Yuppie
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
 |
This article or section may contain original research or unattributed claims. Please help Wikipedia by adding references. See the talk page for details. |
 |
This article may require cleanup to meet Wikipedia's quality standards. Please discuss this issue on the talk page or replace this tag with a more specific message. This article has been tagged since November 2006. |
Yuppie is the neologism for the consumers identified in the advertising category "Young Urban Professional" or "Young Upwardly Mobile Professional." The acronym pejoratively describes said socio-economic demographic group as selfish, materialistic, and psychologically superficial people with much disposable income.
Generally, syndicated newspaper columnist Bob Greene is credited with having plagiarized the acronym "Yuppie" from Alice Kahn, who wrote about them in the East Bay Express in 1982, yet, the first, known citation of "Yuppie" is the 13 May 1981 Chicago Tribune newspaper article "Chicago: City on the brink", by R. C. Longworth.[1]
Originally, the word "Yuppie" entered wide use during the Gary Hart presidential campaign of 1984, as a neutral descriptor of the political demographic group of socially liberal, but fiscally conservative voters favoring his candidacy. Yet, when Newsweek magazine declared 1984 The year of the yuppie, the word shed its political connotations and gained its current negative and social-economic connotations.
[edit] Related terms
- Buppie is a black urban professional.
- yuppification often replaces the word gentrification, retaining the negative, class warfare connotations.
- DINKs (also DINKY in the UK) are wealthy couples who often have much in common with "yuppies"; the acronym is for Dual Income, No Kids [Yet].
- Yuppie Flu was a term applied to Chronic fatigue syndrome, before its medical legitimation.
- Reporter David Brooks characterized yuppies as bourgeois bohemians, or Bobos, in his book Bobos in Paradise, a.k.a. Trustifarians.
- Wuppie White urban professional.
- Guppie A gay urban professional.
