Like their ancestors, yetties have an attire that sets them apart from earlier generations–cell phones, Razor scooters and messenger bags. Yetties also have a different set of values from their predecessors–a kind of techno-libertarianism. Sam Sifton, a senior editor at Talk magazine and self-proclaimed “comic sociologist,” traced the evolution and typology of the species in his new book, “A Field Guide to the Yettie” (Talk Miramax Books, November 2000, 176 pages). Newsweek’s Joshua Phillips spoke recently with Sifton about the origins and development of this new social pedigree.
What is a yettie? Yetties are everywhere–they exist across the spectrum of the American population. Anyone who has one of these high-tech jobs or does something high-tech and has trouble explaining to his parents what exactly he does for a living is probably a yettie. Such as, “I’m a vice president for e-presence,” or “I’m a product development tech for Oracle.” It gets so confusing at times that even the yetties themselves have a hard time understanding what they do.
Where do yetties reside, aside from Silicon Valley and Silicon Alley? The Valley and the Alley are the most widely-known areas for yettie habitation. But Texas and Boston have tech centers. We’ve really got a Silicon Nation, though.
When did you first spot a yettie? I had been aware of them when I worked in [New York’s Soho district], which is where Silicon Alley is today. I worked for a weekly newspaper called New York Press, and after [finishing work] we would head to the local bars. Over the course of the last few years, the bars would fill up with a new type of person that I couldn’t really describe. I couldn’t figure out what they did for a living. There were these guys with skateboards, shoes, khakis, untucked shirts, dot-com T-shirts, messenger bags and all kinds of paraphernalia strapped to their bag and to their person. And I thought, “Who are these guys?” This was around 1997 or 1998, but it wasn’t until last year that I thought calling these people Yuppies or dot-commies just wasn’t going to work.
So have Yuppies essentially died? Yes, Yuppies are gone. They were killed off by the market crash of 1987. But we’ve all become Yuppies on some level. If you’ve had wine in a glass in the last couple of years, you can call yourself a Yuppie. And so the ethos of Yuppies certainly lives on. But that fellow in the yellow power tie, the loafers and the briefcase is gone.
What are other identifying marks that set yetties aside from Yuppies? Certainly business-causal fashion marks the yettie apart from the Yuppie. And let’s remember that the Yuppie usually worked in an established firm–as a banker or something–and made his money, to quote Tom Wolfe, “off the crumbs of the cake,” e.g., financial transactions. The yettie makes his money from entrepreneurial ventures, often of great risk.
What is the age range for yetties? You’ll find them mostly in their mid- to late-20s. But they could be in their early 20s, and they could go up to being really, really old, like in their 40s or 50s. One of the yettie types I identify is the “Crossover Geezer”–a guy who comes into give some mature timber to the board.
So yetties don’t necessarily have to be young? No, it’s a state of mind. Your prototypical yettie is young–probably 28. But if they have that sense of entitlement that all yetties have, then they probably fit the bill.
Do yetties typically belong to a particular ethnic or social class? No, that’s one of the interesting things about them. But they are overwhelmingly male–about 70 percent male. Yet the underlying state of mind for yetties is that brains win out, and the smartest guy in the room with the biggest, badest idea is the one that’s going to succeed.
How many different types of yetties are there? There are about 21. For the civilian, the most frequently sighted would be the “mouse jockey”–the educated working class of the New Economy. They’re the young men and women who you see crowding in at the Starbucks at three in the afternoon with Razor scooters and messenger bags. In airports, you’re going to see a lot of “nerd made good” upper-management yetties. If you see a guy wearing a guyabara shirt in first class flying from San Jose to Boston, that guy’s in the tech sector–that guy’s a yettie. And if he’s 26, sitting in first class and dressed like a skate punk, then that guy’s definitely a yettie.
How would you generally describe yetties’ values? It’s a kind of rape-and-pillage libertarianism. Privacy and freedom are of the utmost importance to both his political beliefs and to his bottom line. That’s why nondisclosure agreements, or NDA’s as they’re called in the acronym-rich environment, are so important. So it’s this kind of pseudolibertarianism that drives them. If you take Ayn Rand’s philosophy and send it to boot camp and bother it a lot then you come up with this self-entitled value system.
Is this very different from Yuppies’ values? Yuppies believed greed was good; yetties believe that greed is a given and they don’t give a damn about the numbers. While it is about the money, it’s not about the money. The greed is just accepted. What matters is that you have a better idea than anyone else because then you rule the world.
Do you think this kind of evolution is troubling? Not necessarily, because there’s a kind of pendulum effect to the culture and economy. It’s not troubling, it’s just change.
There’s a category for a yettie-journalist in your book. Are you a yettie? I wish I was a yettie in some ways, but I don’t think I’m smart enough. I don’t work in the tech center. I have benefited from the kind of casual business attire that these guys have foisted on the country. But I have not yet made the jump into the New Economy.
