A Yuppie’s Status Symbol
by Oliver Carlos
At the turn of the new millennium, I was a young urban professional, or Yuppie for short. That’s a new word invented in 1999 to refer to young members of the labor force who were 20–29 years old and working in cities or urban centers. We were young, vibrant, dynamic, energetic, and promising.
Another characteristic of yuppies is that we were tech-savvy. We’re expected to be geniuses in computers and high tech gadgets like cellphones, compared to the generation before us and after us. Thus, one competition among yuppies is who owns the most modern cellphone. The more recent yours is, the cooler you are among your peers.
Half-a-decade earlier, in the mid 1990s, cellphones were for calls only. Then in 1998, the text message or SMS was added to the cellphone’s repertoire. They also became smaller. The coolest model then was the Nokia 5110. What separated this model among its competitor brands was that its housing can be changed. One’s phone can have a different color each day. Some people even had collections of Nokia 5110 housings in boxes.
The next big thing that happened was that the cellphone’s protruding antenna got phased out. The first phone to have such feature was the Nokia 3210. Just like its predecessor, this Nokia phone still had changeable housings. This was also the first phone to have a vibrating alert. Its introductory price was P10,000. That was a fortune in 1999. If you want to have this phone, your income level must be at least at the level of a yuppie.
But sooner or later, better phones were developed, and the Nokia 3210 became outdated and devalued. Phones started to have colored screens, fancy-sounding ring tones, cameras, and internet capability. They also became smaller and smaller. Now cellphones are called smart phones, and they function pretty much like a computer. Although modern phones now in the 2020s are larger compared to the Nokia 3210, they are far more advanced. Furthermore, smart phones nowadays are no longer considered a status symbol, but a necessity. Everybody, young and old, rich and poor has one.
What has happened to the Nokia 3210, the so-called most coveted phone of yuppies? Well, around 10 years after its initial release, it has become a meme, or an object of jokes. There was a time when it was called the cellphone of jologs or non-elegant people. If you draw out a Nokia 3210 from your pocket, others will say “eeewww!” But hey, isn’t this the most elegant phone years ago?
Looking back, I find myself funny for drooling over such modern phones in my time as a yuppie. I would really save money so I could buy the newest phone model. I changed phones once every 6 months. That was so foolish of me. Now I realized that what I considered as gold in my time would be garbage in the next generation.
Indeed, its true what Jesus said in Matthew 16:19–21 (NLT):
“Don’t store up treasures here on earth, where moths eat them and rust destroys them, and where thieves break in and steal. Store your treasures in heaven, where moths and rust cannot destroy, and thieves do not break in and steal. Wherever your treasure is, there the desires of your heart will also be.”
So where do we put our heart’s desire on? What is something that will last and does not devaluate? The answer: a personal relationship with Jesus. Establish it, cherish it, take care of it, appreciate its value in your everyday living, and long for it every moment, more than how your heart beats for your most modern phone or most precious earthly possession. For sure, you’ll never be disappointed.
