Monday, August 16, 2010

Another thing I'm against - Yuppies

When I still used to visit Minnesota, my brother was  living in a certified Yuppie neighborhood.  The women and men who lived there were greenie-weenies who deplored the destruction automobiles wrought on the environment.  They made no connection to their own two or three trips to the local organic grocery store in order to throw the simplest of dinner parties. I'm sure they felt that by bringing their re-usable hemp grocery bags to the store more than made up for the over use of their personal vehicle.

Most of these people seemed incapable of doing anything of real value.   Replacing a washer in a faucet was a mystery - never mind anything more complicated.   Many of them delayed starting their families in order to advance whatever wimpy "career" they settled on, and had to resort to expensive fertility treatments or adopt a designer baby - preferably from an Asian country, so everyone would be sure and know how open, charitable, and tolerant they were, and then dress the aforementioned baby from the racks of Baby Gap.

I don't recall any of them actually attending a church.  For them, being "spiritual" was way more important than being "religious."  All those pesky rules and such were not for them.  You could almost guarantee finding a Buddha sitting somewhere in their house, or books on Zen gracing their bookshelves.  Christianity was just another of a myriad of ways to attain nirvana, or whatever, and was best left to the lower classes.

Whenever they gathered, discussions were usually about wine or the latest running of the Vagina Monologues at the local theater.  The ladies, who generally eschewed makeup, had straight hair (trimmed every 4 weeks at the latest and most expensive hairdresser), and adorned their feet in Birkenstocks or little-girl flats.  High heel pumps were for trailer trash, doncha know.  The men had on their perfect little golf shirts and khaki's or cargo pants from The Gap.

They bemoaned the rotten capitalists who were ruining the world, but still managed a trip or two per day to Caribou Coffee for their soy-based latte.   Shop at a thrift store?  Why no - not when you have Macy's or any number of cute little boutiques in the Grand Ave. area of St. Paul.

Being a Yuppie is not limited to a certain age group.  Being a Yuppie is a state of mind, or as I like to say, no mind at all.  Most of them are liberals, meaning, as my husband says, "people who hadn't thought things through." If you were a conservative, a trip to the Twin Cities during an election cycle felt like entering enemy territory.  They loved Obama.  He was "historic", and being such forward thinking folks,  they wanted to be a part of history being made.

If it was mentioned that I lived in Idaho, the blank stares directed my way were astonishing.  Many were not even sure where the heck Idaho was - another kudo for their over-priced college education. I would have to assure them that we did indeed have running water and flush toilets.  Hell, we even have Starbucks, but sadly, no White Castle.

I don't miss Minnesota.  I left when I was 17 and spent my most important formative years in Houston, TX during the boom times.   I made a quick stop back to Minnesota in my early thirties and couldn't get out fast enough.  The Muslim Somalis are making great inroads in conquering Minnesota.   They're welcome to it...


Victor Davis Hanson, in his latest National Review Online article, gives us a wonderful definition of a Yuppie:
Yuppism, remember, is not definable entirely by income or class. Rather, it is a late-twentieth-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.
There were too many times to count that I sat and listened to these people who were so out of touch with reality, and in most cases, educated way beyond their intelligence, that I formed a pretty substantial picture of who they were.  Mr. Hanson does a remarkable job of putting into words who these people are.  Take a moment and read his article:   Obama: Fighting the Yuppie Factor

NB - this post does not reflect my feelings for my wonderful Minnesota blogger "family" without whom I would surely lose what little was left of my mind...

Some others who have posted on What They're Against:

LarryD
Tom in Vegas 
Angela M 

Feel free to join the What I'm Against marathon meme.  It's fun and relieves stress.  Really!

6 comments:

Old Bob said...

Say dere, Miss Adrienne, yew know Min-na-SO-ta ain't fer effrybody, so golly nej, I ain't gonna t'row stones at yew fer not likin' it here. But yah, shewr, yew're right on da money ve got tew many o' dem dam Yuppies here. Some o' dem ve call Yumpies, dat meanss Young Upvardly Mobul Perfessionalss. Dey hire somevon tew vash da house and somevon elss tew mow da lawn, vhen dey kewld dew it demselves, den dey go spend more money at da yim tew get da eksersise. Dere ain't no sense ta dat, nej fyda! So ve all got tew fergiff yew fer not likin' Min-na-SO-ta much (yew know dere iss some people don't eefen like lewtfisk), besides dat's vhat da Lord sayss ve got tew dew. An yew know He iss alvays right. Best regards from Ola Bjornsson in Min-na-SO-ta!

Adrienne said...

Bob - "Dey hire somevon tew vash da house and somevon elss tew mow da lawn, vhen dey kewld dew it demselves, den dey go spend more money at da yim tew get da eksersise.

Honestly - I had almost the same exact thing in my post and then took it out (well - maybe not the dialect part - heh)

I don't like the Twin City Yuppies - you most definitely are not one... :-)

Old Bob said...

Thank you, Adrienne! I take that as a high compliment, being neither young nor a professional, but most important, I don't have the mindset.

In one pungent sentence, they think their s--- don't stink.

Terry Nelson said...

I'm with you on the yuppies - I know the neighborhood(s) too.

Bob Belvedere said...

Marvellous!

Quoted from and Linked to at:
'But Yuppie, You're Ten Years Dead'. 'I Never Died', Said He

Anonymous said...

Adrienne, it's hard to believe so many of the blog posts I read reflect my own thoughts. Bob Belvedere at The Camp of the Saints posted this link, and I am EVER so grateful to him. And you. I spent some time in Minnesota as a youngster, it's where one branch of my family emmigrated to Montana from. I was too young to care about politics then. Now I'm too old NOT to care about politics. I just had to share what the little helmet sticker on my fridge says - "Silly Yuppies - Trailers Are For Boats."