Everything about Yuppies totally explained
The term
yuppie (short for "
young urban professional" or "
young upwardly-mobile professional") refers to a
market segment whose consumers are characterized as self-reliant, financially secure
individualists. Since the late
1980s, the phrase "
affluent professionals" has been used as a synonym, stripped of negative associations with the once-homogenous market.
History
Although the term
yuppies hadn't appeared until the early 1980s, there was discussion about young urban professionals as early as
1968.
Critics believe that the demand for "instant executives" has led some young climbers to confuse change with growth. One New York consultant comments, "Many executives in their 20s and 30s have been so busy job-hopping that they've never developed their skills. They're apt to suffer a sudden loss of career impetus and go into a power stall."
Joseph Epstein is sometimes credited for coining the term in
1982. However, an early printed appearance of the word is in a May 1980
Chicago magazine article by Dan Rottenberg. In
1983, the term gained currency in
United States when syndicated newspaper columnist
Bob Greene published a story about a business networking group founded in 1982 by the former radical leader
Jerry Rubin, formerly of the
Youth International Party (whose members were called
yippies); Greene said he'd heard people at the networking group (which met at
Studio 54 to soft
classical music) joke that Rubin had "gone from being a yippie to being a yuppie". The headline of Greene's story was
From Yippie to Yuppie. The proliferation of the word was effected by the publication of
The Yuppie Handbook in January
1983, followed by Senator
Gary Hart's
1984 candidacy as a "yuppie candidate" for
President of the United States.
Newsweek magazine declared 1984 "The Year of the Yuppie", characterizing the salary range, occupations, and politics of yuppies as "demographically hazy".
Notable cultural depictions of yuppies
- The Bonfire of the Vanities, by Tom Wolfe, a "satire of yuppie excess"
- Bright Lights, Big City by Jay McInerney (McInerney himself has been called "the archetypal yuppie")
- Fight Club, the 1996 Chuck Palahniuk novel and 1999 film adaptation, follows "a disenchanted yuppie ... numbed by the sterile materialism of modern life."
- Rent by Jonathan Larson depicts the character Benny, originated by Taye Diggs who reprised the role in the 2005 movie, was frequently referred to as "yuppie scum" by his former friends because of his decision to "sell-out" and marry Alison Grey of the Westport Greys.
- Slaves of New York by Tama Janowitz
- thirtysomething, U.S. TV series, seen as a representation of "yuppie "
- Wall Street, the 1987 film about stock traders, has been described as "encapsulation of 80s yuppie greed culture", particularly Charlie Sheen's naive 20-something character.
Related terms
Reporter David Brooks characterized yuppies as bourgeois bohemians, or Bobos, in his book Bobos in Paradise, a.k.a. Trustifarians.
A buppie is a black urban professional.
DINKs (DINKY in the UK) is an acronym is for Dual Income, No Kids [Yet]; at least one authority considers this to be synonymous with "yuppie".
Guppie is a gay urban professional.
Yuppification often replaces the word gentrification; it's the act of making something, someone, or someplace appealing and thus marketable to yuppie tastes.
Yuppie flu was a sometimes derisive, and inaccurate, term applied to chronic fatigue syndrome, before its medical legitimation.
Further Information
Get more info on 'Yuppies'.
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