“Child, you are fierce,” is something one could reasonably say to a stylish or good-looking person of any age, but the compliment has never seemed more apt than in the case of Tyra Banks’s 1-and-a-half-year-old son York Banks Asla, an actual child who is indeed fierce. On Late Night with Seth Meyers, during a discussion of the Instagram photo of York that officially unveiled him to the world, which Banks posted on Father’s Day, Banks acknowledged that her child is already smizing—the practice of smiling with one’s eyes that Banks fervidly evangelized on America’s Next Top Model (what speaking in tongues is to Pentecostals, smizing is to aspiring Top Models).
“I am not a stage mom, I don’t want you to think that I am saying, ‘You ain’t gonna get no peas and carrots if you don’t smize,’” said Banks, who would never deprive her child of the vegetables he so loves. “No, he just has that natural thing. And I had it when I was young, too. But I do not want him to model.”
She says that now, but let’s check back in with her when York starts to pose with pain, learns booty tooch, is made apologize to the hat, learns about people who have war in their country, or gets a beard weave. She may change her mind as her adorable child starts to hit all those other important developmental milestones.
