A Glossary for the Nineties: Chapter 1 - People types
[Taken from A Glossary for the Nineties, by David Rowan (Prion Books, 1998), based on the column of that name in The Guardian's Weekend magazine through most of the 1990s. © David Rowan]
CHAPTER 1: PEOPLE TYPES
What type of nineties person are you?
ADULTESCENT n. Someone steeped in youth culture who is old enough to know better. Generally between their mid-30s and mid-40s, adultescents (also called those in middle youth) can't quite accept that they are growing up. (Hence typically found among newspaper editors, government ministers, etc etc.)
BABY BUSTER n. The advertisers' term for the over-educated, under-employed "Generation X" consumer born between about 1965 and 1974 (see X-ers , below). "Buster"? That's partly to contrast them with the "baby boom" generation; but it's also because advertisers kept confronting them once the high-spending eighties boom had given way to the bust days of the mid-nineties . . .
CARPET TREADER n. sl. What estate agents call timewasters who spend their weekends looking round houses, with neither the inclination nor the money to buy. A popular pastime in the nineties, simply because nobody can actually afford to buy property any more.
CARPETBAGGER n. fin. A speculator who moves money in and out of building-society accounts in the hope of bonuses when they list on the stockmarket. The term originally meant pioneering Americans who carried their possessions around in carpets after the Civil War. The only similarity nowadays is the civil war that breaks out among building-society boards when the speculators start getting impatient.
CIDERHEAD n. The nineties version of the eighties' lager lout. You are most likely to find ciderheads in the West Country, where police keep blaming them for public-order disturbances. Which means they join crackheads and (for those who remember) breadheads as modern media stereotypes.
DATAHOLIC n. Someone addicted to that very nineties drug, information. According to a Reuters study of 1,000 business people across Europe, we are becoming a continent of "screen junkies" and "information addicts". More than half of this new generation of dataholics claims to get a "high" when they find the information they need.
DUMP n. acr. A Destitute Unemployed Mature Professional, one who suddenly confronts a falling standard of living. The American writer Craig Carpel has noted that 65 per cent of Americans have no savings for retirement - so it is not surprising that the dumps are down in the dumps.
FADED GREEN n. A consumer who has become well-enough read on environmental issues to reject the meaningless greenery in which multinationals have been clothing their products. The roll-on deodorant that boasts of being ozone-friendly, for instance, would not impress a faded green.
FEMINAZI n. sl. A charming term for a hardline feminist, thrust into common usage by US talk-show host Rush Limbaugh, and thereafter wielded by those more right-wing members of the patriarchy who seek to deride the sisterhood. Derogatory, if we needed to say so.
FORENSIC HISTORIAN n. euph. A conspiracy theorist, in his (rarely her) own phrase. Fond of discussing the Kennedy assassination, UFOs and Waco, and the huge plot to wipe out Diana. He can prove, in all cases, that the Government is guilty. It's just that no one will listen to him.
FUTON MAN n. The stereotype invented by adpeople early on in this caring, whole-person decade to describe consumers whose needs are largely organic. Some marketing types talk of them as the the muesli knitters or the brown ricers. But they are not to be confused with fully fledged Greenpeace warriors , the rather more committed group advertisers have tended to abandon because their dogged environmentalism makes them rather sceptical consumers.
GLOBAL TEEN n. The digitally clued-in younger sisters and brothers of the Generation Xers. We used to call them computer nerds, but then Douglas Coupland invented global teens. Logging on now to a network near you.
GREEBO n. A motorbike courier. Derives from the stereotypical grease on their hands, and possibly hair. And if you want them to take you seriously, don't talk about motorbikes. Talk about rat bikes.
HIMBO n. The male equivalent of the bimbo - a man known for his brawn but certainly not his brain. The good news is that it redressed the gender balance towards the feminists' agenda; the bad news is that it meant we had to put up with David Hasselhoff and Jean Van Damme.
LAST-TIME BUYER n. sl. What estate agents call those older people in the market for sheltered housing. And who said estate agents are insensitive types?
LOSER MAGNET n. jarg. The sort of person who ends up talking only to the dull people at parties, in the latest psychotherapy jargon. That's because their bland, unthreatening body language attracts wimps. They might even be a harriet - that's a woman who is so darned nice that she's beyond redemption. Hey, enjoy the party, now.
MAW n. The Model, Actress or Whatever currently being seen wherever fashion demands. MAWs look good and go to all the right parties, from Clerkenwell to Los Angeles, but tend not to ask themselves too many of the more profound questions of life. Still, with skin like that, who needs an opinion on globalisation?
MIDDLE YOUTH n. That new and fashionable stage in life - invented by the older woman's magazine Red - that used simply to be called middle age. Now, however, it is apparently acceptable to go clubbing until you're 50: the old can not only be young at heart, but now young in mind and body too.
MOCKNEY n., adj. A "mock Cockney" whose accent affects a street-cred working-class tone. Popular among Old Etonians working in the music business and Oxbridge students who decide to join a road protest.
NIPPLES n. acr. New Irish Professional People Living in London Executive Suites. Yes, it's the new acronym for immigrants from across the sea enjoying London's bright lights. No Irish jokes, please.
NOTE n. acr. A caring, rural type who opposes development a tad more doggedly than the nimby. Whereas nimbies promise that the development will be Not In My Back Yard, the note says Not Over There Either. There is also now the banana : environmentalists in Colorado, in the States, use a slogan that stands for Build Absolutely Nothing Anywhere Near Anybody.
OK YARDIE n. sl. A rather well-brought-up type who now lives in the fashionably decadent and gang-haunted parts of West London. They tend to say "OK, yah," just as Sloanes do, but also live cheeck-by-jowl with the yardies of Ladbroke Grove. See also trustafarian.
PONG n. acr. A Poet of the New Generation - the not-quite-serious poets who are sniffily dismissed by the old-timers. The fine-poetry magazine Agenda says the pongs are far too keen on marketing themselves where they should care about their art. And that smells bad.
PUPPY n. Forget the yuppies, buppies and chuppies of the eighties: after the young, the black and the Chinese versions, we now have the Indian. These are the Punjabi Upwardly-mobile Professionals, recently identified in Punjab's swelling cities. Their discovery suggests that we're fast running out of letters of the alphabet to affix to -uppy , so if you're still not covered, you ought to book yours now. And that's not even mentioning the yappy (qv, below).
SANDWICH GENERATION n. That sector of society caught between the young children it is bringing up and the older relatives it is having to care for. A good deal less fun than the X-ers (qv).
SCHMOOSEOISIE, THE n. That new celebrity class which chatters away, and invites its dearest friends to chatter away, on programmes from Start The Week to Have I Got News For You. From the Yiddish term shmooze - which means to flatter, talk up, lavish excessive affection upon.
SINBAD n. acr. A woman who has a Single Income, No Boyfriend, and is Absolutely Desperate. The Jewish Chronicle, in particular, has been keen to promote her interests through its small ads.
SITCOM n. acr. A person who has a Single Income, Two Children and an Oppressive Mortgage. From the people who started out as yuppies in the mid-eighties, briefly became dinkies (with a Double Income and No Kids), and now wish they'd settled for a more economically viable acronym.
SLACKER n. Haven't yet come across this concept? You must be part of that terminally bored twenty-something generation, far too cynical and aimless to keep up with current buzzwords. In other words a typical slacker named after the seminal 1991 film by Richard Linklater. But who cares anyway?
SMUG MARRIED n. That sociological phenomenon of the late 90s identified by Bridget Jones in her Diary. Smug Marrieds want all the singletons around them to know how clever they have been in settling down. Spot them by their exciting monologues about their child's favourite video, or their despicable tendency to bring to a party one bottle instead of two. They're smug, as the Evening Standard put it, "because having spent half the eighties and all of the nineties as sad singletons, Hallelujah!, salvation finally arrived".
SOCIAL ENTREPRENEUR n. One of the new breed of local activists who believe that energy and organisation can improve a community. To be found organising street patrols to liberate red-light districts, or running local exchange-trading schemes.
SUNSET PEOPLE n. pl. Marketing people's more pleasant way of describing those in the increasingly important grey market of ageing consumers. They'll use this term, or other euphemisms like third-stagers, when they want to impress them. When they don't, they're simply slapheads, or - if they're too busy huddled in front of the fire to be desirable consumers - they're known as the old and the cold .
TRUSTAFARIAN n. A member of the upper-crust London set who live off a trust fund (the female is often a trust-fund babe). Often heard asking: "Is she a TTP (Tatler-type person)?' The meaning differs in the States, where trustafarian is a more mocking term for rich white young nouveaux-hippies, who tend to be wired to the Internet, buy expensive consumer durables and often wear their hair in dreadlocks.
TWEENIE n. A new marketing term used by television executives when referring to the 10- to 16-year-olds whose tastes lie between children's and adult programmes. "Kids who aren't quite grown up and aren't quite little, who are interested in more than mindless games and willing to be entertained at a slightly more intelligent level," as a Channel 4 spokeswoman put it.
TWIRTYSOMETHING n. Yet another demographic group you never knew existed. This time the New York Times has discovered that 25- to 35-year-olds are deciding elections and setting trends. A joke? Maybe, but someone is already trying to reach that market.
UNDERWOLF n. The underdog, as re-invented by youthful think-tank Demos ina recent report on young people. The new, feisty underwolf has attitude, unlike the conventionally disempowered underdog, and bites back.
X-ERS n. pl. The mass of disaffected social outsiders born between about 1958 and 1971 who have wearied of consumer culture and now lack any beliefs. Named by Douglas Coupland in his 1991 novel Generation X, X-ers have "mired themselves in the detritus of American [and now European] cultural memory".
YAPPIE n. acr. A Young Affluent Parent, who was probably a yuppie before children came along - as invented by the Henley Centre, the research organisation that likes to invent new social categories. Except, come on, guys, no one's going to take this one seriously. Especially as, already, journalists have also defined yappies as "Young Athletic Participants", "Young Asian Professionals" and, er, "talkative yuppies". And that's not even counting "Young Americans in Prague". Which goes to prove that no one really knows what these research consultancies are actually talking about...
ZIPPIES n. pl. The latest youth cult to hit the US. Zen-Inspired Pronoia Pagans are a cross between hippies, New Age travellers and ravers, and they've been partying all summer in techno-trance mode. They claim to suffer from pronoia - which, according to representative zippies, is "the sneaking suspicion that others are conspiring behind your back to help you".
CHAPTER 1: PEOPLE TYPES
What type of nineties person are you?
ADULTESCENT n. Someone steeped in youth culture who is old enough to know better. Generally between their mid-30s and mid-40s, adultescents (also called those in middle youth) can't quite accept that they are growing up. (Hence typically found among newspaper editors, government ministers, etc etc.)
BABY BUSTER n. The advertisers' term for the over-educated, under-employed "Generation X" consumer born between about 1965 and 1974 (see X-ers , below). "Buster"? That's partly to contrast them with the "baby boom" generation; but it's also because advertisers kept confronting them once the high-spending eighties boom had given way to the bust days of the mid-nineties . . .
CARPET TREADER n. sl. What estate agents call timewasters who spend their weekends looking round houses, with neither the inclination nor the money to buy. A popular pastime in the nineties, simply because nobody can actually afford to buy property any more.
CARPETBAGGER n. fin. A speculator who moves money in and out of building-society accounts in the hope of bonuses when they list on the stockmarket. The term originally meant pioneering Americans who carried their possessions around in carpets after the Civil War. The only similarity nowadays is the civil war that breaks out among building-society boards when the speculators start getting impatient.
CIDERHEAD n. The nineties version of the eighties' lager lout. You are most likely to find ciderheads in the West Country, where police keep blaming them for public-order disturbances. Which means they join crackheads and (for those who remember) breadheads as modern media stereotypes.
DATAHOLIC n. Someone addicted to that very nineties drug, information. According to a Reuters study of 1,000 business people across Europe, we are becoming a continent of "screen junkies" and "information addicts". More than half of this new generation of dataholics claims to get a "high" when they find the information they need.
DUMP n. acr. A Destitute Unemployed Mature Professional, one who suddenly confronts a falling standard of living. The American writer Craig Carpel has noted that 65 per cent of Americans have no savings for retirement - so it is not surprising that the dumps are down in the dumps.
FADED GREEN n. A consumer who has become well-enough read on environmental issues to reject the meaningless greenery in which multinationals have been clothing their products. The roll-on deodorant that boasts of being ozone-friendly, for instance, would not impress a faded green.
FEMINAZI n. sl. A charming term for a hardline feminist, thrust into common usage by US talk-show host Rush Limbaugh, and thereafter wielded by those more right-wing members of the patriarchy who seek to deride the sisterhood. Derogatory, if we needed to say so.
FORENSIC HISTORIAN n. euph. A conspiracy theorist, in his (rarely her) own phrase. Fond of discussing the Kennedy assassination, UFOs and Waco, and the huge plot to wipe out Diana. He can prove, in all cases, that the Government is guilty. It's just that no one will listen to him.
FUTON MAN n. The stereotype invented by adpeople early on in this caring, whole-person decade to describe consumers whose needs are largely organic. Some marketing types talk of them as the the muesli knitters or the brown ricers. But they are not to be confused with fully fledged Greenpeace warriors , the rather more committed group advertisers have tended to abandon because their dogged environmentalism makes them rather sceptical consumers.
GLOBAL TEEN n. The digitally clued-in younger sisters and brothers of the Generation Xers. We used to call them computer nerds, but then Douglas Coupland invented global teens. Logging on now to a network near you.
GREEBO n. A motorbike courier. Derives from the stereotypical grease on their hands, and possibly hair. And if you want them to take you seriously, don't talk about motorbikes. Talk about rat bikes.
HIMBO n. The male equivalent of the bimbo - a man known for his brawn but certainly not his brain. The good news is that it redressed the gender balance towards the feminists' agenda; the bad news is that it meant we had to put up with David Hasselhoff and Jean Van Damme.
LAST-TIME BUYER n. sl. What estate agents call those older people in the market for sheltered housing. And who said estate agents are insensitive types?
LOSER MAGNET n. jarg. The sort of person who ends up talking only to the dull people at parties, in the latest psychotherapy jargon. That's because their bland, unthreatening body language attracts wimps. They might even be a harriet - that's a woman who is so darned nice that she's beyond redemption. Hey, enjoy the party, now.
MAW n. The Model, Actress or Whatever currently being seen wherever fashion demands. MAWs look good and go to all the right parties, from Clerkenwell to Los Angeles, but tend not to ask themselves too many of the more profound questions of life. Still, with skin like that, who needs an opinion on globalisation?
MIDDLE YOUTH n. That new and fashionable stage in life - invented by the older woman's magazine Red - that used simply to be called middle age. Now, however, it is apparently acceptable to go clubbing until you're 50: the old can not only be young at heart, but now young in mind and body too.
MOCKNEY n., adj. A "mock Cockney" whose accent affects a street-cred working-class tone. Popular among Old Etonians working in the music business and Oxbridge students who decide to join a road protest.
NIPPLES n. acr. New Irish Professional People Living in London Executive Suites. Yes, it's the new acronym for immigrants from across the sea enjoying London's bright lights. No Irish jokes, please.
NOTE n. acr. A caring, rural type who opposes development a tad more doggedly than the nimby. Whereas nimbies promise that the development will be Not In My Back Yard, the note says Not Over There Either. There is also now the banana : environmentalists in Colorado, in the States, use a slogan that stands for Build Absolutely Nothing Anywhere Near Anybody.
OK YARDIE n. sl. A rather well-brought-up type who now lives in the fashionably decadent and gang-haunted parts of West London. They tend to say "OK, yah," just as Sloanes do, but also live cheeck-by-jowl with the yardies of Ladbroke Grove. See also trustafarian.
PONG n. acr. A Poet of the New Generation - the not-quite-serious poets who are sniffily dismissed by the old-timers. The fine-poetry magazine Agenda says the pongs are far too keen on marketing themselves where they should care about their art. And that smells bad.
PUPPY n. Forget the yuppies, buppies and chuppies of the eighties: after the young, the black and the Chinese versions, we now have the Indian. These are the Punjabi Upwardly-mobile Professionals, recently identified in Punjab's swelling cities. Their discovery suggests that we're fast running out of letters of the alphabet to affix to -uppy , so if you're still not covered, you ought to book yours now. And that's not even mentioning the yappy (qv, below).
SANDWICH GENERATION n. That sector of society caught between the young children it is bringing up and the older relatives it is having to care for. A good deal less fun than the X-ers (qv).
SCHMOOSEOISIE, THE n. That new celebrity class which chatters away, and invites its dearest friends to chatter away, on programmes from Start The Week to Have I Got News For You. From the Yiddish term shmooze - which means to flatter, talk up, lavish excessive affection upon.
SINBAD n. acr. A woman who has a Single Income, No Boyfriend, and is Absolutely Desperate. The Jewish Chronicle, in particular, has been keen to promote her interests through its small ads.
SITCOM n. acr. A person who has a Single Income, Two Children and an Oppressive Mortgage. From the people who started out as yuppies in the mid-eighties, briefly became dinkies (with a Double Income and No Kids), and now wish they'd settled for a more economically viable acronym.
SLACKER n. Haven't yet come across this concept? You must be part of that terminally bored twenty-something generation, far too cynical and aimless to keep up with current buzzwords. In other words a typical slacker named after the seminal 1991 film by Richard Linklater. But who cares anyway?
SMUG MARRIED n. That sociological phenomenon of the late 90s identified by Bridget Jones in her Diary. Smug Marrieds want all the singletons around them to know how clever they have been in settling down. Spot them by their exciting monologues about their child's favourite video, or their despicable tendency to bring to a party one bottle instead of two. They're smug, as the Evening Standard put it, "because having spent half the eighties and all of the nineties as sad singletons, Hallelujah!, salvation finally arrived".
SOCIAL ENTREPRENEUR n. One of the new breed of local activists who believe that energy and organisation can improve a community. To be found organising street patrols to liberate red-light districts, or running local exchange-trading schemes.
SUNSET PEOPLE n. pl. Marketing people's more pleasant way of describing those in the increasingly important grey market of ageing consumers. They'll use this term, or other euphemisms like third-stagers, when they want to impress them. When they don't, they're simply slapheads, or - if they're too busy huddled in front of the fire to be desirable consumers - they're known as the old and the cold .
TRUSTAFARIAN n. A member of the upper-crust London set who live off a trust fund (the female is often a trust-fund babe). Often heard asking: "Is she a TTP (Tatler-type person)?' The meaning differs in the States, where trustafarian is a more mocking term for rich white young nouveaux-hippies, who tend to be wired to the Internet, buy expensive consumer durables and often wear their hair in dreadlocks.
TWEENIE n. A new marketing term used by television executives when referring to the 10- to 16-year-olds whose tastes lie between children's and adult programmes. "Kids who aren't quite grown up and aren't quite little, who are interested in more than mindless games and willing to be entertained at a slightly more intelligent level," as a Channel 4 spokeswoman put it.
TWIRTYSOMETHING n. Yet another demographic group you never knew existed. This time the New York Times has discovered that 25- to 35-year-olds are deciding elections and setting trends. A joke? Maybe, but someone is already trying to reach that market.
UNDERWOLF n. The underdog, as re-invented by youthful think-tank Demos ina recent report on young people. The new, feisty underwolf has attitude, unlike the conventionally disempowered underdog, and bites back.
X-ERS n. pl. The mass of disaffected social outsiders born between about 1958 and 1971 who have wearied of consumer culture and now lack any beliefs. Named by Douglas Coupland in his 1991 novel Generation X, X-ers have "mired themselves in the detritus of American [and now European] cultural memory".
YAPPIE n. acr. A Young Affluent Parent, who was probably a yuppie before children came along - as invented by the Henley Centre, the research organisation that likes to invent new social categories. Except, come on, guys, no one's going to take this one seriously. Especially as, already, journalists have also defined yappies as "Young Athletic Participants", "Young Asian Professionals" and, er, "talkative yuppies". And that's not even counting "Young Americans in Prague". Which goes to prove that no one really knows what these research consultancies are actually talking about...
ZIPPIES n. pl. The latest youth cult to hit the US. Zen-Inspired Pronoia Pagans are a cross between hippies, New Age travellers and ravers, and they've been partying all summer in techno-trance mode. They claim to suffer from pronoia - which, according to representative zippies, is "the sneaking suspicion that others are conspiring behind your back to help you".
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