The Cupcake Fad Revisited

The other night during a late night ride home on the A, I decided I had a craving for a cupcake. I remembered the way my boss described the decadent little pink-boxed cakes from the quaint pink and brown painted bakery down the street. (hmm...I thought, "if it comes in a pink box, its gotta be expensive.") I didn't let on when a co-working mate offered to buy a couple for the laptop-strapped kin. They were delicious, and yes, they were wheat and gluten-free as I found out when later visiting the Williamsburg bakery, Cheeks.

Like many other yuppies and dare-I-say-it New York transplants, I have found myself interested in the recent cupcake fad. And though I wouldn't pay $3 for a cupcake, I am still fascinated and dually disgusted by this hip trend.



And yes, I am a little late...The NY Times reported on this in 2003, and Gothamist is been there and done that. But everything I've read has had me exhausted from this glorified cupcake praise.

Cupcakes have taken over NYC as "retro-food chic," says a more recent NY Times article. An entire article on cupcakes, can you believe?

Really, I think it's just an obsession of the upper-middle class to indulge in the tea-party lifestyle. The kind where you don't have to work but can still afford to pay $20 bucks for a dozen of your friends to eat buttercream flowers.

Myrtle Ave. Offers Condos for Brooklyn Yuppies

It's easy to be a voyeur when all the new neighbors have glass windows. A few blocks down Myrtle - in both directions - you can sneak a peak into one of several new condos. While most have been bought, there are many vacant residencies, casting a ghostly glow of newly constructed cement and glass on the bustling avenue below. Myrtle ave, also known as Murder ave, where in the mid-90's Busta Rhymes was mugged in the White Castle parking lot - or at least that's what a long-time resident told me late last night in line for the hallmark creamy small burgers.

Now, Myrtle ave. even as far east as Nostrand avenue, is considered prime real estate for the yuppie. Developers are calling the strip "Clinton Hill," a sort of fraudulent advertising tactic so as not to deter buyers from the oh-so-scary neighborhood of Bedford Stuyvesant (where the properties are actually located).

On the corner of Myrtle and Nostrand, the recently erected "Mynt" condo has its immaculate entrance facing Marcy Playground and offers "refrigerated storage room for grocery deliveries." Who knows why these new residents can't walk, or even drive down the street to the grocery store?



Also, the converted chocolate factory on my corner is advertising a glass enclosed rooftop gym. This building is selling lofts for almost 500,000. Good deal, right? Maybe if you're in that bracket that lets you slide without paying property tax for a while. (more on that later)

The Absolute condo, west on Myrtle on the corner of Steuben street, is offering all the amenities of the modern day condo, not to mention White Castle is just next door. In The Developers Group ad there is mention of a "walk through an eclectic neighborhood to Fort Greene Park" - where, it isn't said, but you could get away from the people of color and young artsy Pratt students (you know, just in case, wink* wink*)





Neighbors, be ware!

a damper, dapper party

Check out this party I went to in Brooklyn. I didn't know the host - they requested dapper attire. They were all recent college grads with expensive shelving and a plasma television screen. I sat on the couch and took some photos. Note the large collection of alphabetized DVDs.

p.s. I didn't know what dapper meant until I showed up here...

You thought working class....you thought wrong

This is truly disgusting. New York based, Working Class Magazine, seems to have successfully appropriated the boho look, or at least has proven that the yuppie/hipster has to deny their wealth in order to be respected in NYC.

At least they could have named their magazine something a little less political - I thought hipsters were the antithesis of the proletariat.

Grups, Yups, and Pups

The best part about being a pseudo yuppie/hipster, is that I tend to attract other pseudo yuppies and hipsters. Not only do they seem to flock in my direction - since moving to Brooklyn many of my friends are self-identified non-hipster hipsters - I seem to be equally attracted to them.

I have classified them in different ways, and I'm sure they've done the same for me. The best part about being friends with non-hipster hipsters is the chorus of judgment and self-denial that is really the only key sign of a hipster: intellectually elite. Each wants to have their go-round of self-criticism, "imnotsayingimnotahipster," only to break down the irony of their situation: criticizing everyone else.

Thus, the beginning of the sub-yuppie/hipster categories...

1. The Grup, as recently defined by Adam Sternbergh, comes from a self-critique of his alternadad lifestyle, very much the margin between a grown-up hipster and a yuppie. Someone who will dress their kids in expensive crusty Che Guevara t-shirts, live in palatial lofts in Tribeca, and drive a Hybrid car.

2. The Yupster, similar to the grup, but more easily classified as a hipster with excellent heath insurance coverage. The yupster also wants to look poor (only buys $2 cans of PBR) and shops for deals on vintage clothing still out of the price bracket of anyone without a steady salary over 35,000 (with no children). They are more likely to complain about the temperature of their steamed latte than the rise of gas prices and are still way more in to the idea of skateboarding and riding a fixed gear bike.

3. The Yippie, something totally not cool these days. This Youth International Party reeks of too much of politics, caring about something, and maybe too much weed.

More to come...

Me, the Burgeoning Yuppie

In an effort to pen my first blog post, stop procrastinating and beating myself up for fear of poor grammar and spelling, I'll begin by explaining myself, in the position of becoming a full fledged yuppie. After leaving the hot mess that is Washington, D.C., moving to an unfamiliar area here, in Brooklyn, I have decided I can no longer deny my obsession with yuppies. I'll have to admit that I might (by some standards) fall somewhere between the yuppie/hipster demographic, but could easily locate myself as an upwardly mobile, middle class, college-educated, white woman. Washington, D.C., as I knew it growing up in the rapidly changing neighborhood of Mt. Pleasant, was full of the career budding, resume boosting hypocrites. As I grew into my teens, I noticed the coffee shop trend: outrageously priced, sugar loaded, caffeine drinks served at fast-paced, loud shops where folks (yuppies) sat around all day, supposedly working from their laptops. My first reaction, even as a young (non-working) teenage girl, was: "don't these people have jobs?" That was when I was informed of the new WiFi technology offered next to your steaming tall non-fat (two-pump) hazelnut mocha latte.

So, before WiFi, and even before the appropriation of yoga as a way to stay thin, yuppies filled the converted lofts and row houses of our urban centers and "up and coming" neighborhoods. It was in the 80's that they began to park their Beemers (BMWs) and Mercedes on the streets instead of the garages of their suburban parents , inhabit coffeeshops and upscale restaurants, and stroll designer carriages with pampered children through parks: the start of shameless gentrification. Shameless because these were the folks who were young, wealthy, and driven to accumulate more wealth. These yuppies also wanted to show it off and set themselves apart from the previous generation of hippies.

According to a 1986 survey by Louis Harris and Associates, 73% of Americans believed that yuppies were primarily intent on making more money; 81% of yuppies agreed that they were. Also, 72% of the public believed that yuppies were more concerned with their own needs than with the needs of others; the same percentage of yuppies agreed. Additionally, 70% of those surveyed thought yuppies bought flashy cars and clothes in order to set themselves apart from others; 81% of yuppies said this was so.

And so, this blog will continue to dissect the social demographic of our contemporary yuppie brothers and sisters, and when and why they choose or refuse to call themselves a yuppie.