Yuppie to Duppie

Children of yuppies* wanted for nothing. Their comfortable upbringing was filled with half-term ski trips, summers on the Côte d'Azur, Volvos and utility rooms. They naturally attended private school, or for those whose parents believed themselves to be more left wing than they actually were, a state school with an outstanding academic reputation and excellent facilities. When the time came for university they, as assumed their birthright, secured a place at a Russell Group** with a gaggle of friends. They had it set. Their bright future was inevitable. 

You probably know someone like this. Maybe you are someone like this. Let’s call them Andy. Andy studied Economics, but in another life would have chosen Film Studies, a subject their parents and school turned their noses up at. It wasn’t an ‘employable’ degree, or one with enough ‘earning potential’. They interned at an investment bank during the long summer holidays. By the time their three years were up, they had a graduate role waiting for them. They were on course to follow their parents into the professional-managerial class (PMC), just as planned. 

Then one day, only a few years into their gleaming job, a terse conversation with HR informed them that a restructure was making them redundant. Back in their childhood bedroom, they applied for jobs they were overqualified for. They still failed to even get an interview. Their parents’ easy success provided a roof over their head, but recreating it for themselves was now beginning to feel like a distant dream. The life course they’d always presumed was fixed was falling beneath their feet. 

Andy is a duppie: a downwardly mobile young professional. They have all the educational and cultural advantages of a typical middle class family, but without the bank balance that once followed such. They’re what sociologist Mike Savage would call an emergent service class worker: low funds, high social capital.  

A piece in The New Statesman by Vicky Spratt not only identifies these youthful corporate types as downwardly mobile, but downwardly and unhappily mobile, granting them the name ‘Dumpys’. I agree that their circumstances are unstable and unpredictable, but there are some clear ways duppies are riding these rough waves. 

* Young upwardly mobile professional
** A group of leading UK universities, often compared to the Ivy League in the US

Death Of The Yuppie Dream  

Downward mobility has become a familiar story. I recently posted a meme about the duppie that amassed a million views. Clearly, something about the archetype struck a nerve. 

The promise of the PMC dream has long been under scrutiny, and in the UK, social mobility has remained low. Before the 2008 recession, 60-65% of children outearned their parents. Just two years later, in 2010, this dropped to 44%, where it has remained since. In a 2013 paper, the academics who originally coined the term 'professional managerial class’ – John and Barbara Ehrenreich – declared the 'Death Of The Yuppie Dream’. 

‘Should we mourn the fate of the PMC or rejoice that there is one less smug, self-styled, elite to stand in the way of a more egalitarian future?’, the Ehrenreichs ask. They make an argument for both sides, acknowledging the role the PMC has played in oppressing the working class, and recognising the PMC as a ‘liberal’ force that has promoted scholarship and human service against pure profit. 

When Andy chose banking over their passion for film they made a bargain. They believed they’d be rewarded for selecting pragmatism with a stable, if not entirely fulfilling, life. It had been a recognisable route to success, so why does it now lead to no man’s land?   

The New Duppie Destiny 

In China, tang ping is a social movement that rejects intense professional competition and traditional personal milestones like buying a home, getting married and having children. Tang ping literally translates to ‘lying flat’, the idea being to ‘lie down flat and get over the beatings’ by adopting a ‘low-desire life’. 

But unlike tang ping, the Andys of the world are not completely rejecting the race for riches. Instead, they’re adopting a new approach and defining a new model of success marked by multiplicity, independence and refusing legibility.

1. Multi-Hyphenate 

Duppies like Andy are diverse in their skillsets. They’re adaptable and not constrained to a job title or straightforward career ladder.  Their working life will span several professions and sources of income. Each offers possibilities that others don’t, and if one slows down, they have somewhere else to direct their efforts.

This is the appeal of a portfolio (or multi-hyphenate) career. Several bets running at once. A phenomenon described as ‘stability stacking’ in Glassdoor’s millennial career report. Stability stacking requires constant adjustment, and while several precarious incomes do not add up to security, it beats your life hinging on the whim of an employer. 

2. Permalance   

The second characteristic of the new duppie dream is self-direction. Andy can still work with organisations, they can even take a full time role somewhere, while not letting go of the projects and relationships tied to them. Total commitment to an employer and drinking the corporate Kool-Aid, no longer stands. 

There’s something of this attitude that links to the death of the sellout, a concept Kim Petras aestheticises in the music video for ‘Need for Speed’. In a tight 20 second stretch, she squeezes in five product placements including Scrub Daddy and an organic yerba mate, displayed in her Malibu mansion. The American dream is still recognisable, but its promises have become material to exaggerate and skew. As Spencer Kornhaber writes in The Atlantic, the mood is ‘thwarted materialism’.  A cynical joke that mocks performance of success while admitting you still want it. 

As the SEED ‘Brand America, Interrupted’ explored, the glory of the American Dream has faded, and Thatcher’s falsehood of equality of opportunity has been devastatingly dispelled. But while there’s certainly disillusionment, hope is not lost, a sentiment Zohran Mamdani embodies. Well-trodden paths are no longer trustworthy. A new, dynamic approach must be carved out of the rubble. 

3. Mysterious Income 

The third characteristic is an outcome of the first two: a fluidity between professional roles and descriptions, making it impossible to be reduced to a job title. Depending on who asks, a duppie might reasonably provide any variation of answer. 

The internet joke about ‘mysterious income’ captures the confusion this can produce. A working life assembled from several activities is difficult to summarise as neatly as doctor, solicitor or teacher. Nor does it conjure a specific personality associated with working in a specific industry, be that finance, PR, fashion or tech. 

There are limits to refusing legibility however. If no one understands what a duppie does, no-one will hire them. But being clear about offering a particular service does not require them to make it their entire identity. They can explain what they do to a client, while leaving room to offer something else to someone else.

Reinvention = Possibility  

Together, these characteristics suggest a model of success that allows more experimentation and fewer permanent declarations. 

In my ‘Dark Mode’ piece for Matt Klein’s Substack, I argued that exposing broken promises makes it possible to write a new rule book. The Duppie brings that possibility into focus. Having discovered the limits of the sensible path, people like Andy are beginning to make choices their younger self would have dismissed as impractical. 

If yuppies were defined by excess and cash to spare, duppies are far more discerning. We are no longer in the age of company cars and tidy bonuses. Meritocracy is a myth. Duppies are still as ambitious as yuppies, but now have to determine their own course.