Candice Goree Media Studies 170 May 1st 2014 J. Retzinger Who are the Yuppies? The 80’s were a decade of great change. It became obvious that there was a widening between the classes. The middle class was disappearing and people took different approaches to dealing with this fact. One way of life that became synonymous with the 80’s was being a young, urban professional, or what people at the time coined a Yuppie. Due to the widening wealth gap, it became essential to market products as either upscale and downscale. Producers were forced to place their items in one frame of reference of the other, fancy of frugal. To sell items with the high price tag advertisers played on the yuppie habit of compensatory spending. Yuppies did not want to be confused with low class or middle class, so they spent in order to show their status to the world (Ehrenreich, 229). This made it easy for advertisers to depict a way of life in advertisements that created the picture of what people needed to purchase to prove their place; which is still a tactic used today. In order to sell commodities E*TRADE has created an advertisement that reinforces the Yuppie values of the past while differing from the overt nature of 80’s advertisements. The E*TRADE advertisement is a prime example of the yuppie way of life. One was a unashamed desire to get ahead through mental work. Another trait that this ad shows is the Yuppie desire to marry an equal counterpart. The last factor is a fixation with physical fitness. With all of that said, this E*TRADE ad is far less overt with its reference of the yuppie desire to show their class through consumer goods. A Yuppie is made up of different demographics, age, address and class (Ehrenreich, 196). They wer... ... middle of paper ... ..., the E*TRADE ad shows how advertisers present a typical cliché like Yuppie, yet make it less overt to make the product relevant to all groups. When one looks at the characteristics of an 80’s yuppie, one can see how they are clearly still represented today. Although the yuppie title may have fallen out of favor, we can see that the traits that defend them are still alive and still in advertisements today. Whether it is their workaholic lifestyle, their fitness craze or their choices in mates; Yuppies are still here and are still shown on the pages of magazine ads. Today the average consumer might not be able to spot a Yuppie in an ad, but they will still be able to relate in some way to the yuppie on the page. Work cited Ehrenreich, B. (1990). Fear of falling: the inner life of the middle class. New York: Perennial Library.
During the 1980’s, many Americans were incredibly materialistic; they were only concerned with the “things” in life, not with life as it was. In the musical world, Madonna was becoming popular. One of her greatest hits, Material Girl, explains it all. Many women only focused on themselves, and they relied on men to support their extravagant lifestyles (CITATION, #). The type of men that women typically went for were young urban professionals, who were known as yuppies. These men were able to support themselves financially and were upper-middle class men in their twenties and thirties (CITATION,#). Since the men were financially secure, they were able to afford the nicer things in life like houses, cars, and vacations. The reasons why women would flock to these men was because they loved the extravagant gifts they were receiving, and it just seemed like -everyone wanted a “yuppie”- it was the new cool thing. On a day to day basis, the people in the 80s always looked unique. One way was by power dressing. The men and women always had the best of the best; from tailored suits, to shoulder pads, to even pin stripe suits (CITATION, #). One of the main objectives in the 80’s was that people were only focusing on the materials, or the t...
In the 1997 article Listening to Khakis, published in the New Yorker, Malcolm Gladwell effectively paints a vivid picture of the thought and science that goes into advertising campaigns. Gladwell begins his paper by focusing on the Dockers’ advertising campaign for their line of adult male khaki pants, which he labels as extremely successful. This campaign was the first line of successful fashion advertisements aimed directly toward adult males (Gladwell, 1997). This campaign was cunningly simple and showed only males wearing the pants being advertised with the background noise filled with men having a casual conversation (Gladwell, 1997). This tactic was used because studies showed that Dockers’ target market felt an absence in adult male friendships. (Gladwell, 1997). The simplicity of the advertisements was accentuated as to not to deter possible customers by creating a fashion based ad because, based on Gladwell’s multiple interviews of advertising experts, males shy away from being viewed as fashion forward or “trying to hard” (Gladwell, 1997).
Thomas Frank’s book entitled The Conquest of Cool: Business Culture, Counterculture, and the Rise of Hip Consumerism takes a poignant look at the advertising world of the 1950’s and 1960’s, exploring how advertising played a role in shaping the next generation of consumers. Frank points out that he believes many misunderstand how important the key industries of fashion and advertising were to the shaping of our consumer culture, especially in getting Americans to rethink who they were. The industry of advertising was not conforming to the upcoming generation, instead the new consumer generation was conforming to the ideals of the advertising industry. Frank believes that the advertising and fashion industries were changing, but not to conform to the new generation, instead to shape a new generation of consumers.
The advertisements in Life magazine create a certain deception of women in the early 1950’s and give a message about class. Women are portrayed in a flattering way and are shown to be content with their lives. However, the magazine advertisements, in their sexist nature, give off the message that women are meant to be secluded from anything that is not related to domestic work, creating the female housewife stereotype. Constantly women are shown in advertisements relating to appliances, cleaning, and being a good wife. Class in Life magazine is also shown by the possession of materialistic objects, like cars. It gives off the message that by owning these objects one is essentially living the dream.
There are many people who are driven by consumerism and many people who wish they can get in touch with that type of world. Consumers are often promoted to advertise more of the products that they are buying to get more people to buy more products. Hari Kunzru, author of “Raj, Bohemian,” creates a narrator who is obsessed with maintaining his individuality and free will in a world that is overcome with consumerism. Believes that the world takes away individuality when consumerism comes into play and how hard it is to maintain their true self. In her LA Times article “Teen Haulers Create a Fashion Force,” Andrea Chang writes about the phenomenon of teenage Youtube users who make videos that publicize their latest shopping binges. She expresses
The world we are living is a fast paced ruled by the media. We are surrounded by images of, perfect bodies, beautiful hair, flawless skin, and ageless faces that flash at us every day. These images are constantly in our minds throughout our lives. Advertisements select audience openly and target them with their product. The advertisement is implied in order to be like the people in the advertisements you must use their product. This approach is not new to this generation, but widely used today. The advertisements grab people attention and persuade them with the appearance of beauty and happy women that looks sophisticated to people eyes.
In 1899 Thorstein Veblen wrote The Theory of the Leisure Class: An Economic Study of Institutions. In this work, Veblen presented critical thinking that pertains to people’s habits and their related social norms. He explores the way certain people disregard the divisions that exist within the social system, while subsequently emulating certain aspects of the leisure class in an effort to present an image of higher social status. He also presented the theory of conspicuous consumption, which refers to an instance when a person can fulfill their needs by purchasing a product at a lower cost that is equal in quality and function to its more expensive counterpart; however, said person chooses to buy the more expensive product, by doing so, they are attempting to present an image of a higher social status. The almost 110 year cycle between 1899 and 2010 reveals few differences in buying behaviors, other than the differing selection of luxury goods to indulge, or over-indulge in.
Americans have long since depended on a falsified ideology of idealized life referred to as the American dream. The construct of this dream has become more elusive with the emergence of popular cultural advertisements that sell items promoting a highly gendered goal of achieving perfection. In “Masters of Desire: The Culture of American Advertising,” Jack Solomon states that ads are creating a “symbolic association between their products and what is most coveted by the consumer” to draw on the consumer’s desire to outwardly express high social standing (544). The American dream has sold the idea of equality between genders, races, and socioeconomic backgrounds, but advertisements have manipulated this concept entirely through representations
2. Who was disgusted by the yuppie kids with "friends in low places"? These individuals had a false sense of superiority. They assumed they were better than other patrons at the bar. The differences among them was economical. The yuppies, believed all the individuals at the bar earned less money. Their attitudes and
It is believed that American people in the lower and middle classes have needs for status mobility. For example, when browsing through a fashion magazine, one can find numerous sections that are dedicated to creating ways to look like the featured model or actress for half the price. The intention of the article, in most cases, is to give others the impression that you are of high social status. In addition, advertisers often use people in the entertainment business to model their products so that the viewer may purchase the product. For example, when mimicking the purchases of hotel heiress, Paris Hilton one may believe, “If I buy this, I’ll look cool just like Paris Hilton!” The fact that this method is usually successful is a product of the anxiety felt by lower and middle class families. For those reasons, it is likely that Domhoff’s statement that the upper class “creates respect, envy, and deference in others,” is true. It seems that many of America’s lower and middle class families would like to create those same feelings of respect and envy in others.
Society tends to negatively stereotype the 80 millions Americans born between the years 1980 and 2000. According data found by Lauren Hansen and Ryu Spaeth in the article “Ways to Describe the Millennial Generation”, many people like to believe that millennials are narcissistic and that we only care about ourselves and less about what is going on in the world. By narcissistic they mean that we only care about materialistic things like money, image, self-acceptance, fame and affiliation (Hansen). They also assert that millennia...
In the essay The Chosen People, Stewart Ewen, discusses his perspective of middle class America. Specifically, he explores the idea that the middle class is suffering from an identity crisis. According to Ewen’s theory, “the notion of personal distinction [in America] is leading to an identity crisis” of the non-upper class. (185) The source of this identity crisis is mass consumerism. As a result of the Industrial Revolution and mass production, products became cheaper and therefore more available to the non-elite classes. “Mass production was investing individuals with tools of identity, marks of personhood.” (Ewen 187) Through advertising, junk mail and style industries, the middle class is always striving for “a stylistic affinity to wealth,” finding “delight in the unreal,” and obsessed with “cheap luxury items.” (Ewen 185-6) In other words, instead of defining themselves based on who they are on the inside, the people of middle class America define themselves in terms of external image and material possessions.
The Great Gatsby revolving around the 1920’s timeframe ,consumerism was booming with new ads surrounding promotions towards the products, giving positive attitudes accompanied with positive intentions and with key positive attributes towards the product or service displayed in advertisements with creative and innovative products or services
Many theorists suggest that consumption is correlated to the identity of an individual, that by purchasing goods from the mass market, it enables us to visibly establish our position within society. This differs from previous times in which a range of factors such as family histories, character and personal achievements played a significant role (Gabriel and Lang, 2006). Instead, there is the idea that the consumer has the ability to gain pleasure over objects, not just solely by the manipulation of objects, but through the degree of control over their meaning. The degree of control is developed and achieved through imagination and provides greater possibilities of pleasure experiences. This suggests that modern consumption can be seen as device that enables individuals to ‘dream’ about the desires they wish to fulfill. (Campbell, 1989: 79) (Cited in Gabirel & Lang, 2006)
in this segment are often brand conscious and enjoy the latest fads and trends. They...