The Yuppie Bay Invasion (And Why It Never Really Left)

    In a recent New York Times article entitled "Tell-Tale Signs of the Modern-Day Yuppie," author Teddy Wayne laid out an interesting analysis of the transformation of the "yuppie" (that quintessentially 80's term for the easy-to-despise "young urban professional") into its contemporary, perhaps less obvious iteration.

    Without rehashing the entire article, the argument seems to go something like this:
 
    The 1980's, following the large social upheavals and economic insecurity of the 1960's and 70's (inspired by the likes of the beats and their sister movements), was a time of relative prosperity for those segments of society privileged enough to take part (i.e. almost exclusively rich white men). Think The Wolf of Wall Street.  These kinda guys were sitting pretty.

    Since that era, and especially in light of the recent financial meltdown, the image of these rich white financial masters has (understandably) suffered.  During this same period (i.e. since the 80's), the tech industry has boomed, with the explosion in Silicon Valley and other tech-centered cities signaling the beginning of a new era.  The demigods of this boom are the founding fathers of the industry - Steve Jobs, Bill Gates, etc.  These deified characters are what the techie aspires to and what society has seemed to approve as the next gold standard for achievement.  And the mythos surrounding these men (because they are, still, mostly men) is different than the successful 80's Wall Street hot-shot that we have all come to so easily despise.  The Steve Jobses of the world are held up as not only financially and technologically savvy, but we seem also to have deemed them as some new kind of 21st century green-certified (TM) health-conscious world-conscious gurus.  Without throwing our fearless leader under the bus, even Rob seems to have a special place in his heart for these guys.

    And on the surface, one can understand why.  Bill Gates, for example, has made considerable pushes in the areas of world health and poverty with the foundation that his wife Melinda and he put together.  And yet these admittedly wonderful and positive actions, when we begin to zoom out, seem almost as a kind of reparations attempt by those whose wealth was still built on a foundation that is tainted.  Sure, the Jobses and Gateses of the world didn't earn their fortunes by straight conning poor folks out of their paychecks like the yuppies of yore, but we know today that the tech industry is not quite clean, either.  Just to give an idea of what I mean: the metals that go into the chips and components within the very computer I type on (and do very much enjoy using) were mined by impoverished (probably brown) people a world away, likely in anachronistic, slave-like conditions.  Or how about the infamous stories of Asian workers throwing themselves from factory windows to escape their menial, low wage jobs. And it may seem obvious, but for anyone to make the kind of money that these two men alone have amassed, to establish the kind of enormous Babylonian empires that they have commanded, requires more than passive, left coast, happy-faced values.  These guys are ingenious, cut-throat capitalists with the profits to prove it.

    So image is a big deal, obviously.  Marketing.  It helps, too, when Ashton Kutcher (and soon Michael Fassbender) plays you on the big screen.  We all think we like Jobs and we all love the things his people gave us.  We love our iPhones.  Our Macbooks.  We also love not knowing things.

    So rather than the big cultural shift we might like to believe has occurred in the last twenty or thirty years, there has really been more of a cultural shuffle-step.  We internalized the ideals of Wall Street, then turned up our nose like we were really so much different.  The modern day yuppie is alive and well.  He is the combination of 1970's cultural hip-ness with 1980's ultra-capitalist rapaciousness.  He drinks his soy-latte in Tom's shoes and a zip-up hoodie before yoga classes, but this is nothing more than tacky cultural-appropriation at best.  His apartment is in the 'hip' part of town (see: gentrified, aka formerly non-white).  His hair is stylish and he wears his tattoos out to work because his job is oh-so-very-progressive so they allow that sort of thing.  He votes democrat because the right wing is 'so totally backwards.'  Not like him.  Not at all.  The cog has convinced itself it is not a cog, and therefore the wheels keep spinning happily in smug self-appreciation, thoroughly unaware that the machine they are driving is a tank that is crushing the world they needs to survive (and anyone else not so lucky as to be an oh-so-special chosen cog).  The tank, of course, is very pretty and happy with big happy faces all over it.  Image matters.

    Wayne's article ends with a funny nod to the never really definable but always apparently detestable subject of the 'hipster.'  Wayne argues that the hipster is possibly the best this generation has to offer towards rejecting the world of the yuppie.  The hipster still fashions himself 'hip,' but in a kind of second-hand, self-aware way.  The hipster can see through the constant grasping desires of the yuppies, having witnessed the failure of his parents' generation in this pursuit of happiness through wealth, so he contents himself with the broken iPhone and the thrift-store clothing.  He's still trying, he just sees how futile it all is.  He is like the yuppie minus the ambition.

   Wayne clarifies that this is a pretty weak example of rejecting the cultural paradigm.  The hipster won't be starting a revolution anytime soon.  I won't jump on the hipster hating train, as that ship has sailed about a thousand times over already, but suffice it to say that I agree.  If that is the best we have to offer, we are in a sadder state of affairs than I thought.  So as some inspiration for being the change we want to see, I shall leave you with some more videos:

(And here is the NYTimes article)