Young Urban Narcissists
(This post has been updated)
"Yunnie" stands for Young Urban Narcissist. An obvious play on the outmoded "yuppie," this neologism was my earlier attempt to grasp a mass cultural shift currently generating and feeding on tremendous change in New York City--and much of the country.
While "yuppie" was aimed at professionals, describing people of a certain socioeconomic bracket, "yunnie" described a characterological type.
I originally introduced the yunnie in August of 2007. Since then, my ideas about the narcissistic personality and its effect on New York City have evolved. It's no longer a term I use, but you'll still find it scattered among old posts.
I've since become interested in the connection between wealth, greed, and materialism and malignant narcissism or sociopathy--the absence of empathy--illustrated in the work of Paul Piff and many other researchers. What I called the yunnie seems to be a psychopathic personality type that has emerged in the age of neoliberalism--for more on this, see psychoanalyst Paul Verhaeghe's writing on the topic.
A few old links:
As of 3/09, the idea of An Age of Narcissism has caught fire in the media. This Slate article provides an excellent overview.
A 6/12 cover story in New York magazine outlines research into the ways that having money, pursuing money, even thinking about money reduces one's empathy and makes you more, basically, narcissistic.
In 1/13, Consumer Affairs asked, "Are today's young people deluded narcissists?"
May 2013 TIME cover: "Here's the cold, hard data: The incidence of narcissistic personality disorder is nearly three times as high for people in their 20s as for the generation that's now 65 or older..."
A few NY Times articles:
Narcissism on the rise?
Everyone's a narcissist (and misunderstand the term)
Situational narcissism
"Yunnie" stands for Young Urban Narcissist. An obvious play on the outmoded "yuppie," this neologism was my earlier attempt to grasp a mass cultural shift currently generating and feeding on tremendous change in New York City--and much of the country.
While "yuppie" was aimed at professionals, describing people of a certain socioeconomic bracket, "yunnie" described a characterological type.
I originally introduced the yunnie in August of 2007. Since then, my ideas about the narcissistic personality and its effect on New York City have evolved. It's no longer a term I use, but you'll still find it scattered among old posts.
I've since become interested in the connection between wealth, greed, and materialism and malignant narcissism or sociopathy--the absence of empathy--illustrated in the work of Paul Piff and many other researchers. What I called the yunnie seems to be a psychopathic personality type that has emerged in the age of neoliberalism--for more on this, see psychoanalyst Paul Verhaeghe's writing on the topic.
A few old links:
As of 3/09, the idea of An Age of Narcissism has caught fire in the media. This Slate article provides an excellent overview.
A 6/12 cover story in New York magazine outlines research into the ways that having money, pursuing money, even thinking about money reduces one's empathy and makes you more, basically, narcissistic.
In 1/13, Consumer Affairs asked, "Are today's young people deluded narcissists?"
May 2013 TIME cover: "Here's the cold, hard data: The incidence of narcissistic personality disorder is nearly three times as high for people in their 20s as for the generation that's now 65 or older..."
A few NY Times articles:
Narcissism on the rise?
Everyone's a narcissist (and misunderstand the term)
Situational narcissism
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