Yuppie

The term "yuppie" (short for "young urban professional" or "young upwardly-mobile professional") [cite book| title = Fifty Years Among the New Words: A Dictionary of Neologisms| last = Algeo| first = John| year = 1991| isbn = 0-521-413-77X| publisher = Cambridge University Press| pages = p. 220] refers to self-reliant, financially secure individualists, particularly from the upper-middle class.Cite journal| issn = 0021-8499| volume = 26| issue = 2| pages = 27–35| last = Burnett| first = John| coauthors = Alan Bush| title = Profiling the Yuppies| journal = Journal of Advertising Research]

History

Although the term "yuppies" had not appeared until the early 1980s, there was discussion about young urban professionals as early as 1968. The term yuppie means young urban professional.

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."Cite journal| issn = 0025-1895| volume = 57| issue = 3| pages = 25| last = Kessler| first = Felix| title = Executive Promotion Path: Fast Track for Young Managers| journal = Management Review]

Joseph Epstein is sometimes credited for coining the term in 1982. [cite book | title = Movers And Shakers: A Chronology of Words That Shaped Our Age | year = 2006 | publisher = Oxford University Press | last = Ayto | first = John | isbn = 0-198-614-527 | pages = p. 128] However, an early printed appearance of the word is in a May 1980 "Chicago" magazine article by Dan Rottenberg.cite news|title= About that urban renaissance.... there'll be a slight delay |author=Dan Rottenberg|publisher=Chicago Magazine|date=May 1980|page = 154ff] 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 had 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". [cite book| title = Global Finance and Urban Living: A Study of Metropolitan Change| first = Leslie| last = Budd| coauthors = Whimster, Sam| year = 1992| publisher = Routledge| isbn = 0-415-070-97X| pages = p. 316] [ Hadden-Guest, Anthony "The Last Party: Studio 54, Disco, and the Culture of the Night" New York:1997--William Morrow Page 116 ] 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. The term was then used to describe a political demographic group of socially liberal but fiscally conservative voters favoring his candidacy. [cite book| title = Campaign for President: The Managers Look at '84| first = Jonathan| last = Moore| publisher = Praeger/Greenwood| year = 1986| isbn = 0-865-691-320| pages = 123] "Newsweek" magazine declared 1984 "The Year of the Yuppie", characterizing the salary range, occupations, and politics of yuppies as "demographically hazy".

In a 1985 issue of "The Wall Street Journal", Theressa Kersten at SRI International described a "yuppie backlash" by people who fit the demographic profile yet express resentment of the label: "You're talking about a class of people who put off having families so they can make payments on the BMWs ... To be a Yuppie is to be a loathsome undesirable creature". Leo Shapiro, a market researcher in Chicago, responded, "Stereotyping always winds up being derogatory. It doesn't matter whether you are trying to advertise to farmers, Hispanics or Yuppies, no one likes to be neatly lumped into some group".

Later, the word lost its political connotations and, particularly after the 1987 stock market crash, gained the negative socio-economic connotations it enjoys today. By 1991, TIME proclaimed the death of the yuppie in a mock obituary.cite web | title = The Birth and -- Maybe -- Death of Yuppiedom | first = Walter | last = Shapiro | url = http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,972695-1,00.html | year = 1991 | accessdate = 2007-04-28]

Notable cultural depictions of yuppies

*"The Bonfire of the Vanities", by Tom Wolfe, a "satire of yuppie excess" [cite news|url=http://www.ew.com/ew/article/0,,276085,00.html|title=Things that Make You Go Hmmm...|author=Will Lee|date=28 April 2000|publisher=Entertainment Weekly|accessdate = 2007-04-28]
*"Bright Lights, Big City" by Jay McInerneycite news|url=http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,145267,00.html|title=Yuppie Lit: Publicize or Perish|author=R.Z. Sheppard|publisher=TIME magazine|date=June 24, 2001|accessdate = 2007-04-28] (McInerney himself has been called "the archetypal yuppie") [cite news|url=http://www.maryellenmark.com/text/magazines/elle%20uk/909O-000-007.html|title=Jay Watch|date=August 1996|author=Mary Ellen Mark|publisher=Elle magazine UK|accessdate = 2007-04-28]
*"Fight Club", the 1996 Chuck Palahniuk novel and 1999 film adaptation, follows "a disenchanted yuppie ... numbed by the sterile materialism of modern life."cite news|url=http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/special_report/1999/03/99/tom_brook/506620.stml|title=Showdown at the Fight Club|author=Tom Brook|publisher=BBC|date=5 November 1999|accessdate = 2007-04-28]
*"Slaves of New York" by Tama Janowitz describes a later (early 1990s) evolution of the Yuppie, in which the upper tier made considerably more than the lower, supporting tier, the "slaves" of the title, who were trapped by rents and insufficient salaries into a struggle merely to stay afloat and in Manhattan
*"Rain Man", Tom Cruise's character is described in the region 2 DVD commentary and various reviews of the film as being a person embodying the worst stereotypes of 1980s yuppies.
*"American Psycho", the 1991 Bret Easton Ellis novel and 2000 film about yuppie serial killer Patrick Bateman. [ [http://www.accessmylibrary.com/coms2/summary_0286-20297347_ITM American Psycho: a double portrait of serial yuppie Patrick Bateman] ] [ [http://www.amazon.com/American-Psycho-Unrated-Version-Christian/dp/B00004U8H4/ Amazon.com: American Psycho] ] [ [http://wc.arizona.edu/papers/93/136/04_1_m.html Arizona Daily Wildcat: 'American Psycho' ties yuppie greed to serial killing ] ] [ [http://classweb.gmu.edu/WAC/EnglishGuide/Critical/Sample/alexbateman.html George Mason University: Into the Wilds of an American Psycho's Identity: Parallels between Into the Wild & American Psycho] ] [ [http://www.filmmakermagazine.com/winter2000/die_yuppie.php Filmmaker Magazine: "Die Yuppie Scum!"] ] [Goddard College Pitkin Review: " [http://web.goddard.edu/pitkin/2007_spring/ThePenIsMightier.htm The Pen is Mightier: Bret Easton Ellis' American Psycho] "] [ [http://www.ew.com/ew/article/0,,318714,00.html Entertainment Weekly: Book News: "American Psychodrama"] ]
*"thirtysomething", U.S. TV series, seen as a representation of "yuppie " [cite news|url=http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m1175/is_n10_v22/ai_6652864|title=thirtysomethingtherapy: the hit TV show may be filled with "yuppie angst," but therapists are using it to help people|author=Patricia Hersch|publisher=Psychology Today|date=October 1988|accessdate = 2007-04-28]
*"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. [cite web|url=http://www.channel4.com/film/reviews/film.jsp?id=109998|title=Wall Street Review|publisher=Channel 4 (UK)]
*"Stuff White People Like", satirical blog, poking fun at generalizations and yuppie culture. cite news|url=http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/la-oe-rodriguez25feb25,0,1952462.column|title=White like us|first=Gregory|last=Rodriguez|date=2008-02-25|accessdate=2008-03-20|work=Los Angeles Times]

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.Ayto 2006, p. 225.]
* DINKs ("DINKY" in the UK) is an acronym is for "Dual Income, No Kids [Yet] "; [cite book | title = The American Heritage Abbreviations Dictionary | page = p. 89 | publisher = Houghton Mifflin Reference Books | year = 2002 | isbn = 0-618-249-524] [cite book | title = Wordsworth Dictionary of Abbreviations & Acronyms | last = Dale | first = Rodney | coauthors = Puttick, Steve | pages = p. 44 | isbn = 1-853-263-850] at least one authority considers this to be synonymous with "yuppie". [cite book | title = The Merriam-Webster New Book of Word Histories | page = 141 | author = Merriam-Webster | year = 1991 | page = p. 141 | isbn = 0-877-796-033]
*"Guppie" is a gay urban professional.
* A scuppie is a Socially Conscious Upwardly-Mobile Person [Tom VanRiper. “ [http://www.nydailynews.com/money/2005/04/22/2005-04-22_going_green_cuts_profits.html Going Green Cuts Profits] ”. The New York Daily News, 2005-4-22. Retrieved on 2008-11-11]
* Yuppification often replaces the word "gentrification"; it is the act of making something, someone, or someplace appealing and thus marketable to yuppie tastes. [Algeo 1991, p. 228.]
* Yuppie flu was a sometimes derisive, and inaccurate, term applied to chronic fatigue syndrome, before its medical legitimation. [cite book| title = Emerging Illnesses and Society: Negotiating the Public Health Agenda| last = Packhard| first = Randall M.| year = 2004| publisher = Johns Hopkins University Press| isbn = 0-801-879-426| pages = p. 156]

ee also

*Fads and trends
* Gold-collar worker
* Hippie
* Hipster
* Model minority
* Paninaro
* Selling out
* Yippie

References

External links

* [http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_g1epc/is_tov/ai_2419101361 Yuppies] entry in the St. James Encyclopedia of Pop Culture