Yuppie
Yuppie is short for "Young Urban Professional," or Young Upwardly Mobile Professional (used less often), a phrase that cropped up after World War II. It can be traced in reference back to 1968, when the baby boomers were graduating while businesses expanded globally and were in desperate need of educated professionals. However, it came to more general acceptance in the 1980s with the Asian tigers and market expansion till the crash of 1987.
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After the 1980's it has been assigned as a primarily derogatory term for smug, overpaid, too quickly promoted college graduates to early 30's professionals. It is quickly associated with those who ride the bubbles of the economy, or those who live outlandishly lavish lifestyles while young. Mostly used as an easier way to say "smug greedy a-hole with money."
It became a very bandied-about term following the 2007 economic crash and 2008 presidential election,[1] thrown about with abandon by those in "Real America" (aka Main Street[2] or Jesusland) at those outside of it. It is typically aimed at most anyone who works in a white collar job, lives in/near a major city, has an education, has a decent amount of money in the bank, or is a banker/works on Wall Street/deals with finance of any sort.
It's still the alternative to stereotyping middle class liberals as broke dirty hippies, or ultra rich limousine liberals. Ironically, a lot of young urban conservatives fit the stereotype even better.
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References
- Specifically targeting Barack Obama, thought this is a bit problematic as he was older than Teddy Roosevelt, JFK, Bill Clinton and Ulysses S. Grant when he was inaugurated and had roughly the same amount of political and legal experience as Abraham Lincoln beforehand.
- And this is while a Cloth coat Republican hasn't been in the Oval Office for over half a century.