A small-town Australia paper reported some surprising news this week to the town's 6,500 residents: the stars of Neflix's Queer Eye were turning their makeover skills to a room in the town pub. What was the Fab Five doing in the rural grazing land of New South Wales, a part of the world better known for its sheep dips than its fashion tips? Simple: they had discovered a town called "Yass."
Yass, Australia predates Broad City by 170 years.
"Yaass," spelled with a widely variable number of a's and s's, is an enthusiastic variant of "yes!" that you might know from Broad City or that video of Lady Gaga. It dates back to 1980s Harlem drag culture, and it's the exclamation of choice on Netflix's Queer Eye revival. But Yass, New South Wales isn't one of those towns that changed its name to something trendy for corporate dollars or Instagram likes. It was incorporated all the way back in 1843, and named for the nearby Yass River.
Yass was almost Yarrh.
According to the Geographical Names Board of New South Wales, there are several theories for the origin of the Yass River's name. It might have been taken from a local Aborigine's drawling pronunciation of the word "yes" when describing the region to explorer Hamilton Hume. Or it might derive from "yarrh," a word for "running water" in the local dialect. Just think! f the town had kept that pronunciation, it might today be overrun by pirates.
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The McDonald's in Yass is the butt of many jokes.
Visitors come to sleepy Yass to see Cooma Cottage, the quaint 1840s frontier bungalow of Hamilton Hume, or the stunning limestone caves just outside of town, or the local historical society, which boasts about its collections of "local cordial bottles and exercise equipment" as well as "trophies for champion merino sheep." In 2016, Twitter discovered Yass, and flooded the Internet with Google Maps grabs of a town where everyone seems excited about everything: Yass Public School! Domino's Pizza Yass! KFC Yass! The McDonald's in Yass was already Internet-famous, however. Its notorious billboard puts the "golden arches" immediately before the town name, so the cheeky sign appears to read "MYASS."
A whole hemisphere away from Yass: a Swedish town that's Lit.
Yass holds a rodeo and agricultural show every March and an arts-and-crafts festival every November, but neither event crowns a Yass Queen, which is truly regrettable. If you or the Queer Eye guys are looking for more towns that sound like millennial slang, I recommend Lit (in northern Sweden), Fam (in the Central African Republic), or Bae (on the Indonesian island of Java). Sadly, however, the atlas tell us there's still no way to visit any place called Fleek, Thicc, or #GOALS.
Explore the world's oddities every week with Ken Jennings, and check out his book Maphead for more geography trivia.