The Yuppie Handbook

  

Yuppies, of course, for Young Urban Professionals, and the one true guide to their carefully hectic life-style is The Yuppie Handbook (Long Shadow Books; $4.95). Tongue firmly in chic, Authors Marissa Piesman and Marilee Hartley tirelessly chronicle the ways of the Yuppie, along with its lesser-known subspecies the Guppie (Gay Urban. The Yuppie Handbook: The State-of-the Art Manual for Young Urban Professionals. Marissa Piesman, Marilee Hartley. Pocket Books, 1984 - Humor - 125 pages. The Yuppie Handbook 1984 Pdf Dc5100 Sff Drivers For Mac Free Purity Vst Plugins Downloads Teachers Guide And Answer Key Jarrett Claude Debussy The Girl With The Flaxen Hair Analysis Adobe Premiere Pro Cc For Mac Os X 10.7.5 Casio Fx 115s Battery How To Speed Up Civ 6 Casting Simulation Open Source.

http://eightiesclub.tripod.com/id295.htm

1984 Topics Professional employees, City and town life Publisher New York: Pocket Books Collection inlibrary; printdisabled; internetarchivebooks; china Digitizing sponsor Internet Archive Contributor Internet Archive Language English.


'First there came the hippies, politically and culturally rebellious participants in the counterculture of the Sixties. And then there were the preppies, materialistic and upscale, obsessed with status, who believed the privileges they took for granted were due them thanks to an accident of birth. Yuppies melded what they deemed the best of both worlds -- the materialism of the preppies absent the snobbery and the self-absorbed perfectionism of the hippie without the anti-establishment mindset. The term 'Yuppie' was first used in print by Chicago Tribune columnist Bob Greene in a March 1983 piece on Jerry Rubin, a hippie-turned-yuppie, and was bandied about extensively in the 1984 presidential campaign in which Colorado senator Gary Hart, a contender for the Democratic nomination, seemed tailor-made to appeal to the fiscally conservative but socially liberal yuppie voter.'
Yuppie'According to Newsweek, 1984 was the 'Year of the Yuppie' -- the young urban professional whose lifestyle and outlook made him/her a synecdoche of Reagan's America. Yuppies were, according to leftist Fredric Jameson, 'a new petit bourgeoisie [whose] cultural practices and values . . . have articulated a useful dominant ideological and cultural paradigm' for American society in the 1980s. Yuppies were lambasted as excessively consumptive in their pursuit of the American Dream without much regard for those left behind. The yuppie heyday was short-lived; critics gleefully described the stock market crash of October 1987 as the consequence of yuppie folly -- and the beginning of the yuppie's end. On November 11, 1987, 20,000 attended a 'Save the Yuppie' concert given (tongue in cheek) by U2 at Justin Herman Plaza in the heart of San Francisco's financial district. After the crash, a popular joke was that the difference between a pigeon and a yuppie stockbroker was that the pigeon could still make a deposit on a new Mercedes. 'Yuppie' quickly became a derogatory term, but there can be little doubt that the yuppie phenomenon had a lasting cultural impact.'
'Nearly three-fourths of yuppie households were headed by couples, and a yuppie sub-set called DINKS -- double-income, no-kids couples -- was identified. Married or not, DINKS worked long hours at professional/managerial jobs, postponed having children for the sake of their careers, and had lots of discretionary income which they used in consuming conspicuously, like good yuppies did. Yuppies often worked so hard that they had little time for sex; more than one DINK couple admitted that they had an answering machine at home just so they could talk to each other at least once a day.'
'Obsession with career was a hallmark of yuppie culture. As The Yuppie Handbook (1984) pointed out, work had to be personally meaningful, emotionally satisfying, and a vehicle for self-expression. Since staying busy was de rigueur for a yuppie, advertisers targeting them found the print media more effective than television -- a yuppie was likely to record China Beach or Moonlighting for later viewing and fast-forward through the commercials anyway. MetropolitanHome and New Yorker magazines were authentic yuppie publications. Meanwhile, upscale mail-order catalogs proliferated. Richard Thalheimer's San Francisco-based The Sharper Image earned a whopping $78 million in 1983 as the 'ultimate toy store for yuppies.' From espresso-cappucino makers and the Corby trouser press to a bathtub hydrospa and a $5,000 tanning bed, the most popular yuppie items had to be useful as well as fun to own. A definite yuppie decor developed -- postmodern art, tile bathrooms, wood floors, bare brick walls, pastel colors, glass bricks, potted plants and stainless steel Sub-Zero refrigerators were in vogue. Yuppies led the way in gentrifying urban neighborhoods, turning warehouse lofts and run-down brownstones into valuable real estate.'

'The work of talented young writers like Jay McInerney, Bret Easton Ellis and Jill Eisenstadt created a yuppie literary explosion, McInerney's Bright Lights, Big City was a huge success in 1984 and became a hit movie starring Michael J. Fox, Phoebe Cates and Kiefer Sutherland. With witty and fast-paced writing, McInerney subtly portrayed the downside of frenetic yuppie existence through a protagonist who resorts to 'Bolivian marching powder' (cocaine) to help him keep up with a life in the fast lane. Bret Easton Ellis explored the foibles of the 'New Lost Generation' in his bestseller, Less Than Zero (1985), while Eisenstadt scored big with From Rockaway in 1987. In Diary of a Yuppie (1986), Louis Auchincloss, though not one himself, explored yuppie morality. Some critics sniped that yuppie fiction was too trendy and superficial. While skeptics agreed that McInerney and other members of the literary 'brat pack' were fresh and talented voices, they complained that these chroniclers of Eighties lifestyle fiction had very little to say of lasting worth. Yet their work endures as a window into the yuppie phenomenon.'
'It seemed that many yuppies suffered pangs of guilt for being so obsessed with status. Some were ex-hippies, and the passage from hippie to yuppie was perfectly illustrated in the film The Big Chill, whose characters mourn their compromised values and missed opportunities for love and parenthood. The reconstructed yuppie was represented by the lead character in the hit television series Northern Exposure, which premiered in 1990; Dr. Joel Fleischman reluctantly embraces the abundantly anti-materialist values held by the eccentric but happy residents of Cicely, Alaska. As the decade came to a close, the term yuppie became synonymous with greed, self-absorption and a lack of social conscience, and no one would admit to being one. But in hindsight yuppies weren't all bad. As Hendrik Hertzberg, editor of the New Republic wrote, 'The fact is that . . . yuppies have better taste than yesterday's well-off young adult Americans, are less ostentatious in their display of wealth, . . . set a far better example of healthful living, and are more tolerant.' Here's the bottom line -- today many Americans still live the yuppie lifestyle, or wish they did.'

A 1986 survey by Louis Harris and Associates found the following:

The
73% of Americans believed that yuppies were primarily intent on making more money; 81% of yuppies agreed that they were.

72% of the public believed that yuppies were more concerned with their own needs than with the needs of others; the same percentage of yuppies agreed.

70% of those surveyed thought yuppies bought flashy cars and clothes in order to set themselves apart from others; 81% of yuppies said this was so.
The
Overall, the article views Yuppies as career driven, money obsessed, materialistic and self-absorbed individuals who dominated the 1980's. In the article the author quotes an idea from the New Republic, stating the healthier lifestyle of yuppies and expresses the difference between them and today's young adult. However, in the trailer for Bright Lights, Big City we see a more extravaggant lifestyle being lead, involving drugs and alcohol.

HistoryAlthough the had not appeared until the early 1980s, there was discussion about young urban professionals as early as 1968.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.' Joseph Epstein was credited for coining the term in 1982, although this is contested and it is claimed that the first printed appearance of the word was in a May 1980 Chicago magazine article by Dan Rottenberg. The term gained currency in the United States in 1983 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 (which met at Studio 54 to soft classical music) joke that Rubin had 'gone from being a yippie to being a '. The headline of Greene's story was From Yippie to Yuppie. East Bay Express humorist Alice Kahn claimed to have coined the word in a 1983 column.

This claim is disputed. The proliferation of the word was effected by the publication of The Yuppie Handbook in January 1983 (a tongue-in-cheek take on The Official Preppy Handbook), 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. 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 SAABs.

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 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 magazine proclaimed the death of the yuppie in a mock obituary.In the 1990s, most yuppies made a transition to the middle class but they maintain an upper-middle level lifestyle, as they age well to their 30's and 40's the 'yuppie' generation often got married and settled down to have children. The economic boom at the time have transformed some yuppies or higher-income couples into Bobos or the 'bohemian bourgeois'.The term has experienced a resurgence in usage during the 2000s and 2010s. In October 2000, David Brooks remarked in a Weekly Standard article that Benjamin Franklin- 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 'e’s a shape-shifter. He finds ways to reenter the American psyche.' Victor Davis Hanson also recently wrote in National Review very critically of yuppies.Read more about this topic:Other articles related to ' history'.

Famous quotes containing the word history:“. In a history of spiritual rupture, a social compact built on fantasy and collective secrets, poetry becomes more necessary than ever: it keeps the underground aquifers flowing; it is the liquid voice that can wear through stone. 1929)“The thing that struck me forcefully was the feeling of great age about the place. Standing on that old parade ground, which is now a cricket field, I could feel the dead generations crowding me. Here was the oldest settlement of freedmen in the Western world, no doubt.

Men who had thrown off the bands of slavery by their own courage and ingenuity. The courage and daring of the Maroons strike like a purple beam across the history of Jamaica. ”— (1891–1960)“Philosophy of science without history of science is empty; history of science without philosophy of science is blind. ”— (1922–1974).

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At a party my mother threw this weekend, I chatted with an old friend’s father, kidding him about the way he used to make his daughters cook and do the laundry for the family. “We also used to tie their allowances to taxes,” he told me. “When our taxes went up, we gave them less, so they’d learn.”

“But you didn’t succeed in making them Republicans,” I said.

“Not yet,” he said. “When they get money, that’ll happen. Everyone becomes Republican at some point when the money comes in.”*

I thought about that exchange this morning when I read this piece, The Return Of The Yuppie (originally from 2006 but making the rounds again on Facebook), written ruefully by a man who once muttered Die, yuppie scum. Twenty years later:

I have become the enemy. Hi, my name is Jeff, and I am a yuppie.We’re all yuppies now.

Of course, that term, yuppie, has fallen so out of favor that we’re not even supposed to use it anymore. We’re expected to come up with a neologism — a clever 21st-century inversion of the word. But we’re not going to do that, because we don’t need to: The yuppie of 1986 and the yuppie of 2006 are so similar as to be indistinguishable. A used copy of The Yuppie Handbook recently fell into my hands. The book was published in 1984 as a jokey piece of social anthropology, and it made a slew of observations about this new American species. The yuppie’s bizarre lifestyle preferences were intended to elicit populist guffaws. Here are some of the things, according to The Yuppie Handbook,that the budding yupster could not live without: gourmet coffee, a Burberry trench coat, expensive running shoes, a Cuisinart, a renovated kitchen with a double sink, smoked mozzarella from Dean & DeLuca, a housekeeper, a mortgage, a Coach bag, a Gucci briefcase, and a Rolex.

C’est moi, he realized. Quelle horreur.

This spring, Teddy Wayne at the Times added to the portrait of the modern-day Yuppie:

We have plenty of [pop cultural] equivalents today, such as “This Is 40” (and nearly every other romantic comedy) and TV’s “Togetherness” and the recently departed “Parenthood” and “How I Met Your Mother” (and most other dramedies and sitcoms). Their organic-buying, gym-going, homeowning characters, however, aren’t tagged as yuppies as readily as those from the previous era were. It’s not because they aren’t from the narcissistic upper middle class; they certainly are. But they look different now.

The yuppie has shifted from standing on the prow of his yacht in an attitude of rapaciously aspirational entitlement to a defensive crouch of financial and existential insecurity. This instability has fragmented the yuppie’s previously coherent identity into a number of personae, each of which can trace its lineage to its ’80s paterfamilias.

Collectively, these microyuppies are just as strong in their ranks as their progenitors, if not more so. Three decades ago, the yuppie was viewed as a self-interested alien invader in an America that had experienced a solid 20 years of radical activism and meaningful progress in civil rights and women’s liberation. A generation and a half later, we have so deeply internalized the values of the yuppie that we have ceased to notice when one is in our midst — or when we have become one ourselves.

If Kafka wrote “the Metamorphosis” today, it would begin like so: “One morning, when Gregor Samsa woke from troubled dreams, he found himself transformed in his bed into a horrible vermin: a yuppie.”

The story would be about how his family would have to learn how to deal with him and their instinctive disgust. Only his sister would figure out a way to be kind — until finally even she, with tears in her eyes, would sidle into his dark bedroom one day, throw him a hoodie and some hair gel, and tell him it would be best for everyone if he left and got a job at Twitter.

Well, I’m not terribly bothered by idea that I might be a yuppie, considering I’m lucky to be making it in New York at all. I’m young(ish), I’m urban, I’m professional. I’m not huge on conspicuous consumption, but all I can really boast is that my gadgets are last generation: behold, my still-not-fixed iPhone 4; witness my creaky old Roku box! What can I say in my defense, before I am led to the guillotine? I voted for Obama twice, even when my husband was a corporate lawyer? At least I recycle?

*My friend’s father was not referencing Churchill, by the way. The quote often attributed to him — about being liberal at 25 unless you have no heart and conservative at 35 unless you have no brain — is actually unsourced but experts agree that it predates the 20th century. It might have been uttered originally by anyone from the King of Sweden to Victor Hugo.

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