Guppy
A gay yuppie: a young, urban, well-paid gay professional with the right apartment, the right gym and the right brunch spot.
A guppy is a gay yuppie: a young, urban, professional gay man with a good salary, a good apartment and a good gym membership. He works in law, finance, tech, marketing or design, brunches in the right neighborhood, owns at least one piece of furniture he cannot pronounce, and goes on holiday where the other guppies go. The word is a blend of gay and yuppie, with a sly nod to the little aquarium fish, bright, pretty and always in a group.
It is a teasing word, not an insult. Calling a man a guppy says he has done well and that he knows it, and maybe that he is a bit predictable about it.
Where it comes from
Guppy belongs to the 1980s, the decade of the yuppie and of the dozens of jokey spin-offs that followed it. When and where it was first used is not something we could document: it does not appear in the dictionaries we checked, so we will not invent a date. What is clear is the moment it describes: the time when, in big Western cities, a visible class of out, well-paid gay professionals appeared, with their own neighborhoods, bars and magazines, and with money that advertisers suddenly noticed.
How it is used today
The word itself sounds a little dated, like shoulder pads, but the type is very much alive. In New York he might be called a Chelsea boy, and on the apps you spot him by the ski photos, the marathon medal and the "no drama" bio. He overlaps with the gym bunny and the circuit boy, and sometimes, a decade or two later, turns into a sugar daddy or a silver fox.
The guppy is also a reminder of who gets seen. Media stories about the "gay market" in the 1980s and 1990s often painted all of us as guppies, rich and childless with money to burn, which was never true for most gay men and made it easier to ignore the ones who were struggling. Not every gay man brunches. Plenty of us just wish we did.
Close relatives
- Clone: the 1970s look, before the money and the suits.
- Tribe: guppy is a lifestyle tribe more than a body type.
- Queen: plenty of guppies are one at weekends.