Yuppie

Yuppie, an acronym for "Young Urban Professional", a term often used pejoratively, with connotations of selfishness, materialism, and superficiality. The writer Alice Kahn coined the word "YUPS" in an article that first appeared in the East Bay Express in 1982. (Weeks later, the "Chicago Reader" reprinted it and given its 200,000+ circulation was often credited with publishing it first.) Kahn comically depicted a new generation of commuters who began to take over the historically ethnic suburban neighborhoods of Oakland and Berkeley. More than anything, the story made light of their food choices and consumption habits. There must be a dictionary entry for this word now, and we should leave it at that. A dictionary's job is to provide definitions. An encylopedia puts the definition in prospective.

It is now being suggested that this page be eliminated due to its style or lack of references. Well, maybe I can fix the latter as I was there when the word "Yuppie!" came about.

I worked for the Express Newspaper for over a decade. The writer Alice Kahn was new to publishing. A nurse by trade, she had a wicked sense of humor and while her writing style might be considered lightweight, it seemed prefect for mocking this new demographic. The East Bay Express newspaper was relatively new too, a fledgling business whose very existence relied on the same readers and businesses that got slammed in the article. The article was particularly unkind to the new stores opening along Oakland's Rockridge Ave. When the article was in its final stages of editing, there was already a buzz in the office All the proof readers were talking about this story - and the damage it might cause by insulting both our readers and advertisers at the same time. Even the layout artists took turns reading “the boards.” (Remember, this was in the eighties - we were using hot wax to burnish the phototypeset strips of paper to layout boards.) But I'm getting ahead of myself. The publisher, a former writer herself, was going over the copy one last time before giving it over to typesetting. The art director needed a headline to design the cover with and deadline was approaching. The publisher didn't care too much for the way the story was written, there was something critically wrong with it - it lacked something but she didn't know what until it came to her. Throughout the story, the term used by Kahn was "YUPS." This, being Berkeley, near home of the Hippie, birthplace of the Yuppie, the publisher soon realized Kahn totally missed it. The publisher wrote a single word atop Kahn's typewritten page - "Yuppie!" and handed it over to production and by doing so, she coined the word that Kahn took credit for the remainder of her writing career. Even a careful reader may not have noticed that the word never appeared in her actual text!

The publisher came into my office after handing it over to the art director. She was rather proud of herself as she one-upped the editor with such an obvious solution.

We had lunch that afternoon, at the Rockridge Cafe, and discussed the potential fallout the story might cause us. It didn't.

Related terms

A Yumpie is a "young upwardly-mobile person". While this term is far less common, many confuse the derivation for Yuppie with that of Yumpie, and the two express broadly the same connotations anyway. Some sources (textbooks, even) state that yuppie actually stands for "young upwardly-mobile person".
Yippie is sometimes used to refer to a person with hippie values and attire but with yuppie consumer habits. However it is most often used to describe members of the Youth International Party, who have radically different views than the average yuppie.
A Yupster is a yuppie hipster, an upper-middle class professional who participates in the hipster cultural scene.
Buppie is a black urban professional.
Guppie is a gay yuppie.
Puppie is a poor urban professional.
Yupmo is a crossover between a yuppie and an emo.
Yuppify and yuppification are terms used in place of the words gentrify and gentrification but with similarly negative connotations.
A yuppie slum or yuppie ghetto refers to any neighborhood that is largely populated by a young well-off crowd, but often has other connotations of gentrification and rising rental and dining costs in a previously low-rent neighborhood.
An ORCHID is either member of a yuppie couple with a young child. The label is an acronym for One Recent Child, Hideously In Debt.
A yuppie food stamp is a crisp US$20 note issued by an ATM.
DINKs (also DINKY in the UK) are well-off couples who often have much in common with "yuppies". The label is an acronym for Dual Income, No Kids [Yet].
SITCOMs are former yuppies or DINKs. The label is an acronym for Single Income Two Children Oppressive Mortgage.
Yuppicide is the killing of Yuppies, and vehicular yuppicide is the act of wrecking a yuppie's BMW. A New York-based hardcore/punk band in the 1990s called themselves Yuppicide.
Yuppie Flu is a term formerly applied to Chronic fatigue syndrome, before that condition's general acceptance as a genuine medical problem.
Organic Yuppies is a term used in the UK for yuppies and middle class thirtysomethings obsessed with food and wine.
David Brooks characterized yuppies as bourgeois bohemians, or Bobos, in his book Bobos in Paradise. (Aka Trustifarians.)
A variation, yuffie, is a young-urban-failure, or more generally a failed yuppie.
Boughie (pronounced Bōō-zhee—an abbreviation of the word Bourgeois), is a derogatory term originated in African American Vernacular English, and used to describe an African-American of lower-class origins, who has elevated into "upper-crust", and has forgotten (or, has chosen to forget) about their true origins. Boughies tend to have fancy or refined tastes, style, and manner in the interest of appearing more cultured or sophisticated than their ordinary upbringing would suggest. The term is used prominently by many black stand-up comedians, in urban films like Boyz N the Hood (1991), and in television sitcoms such as The Jeffersons.

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Related terms

See also

References