Preppy

Preppy, also spelled, "Preppie," originally just meant someone who went to a prep school and got a good education. Now it is typically used very differently.

Someone labelled as a preppy (or preppie) is usually a youth, most likely middle-class or above, who wears brand-name clothes like Abercrombie & Fitch, listens to the popular music, hangs with the popular people, does reasonably well in school, and fits in well. There are many traits that people would call preppy, such as wearing polo shirts with the collar popped.

The word evolved from the term, "Yuppie," which stood for, "Young Urban Professional." Some Preppies are children of Yuppies.

While this of course can't be said for all people labelled, "Preppy," they are often critized for their excessive consumerism and conformity. While usually not rude to less popular kids, they tend to exclude. Some might thoerize that, from a psychological point of view, they rely on the latest clothes, music, and sometimes cars for self-esteem and that they use these items to define themselves and find meaning in their lives. But despite the time, money, and effort they spend to enhance their personal appearance and stand out among their peers, in the end they often seem indifferent to each other.

Past their clean exteriors, it isn't unknown for them to be heavy users of drugs and alchohol, and to have permiscuous sex; But this doesn't in any way mean that all of them, or even most of them, are like this.

"There is an idea of a Preppie; some kind of abstraction. But there is no real Preppie: only an entity, something illusory. And though you can shake their hand and feel flesh gripping yours and maybe you can even sense your lifestyles are probably comparable... they simply aren't there."

"He's cool, but he's too preppy, always wearing Abercrombie and stuff like that, you know?"

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