** FLASH to loyal readers: I'm on the road again now so it's been difficult to keep up with the blogs, but here we are again! I'll fire off another few & hope it'll keep you in good stead . . . **
Well, the Yuppie explosion happened, around 1984. Living and working in NYC, being of that age, I definitely had some Yuppie friends -- who were "forgiven" their status and ambitions because they were nice, fun, helpful, generous people. My boyfriend at the time, Rick, had a couple of friends from PA who moved to NYC about the same time as he (early '80's) and they wanted to "make it" -- as the Washington Squares did -- and be successes.
I must admit, I did feel some envy and regret that I wasn't able to also be a respected professional -- which of course those white collar professionals in the offices of power were -- and I wanted to have money, but on my terms. And sure, part of me would love to be rich because that would mean different kinds of worries. . . and very likely I'd feel more respected in life.
Respect is so important to me. . . I do feel I respect myself, and respect others. But when I don't feel it, my anger swells and the tears (privately) come. A lot of the "boho hipsters" that I hung with (including the Squares) had a grudging admiration for Yuppies, but wanted them to show us some respect, too. When we did a good show with a big crowd, or when we were nominated for a Grammy, we felt more universal respect.
Back to Yuppies on Wikipedia: "Author and political commentator Victor Davis Hanson has written:
Yuppism... is not definable entirely by income or class. Rather, it is a late-20th-century cultural phenomenon of self-absorbed young professionals, earning good pay, enjoying the cultural attractions of sophisticated urban life and thought, and generally out of touch with, indeed antithetical to, most of the challenges and concerns of a far less well-off and more parochial Middle America. For the yuppie male a well-paying job in law, finance, academia, or consulting in a cultural hub, hip fashion, cool appearance, studied poise, elite education, proper recreation and fitness, and general proximity to liberal-thinking elites, especially of the more rarefied sort in the arts, are the mark of a real man.[5]"
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