Consumerism survived this movement. In fact, many members of that movement proved to simply be followers of the true liberal thinkers and later became a new classification of consumers themselves, nicknamed "young urban professionals", or "yuppies" for short. Yuppies were usually young businessmen obsessed with keeping up a modern, luxurious lifestyle: wearing the expensive brand named clothes, living in penthouse apartments, driving overpriced luxury cars, overall surrounding themselves with the best and the latest material goods in order to keep up a "successful" reputation. Yuppies were a part of American culture throughout the late 1970s, 80s, and early 90s, during which time, middle-class families more or less kept up the consuming tradition of the 1950s. .
By the 1990s, shopping had become second nature for middle-class America. The lifestyle of consumption had been passed down from generation to generation. A new study found that the average allowance (among those who receive allowance) given to children by their parents is fifty dollars a week. This practice is encouraging younger people to start habits of purchasing material goods at an excessive rate. When teenage girls are asked list their hobbies, "shopping" turns up on the majority of the lists. Shopping has indeed become a hobby in itself. In True Stories, a 1986 satirical film about a small rural town's industrialization/modernization, David Byrne, writer and star, on the subject of shopping malls, says:.
Shopping malls have replaced the Town Square as the center of many American cities. Shopping itself has become the activity that brings people together.
In the late 1990s, the economy was booming and unemployment rates were falling. One might think that fewer people were experiencing personal financial problems, when in fact many more were. A study released in January of 1998 revealed that the number of filings for personal bankruptcy had risen 19.