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Yuppie, short for "young urban professional" or "young upwardly-mobile professional", is a term coined in the early 1980s for a young
professional
A professional is a member of a profession or any person who works in a specified professional activity. The term also describes the standards of education and training that prepare members of the profession with the particular knowledge and skil ...
person working
in a city.
The term is first attested in 1980, when it was used as a fairly neutral
demographic
Demography () is the statistical study of populations, especially human beings.
Demographic analysis examines and measures the dimensions and dynamics of populations; it can cover whole societies or groups defined by criteria such as edu ...
label, but by the mid-to-late 1980s, when a "yuppie backlash" developed due to concerns over issues such as
gentrification
Gentrification is the process of changing the character of a neighborhood through the influx of more Wealth, affluent residents and businesses. It is a common and controversial topic in urban politics and urban planning, planning. Gentrification ...
, some writers began using the term pejoratively.
History
The first printed appearance of the word was in a May 1980 ''
Chicago
(''City in a Garden''); I Will
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'' magazine article by
Dan Rottenberg
Dan Rottenberg (born June 10, 1942) is an author, editor and journalist. He has been the chief editor of seven publications, most recently ''Broad Street Review, an independent cultural arts website he launched in December 2005 and edited for eig ...
. Rottenberg reported in 2015 that he did not invent the term, he had heard other people using it, and at the time he understood it as a rather neutral demographic term. Nonetheless, his article did note the issues of socioeconomic displacement which might occur as a result of the rise of this inner-city population cohort.
Joseph Epstein
Joseph Epstein (October 16, 1911 – April 11, 1944), also known as Colonel Gilles and as Joseph Andrej, was a Polish-born Jewish communist activist and a French Resistance leader during World War II. He was executed by the Germans.
Communi ...
was credited for coining the term in 1982, although this is contested.
The term gained currency in the United States in 1983 when syndicated newspaper columnist
Bob Greene
Robert Bernard Greene Jr. (born March 10, 1947) is an American journalist and author. He worked for 24 years for the ''Chicago Tribune'' newspaper, where he was a columnist. Greene has written books on subjects including Michael Jordan, Alice C ...
published a story about a business networking group founded in 1982 by the former radical leader
Jerry Rubin
Jerry Clyde Rubin (July 14, 1938 – November 28, 1994) was an American social activist, anti-war leader, and counterculture icon during the 1960s and 1970s. During the 1980s, he became a successful businessman. He is known for being one of the ...
, formerly of the
Youth International Party
The Youth International Party (YIP), whose members were commonly called Yippies, was an American youth-oriented radical and countercultural revolutionary offshoot of the free speech and anti-war movements of the late 1960s. It was founded o ...
(whose members were called "
yippie
The Youth International Party (YIP), whose members were commonly called Yippies, was an American youth-oriented radical and countercultural revolutionary offshoot of the free speech and anti-war movements of the late 1960s. It was founded on ...
s"); 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". ''
East Bay Express
The ''East Bay Express'' is an Oakland-based weekly newspaper serving the Berkeley, Oakland and East Bay region of the San Francisco Bay Area. It is distributed throughout Alameda County and parts of Contra Costa County every Wednesday.
The ' ...
'' humorist
Alice Kahn
Alice Joyce Kahn (born 1943) is an American nurse practitioner and humorist who popularized the slang word " yuppie", describing young urban professionals, and also the term " Gourmet Ghetto", naming an influential retail neighborhood of Berkeley, ...
elaborated on the concept in a satirical piece published in June 1983, further popularizing the term.
The proliferation of the word was affected by the publication of ''The Yuppie Handbook'' in January 1983 (a
tongue-in-cheek
The idiom tongue-in-cheek refers to a humorous or sarcastic statement expressed in a serious manner.
History
The phrase originally expressed contempt, but by 1842 had acquired its modern meaning. Early users of the phrase include Sir Walter Scot ...
take on ''
The Official Preppy Handbook
''The Official Preppy Handbook'' (1980) is a tongue-in-cheek humor reference guide edited by Lisa Birnbach and written by Jonathan Roberts, Carol McD. Wallace, Mason Wiley, and Birnbach. It discusses an aspect of North American culture descri ...
''
), 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
Cultural liberalism is a social philosophy which expresses the social dimension of liberalism and advocates the freedom of individuals to choose whether to conform to cultural norms. In the words of Henry David Thoreau, it is often expressed a ...
but
fiscally conservative
Fiscal conservatism is a political and economic philosophy regarding fiscal policy and fiscal responsibility with an ideological basis in capitalism, individualism, limited government, and ''laissez-faire'' economics.M. O. Dickerson et al., '' ...
voters favoring his candidacy. ''
Newsweek
''Newsweek'' is an American weekly online news magazine co-owned 50 percent each by Dev Pragad, its president and CEO, and Johnathan Davis, who has no operational role at ''Newsweek''. Founded as a weekly print magazine in 1933, it was widely ...
'' magazine declared 1984 "The Year of the Yuppie", characterizing the salary range, occupations, and politics of "yuppies" as "demographically hazy".
[ The alternative acronym ''yumpie'', for ''young upwardly mobile professional'', was also current in the 1980s but failed to catch on.]
In a 1985 issue of ''The Wall Street Journal
''The Wall Street Journal'' is an American business-focused, international daily newspaper based in New York City, with international editions also available in Chinese and Japanese. The ''Journal'', along with its Asian editions, is published ...
'', Theressa Kersten at SRI International
SRI International (SRI) is an American nonprofit scientific research institute and organization headquartered in Menlo Park, California. The trustees of Stanford University established SRI in 1946 as a center of innovation to support economic ...
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 SAAB
Saab or SAAB may refer to:
Brands and enterprises
* Saab Group, a Swedish aerospace and defence company, formerly known as SAAB, and later as Saab AB
** Datasaab, a former computer company, started as spin off from Saab AB
* Saab Automobile, a fo ...
s ... To be a Yuppie is to be a loathsome undesirable creature". Leo Shapiro, a market research
Market research is an organized effort to gather information about target markets and customers: know about them, starting with who they are. It is an important component of business strategy and a major factor in maintaining competitiveness. Mar ...
er in Chicago, responded, "Stereotyping
In social psychology, a stereotype is a generalized belief about a particular category of people. It is an expectation that people might have about every person of a particular group. The type of expectation can vary; it can be, for example ...
always winds up being derogatory. It doesn't matter whether you are trying to advertise to farmers, Hispanic
The term ''Hispanic'' ( es, hispano) refers to people, Spanish culture, cultures, or countries related to Spain, the Spanish language, or Hispanidad.
The term commonly applies to countries with a cultural and historical link to Spain and to Vic ...
s or Yuppies, no one likes to be neatly lumped into some group."[
In 1989, rock artist ]Tom Petty
Thomas Earl Petty (October 20, 1950October 2, 2017) was an American musician who was the lead vocalist and guitarist of the rock band Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers, formed in 1976. He previously led the band Mudcrutch, was a member of the la ...
used the term in the song Yer So Bad
"Yer So Bad" is a song co-written and recorded by Tom Petty. It was released in 1990 as the fifth single from his first solo album '' Full Moon Fever''.
Content
It tells from the singer's viewpoint about his greedy sister being lucky enough t ...
, in the line "My sister got lucky, married a yuppie".
The word lost most of its political connotations and, particularly after the 1987 stock market crash, gained the negative socio-economic connotations that it sports today. On April 8, 1991, ''Time
Time is the continued sequence of existence and events that occurs in an apparently irreversible succession from the past, through the present, into the future. It is a component quantity of various measurements used to sequence events, to ...
'' magazine proclaimed the death of the "yuppie" in a mock obituary.
The term has experienced a resurgence in usage during the 2000s and 2010s. In October 2000, David Brooks remarked in a ''Weekly Standard
''The Weekly Standard'' was an American neoconservative political magazine of news, analysis and commentary, published 48 times per year. Originally edited by founders Bill Kristol and Fred Barnes, the ''Standard'' had been described as a "red ...
'' article that Benjamin Franklin
Benjamin Franklin ( April 17, 1790) was an American polymath who was active as a writer, scientist, inventor, statesman, diplomat, printer, publisher, and political philosopher. Encyclopædia Britannica, Wood, 2021 Among the leading inte ...
– due to his extreme wealth, cosmopolitanism, and adventurous social life – is "Our Founding Yuppie". A recent article in ''Details'' proclaimed "The Return of the Yuppie", stating that "the yuppie of 1986 and the yuppie of 2006 are so similar as to be indistinguishable" and that "the yup" is "a shape-shifter... he finds ways to reenter the American psyche." In 2010, right-wing political commentator Victor Davis Hanson
Victor Davis Hanson (born September 5, 1953) is an American commentator, classicist, and military historian. He has been a commentator on modern and ancient warfare and contemporary politics for ''The New York Times'', ''Wall Street Journal'', ...
wrote in ''National Review
''National Review'' is an American conservative editorial magazine, focusing on news and commentary pieces on political, social, and cultural affairs. The magazine was founded by the author William F. Buckley Jr. in 1955. Its editor-in-chief ...
'' very critically of "yuppies".
In the British TV series ''Only Fools and Horses
''Only Fools and Horses....'' is a British television sitcom created and written by John Sullivan (writer), John Sullivan. Seven series were originally broadcast on BBC One in the United Kingdom from 1981 to 1991, with sixteen sporadic Christmas ...
'' one of the lead characters Delboy
Derek Edward Trotter, more commonly known as Del Boy, is a fictional character from the BBC sitcom ''Only Fools and Horses'' and one of the main characters of its spinoff series, ''Rock & Chips''. He was played by David Jason in the original se ...
calls himself a Yuppie in Series 6 Episode 1 "Yuppy Love
"Yuppy Love" is an episode of the BBC sitcom '' Only Fools and Horses''. It originally aired on 8 January 1989 and is the first episode of series six, marking the start of the increase in running time from thirty minutes to fifty minutes per epis ...
".
Usage outside the United States
"Yuppie" was in common use in Britain from the early 1980s onward (the premiership of Margaret Thatcher
Margaret Thatcher's term as the prime minister of the United Kingdom began on 4 May 1979 when she accepted an invitation of Queen Elizabeth II to form a government, and ended on 28 November 1990 upon her resignation. She was elected to the pos ...
) and by 1987 had spawned subsidiary terms used in newspapers such as "yuppiedom", "yuppification", "yuppify" and "yuppie-bashing".
A September 2010 article in '' The Standard'' described the items on a typical Hong Kong resident's "yuppie wish list" based on a survey of 28- to 35-year-olds. About 58% wanted to own their own home, 40% wanted to professionally invest, and 28% wanted to become a boss. A September 2010 article in ''The New York Times'' defined as a hallmark of Russian "yuppie life" the adoption of yoga
Yoga (; sa, योग, lit=yoke' or 'union ) is a group of physical, mental, and spiritual practices or disciplines which originated in ancient India and aim to control (yoke) and still the mind, recognizing a detached witness-consci ...
and other elements of Indian culture
Indian culture is the heritage of social norms, ethical values, traditional customs, belief systems, political systems, artifacts and technologies that originated in or are associated with the ethno-linguistically diverse India. The term al ...
such as their clothes
Clothing (also known as clothes, apparel, and attire) are items worn on the human body, body. Typically, clothing is made of fabrics or textiles, but over time it has included garments made from animal skin and other thin sheets of materials ...
, food
Food is any substance consumed by an organism for nutritional support. Food is usually of plant, animal, or fungal origin, and contains essential nutrients, such as carbohydrates, fats, proteins, vitamins, or minerals. The substance is inge ...
, and furniture.
See also
* Social climber
A ''parvenu'' is a person who is a relative newcomer to a high-ranking socioeconomic class. The word is borrowed from the French language; it is the past participle of the verb ''parvenir'' (to reach, to arrive, to manage to do something).
Orig ...
* Dink
"DINK" is an acronym that stands for "double income, no kids" or "dual income, no kids". It describes a couple without children living together while both partners are receiving an income; because both of their wages are coming into the same house ...
(Dual Income No Kids)
* Hipster
* International Debutante Ball
The International Debutante Ball is an invitation-only, formal debutante ball, to officially present well-connected young ladies of distinction from upper-class families to high society. Founded in 1954, it occurs every two years at the Waldo ...
* Opportunities (Let's Make Lots of Money)
"Opportunities (Let's Make Lots of Money)" is a song by English synth-pop duo Pet Shop Boys from their debut studio album, ''Please'' (1986). It was released as a single in 1985 and re-recorded and reissued in 1986, gaining greater popularity ...
* Patrick Bateman, a murderous yuppie from the novel American Psycho
* Baby boomers
Baby boomers, often shortened to boomers, are the Western demographic cohort following the Silent Generation and preceding Generation X. The generation is often defined as people born from 1946 to 1964, during the mid-20th century baby boom. ...
References
Further reading
*
External links
{{Authority control
1980s slang
Age-related stereotypes
Class-related slurs
Lifestyles
Stereotypes of the upper class
Stereotypes of urban people
Upper class culture in the United States
Upper middle class
1980 neologisms
Socioeconomic stereotypes