Nast. ISSN 0162-9115. OCLC 1781845. Retrieved 17 November 2017.
11. "'Yassification' is a photo-editing trend with a satiric twist to it". www.telegraphindia.com. Retrieved 4 December 2021.