Yuppie Defined

Yuppies (young urban professionals, or less commonly young upwardly-mobile professionals) is a market segment whose consumers are characterized as self-reliant, financially secure individualists. Since the late 1980s, the phrase affluent professionals has been used as a synonym, stripped of negative associations with the once-homogenous market.

Although the term yuppies had not appeared until the early 1980s, there was discussion about young upwardly mobile 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 20's and 30's 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 is sometimes credited for coining the term in 1982; however, the first printed appearance of the word so far found is in a May 1980, "Chicago Magazine" article by Dan Rottenberg. The word gained currency in United States when syndicated newspaper columnist Bob Greene published a story in 1983 about the former radical leader of Youth International Party, Jerry Rubin, whose members were called yippies. The proliferation of the word was effected by the publication of The Yuppie Handbook in January 1983, 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, and described 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" from people who fit the demographic profile yet expressed resentment of the label, "You're talking about a class of people who put off having families so they can make payments on the BMWs ... 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 its political connotations and, particularly after the 1987 stock market crash, gained the negative socio-economic connotations it enjoys today. By 1991, TIME proclaimed the death of the Yuppie in a mock obituary. (Source: Wikipedia)