I’m close, but I don’t endulge in enough consumerist crap - I buy stuff that lasts for years instead of what’s trendy. Plus I’m a bit lazy.
A true Yuppie is a type-A personality. They drive BMWs or Volvos. They’re always wearing suits or blazers and are very career minded.
Preppies by comparison are laid back in a casual Old Money kind of way. Where as a Yuppie may bust his ass to get some high-powered summer internship, a Preppy would go work at Merryl Lynch for the summer with his friends Tad and Brooke (who’s dad happens to be an MD in the Private Equity group) so they can bum around the Hamptons on the weekend.
Yuppie is indeed a '70s term. I remember when I first heard it. I had just moved out from living with my first husband in 1973. I was asked if my move was because he was blue collar and I was a yuppie.
I was not, and that wasn’t the reason.
Again, not seeing the Volvo as a Yuppie car. Not even a Beemer, for that matter. I mean, they’re both practical, solidly built cars that will last for years. Volvo’s claim to fame is their safety innovations.
A Porsche seems kind of Yuppish to me. Hot to look at, lots of flash, not at all practical, expensive to run and maintain, etc.
I suppose I drive my Volvo, and my girlfriend drives her Beemer and we’re both as far from being Yuppies as I can imagine anyone being.
That’s why Yuppies liked them. Yuppies weren’t all flash and sportscars - they were desperately earnest and serious in their consumerism. New Volvos are pricey, but safe. 'Twas young, married Yuppies that had the Volvo stereotype.
As a side note BMW’s and German cars generally have not had great reliability ratings of late. If you want something that is going to last, buy Japanese.
No, no, no - Yuppies aren’t always flashy per se. Young singles, perhaps. But the stereotypical couples are, again, often at least faux practical, but faddish and extravagant in their practicality.
I think the association with Beemers or Volvos is just part of a generic descriptor of yuppies re: cars a lot of yuppies drive. It doesn’t mean everyone who owns one of those is a yuppie or yuppies only drive one, the other or both.
It’s kind of like people describing the Miata as the gay car. Again, a lot of gays drive them, but we don’t only drive Miatas and other people own Miatas too.
Another feature of 80’s Yuppiedom was the love for all things European, particularly German or Scandanavian. This is where the Volvo and Beemer fit in. Kitchens (and interiors in general) had to be fully equipped with the latest European gadgetry, and all in black or silver.
Fahrvergnügen was yuppie.
Sharper Image was yuppie.
In the late 60s-late 70s, anyone born into the Baby Boom generation was presumed by some to be supportive of The Movement–anti-establishment, pro-pot, heavily into sweet sweet Free Love, against whatever their parents liked or tolerated, etc. A surprising number weren’t, but most guys of that age wore their hair long at least.
By the early 80s, a growing number of boomers had stopped even pretending to like granola, Earth Shoes or Jefferson Starship. Diehards thought of these people as traitors to The Cause. Short hair, Volvos and Brooks Brothers attire were symbols of this rejection of 60s ideals, and the label “Yuppie” took root.
But the Yuppies’ numbers soared and the True Believers’ numbers plummeted. I mean, you can call someone a sellout or you can ask him for spare change, but it’s awkward to do both at once.
Anybody remember the yippies? The name for The Youth International Party (a variant on “Hippies” that is also used to designate the surviving circles of activists who came out of the now-defunct YIP).
Could the formation of yuppie as a “-pie” word be from this and hippies?
Kitchen gadgets, applicances, etc.: Moulinex, yuppie; Black & Decker or (shudder) Ronco, not yuppie.
Coffeemakers: Braun or Melitta, yuppie; Mr. Coffee, not yuppie.
Beer: Heineken, Kronenbourg, Tuborg, Lowenbrau, yuppie; Bud, Miller, Coors, Schlitz, not yuppie.
Vodka (not as popular then as now, but still): Stolichnaya, yuppie; Smirnoff, not yuppie.
Electronics: Bang & Olufson, yuppie; Pioneer, Sony, Hitachi, etc., not yuppie.
Herbs and spices: Cilantro and oregano, yuppie; salt and pepper (unless it was from peppercorns freshly-ground in a European grinder), not yuppie.
Cooking oil: Imported Greek, Spanish, or Italian olive oil, yuppie; Mazola, not yuppie.
Yes, I knew people who believed the European/Scandinavian idea, and had all the appropriate yuppie things. :rolleyes:
I remember when Abbie Hoffman (recently out of hiding) and Jerry Rubin were doing the college-lecture circuit together in the '80s. The ad poster had them shouting at each other: “You Yippie!” “You Yuppie!”
I disagree. A Volvo wagon is soccer-mom, rather than yuppie. (Yes, I have one, with three car seats in the back. It’s safe transportation for small children.) I am neither young, urban, nor professional these days, let alone upwardly mobile.
There’s no known use of the term “yuppie” before 1981. The term was defined in about 1984 as requiring that such person be less than 40 and make more than $40,000 (with possibly some requirements beyond that). People haven’t tended to change much whether they still think of themselves of yuppies. That means that some people in their early 60’s now still think of themselves as yuppies. It wasn’t a very useful term even back in the early 1980’s, and it’s even less useful now.
The term really doesn’t have any meaning any more. There was once a specific demographic for it, but it’s become a sort of catch-all insult to use on people who are educated, white-collar workers, when they like something the speaker disapproves of. There were a bunch of columns by Mike Royko in the 80s that set the basic tone for yuppie-bashing. Those were quite funny, but it’s become a bludgeon embraced by poeple fighting some battle in the culture wars. I have heard the term used on people who:
-Drive a European car
-Own a watch that costs more than $100
-Wear a tie to work
-See plays
-Buy organic food, or any kind of premium brand food
-Own a cat
-Don’t go to church
-Don’t like country music (or “Like their coffee beans already ground,” as Randy Travis put it)
