intellectual properties

YAWN ??

in my line of work, there are a lot of acronyms. acronyms for projects, for agencies and organizations, for species, for work tools, for groups, for research, everything. in the social world there are also a lot of acronyms, and now with people writing in txt shorthand all over the place sometimes it’s impossible to tell what’s an acronym and what’s just a word without vowels.

there are a lot of words in general use out there that most people don’t even realize are acronyms, like “SCUBA”. and YUPPIE. oh, the yuppie. how much i try to avoid fitting into that acronym. here in SF we also have “yippies” = yuppie hippies, or white collar hippies (they’re richer and smell better. they own hybrids and spend thousands on solar electricity for their houses and yoga retreats and eco-vacations, etc.) i think most of my friends (and many of my coworkers) almost qualify as yippies. afterall, we’re young, urban, often-professional with disposable incomes, and semi-hippie in that most of us have a sustainability bent. but for some people, the connotation/connection to the word yuppie is too strong, and many of us are artists, not “professionals”.

so, avoiding the “yuppie” link and focusing explicitly on Gens X and Y and dot-com era 30somethings, a new acronym has been created for this group of young wealthy people who care about the environment: YAWNs – Young and Wealthy but Normal:

They drive hybrid cars, if they drive at all, shop at local stores, if they shop at all, and pay off their credit cards every month, if they use them at all.

They may have disposable income, but whatever they make, they live below their means in a conscious effort to tread lightly on the earth.

They are a new breed of Gen Xers and Y’s, Young and Wealthy but Normal, or Yawns.

this acronym has a lot of issues. first, obvi, is the phonetic. YAWN!? secondly, what does “normal’ mean here? not paris hilton? because “normal” in most parts of the country does not = eco-conscious and living below your means. even in SF, where many of these YAWN types live, the young and wealthy are often concentrated in the Marina district, which although it does have a lot of yoga studios and organic coffee shops, is not what i would call a hotbed of sustainable living philosophies and is what is normal there is what is normal elsewhere: affluenza. my point is that sustainable living isn’t “normal” almost anywhere – although it’s on the rise among affluent types, yes (and greenwashing has made some people think they’re living sustainably when they’re NOT), it’s not “normal” in a general population context – and i’m finding this “wealthy BUT normal” phrasing really odd.

i love sociology, and i love demographics and statistics (which is why my current internship @ american environics has been very interesting), but i hate that the tendency is to recognize loose patterns as definitive categories instead of as points on a spectrum. the YAWN label is ill-fitted, and i don’t think going to stick.

arduous sustainability blog agrees and offers an alternative acronym: Apples! APLS: Affluent Persons Living Sustainably (nothing that affluence is relative).

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Filed in culture and random linkage | Tagged with affluenza, bourgeoisie, greenwashing | Comment (0)