[Roscoe]

Reading Assignment:

Bobos in Paradise: The New Upper Class And How They Got There (ISBN 0-684-85378-7) is a book by David Brooks, first published in 2000. The word bobo, Brooks's most famous coinage, is a portmanteau of the words bourgeois and bohemian. The term is used by Brooks to describe the 1990s' descendants of the yuppies. Often of the corporate upper class, they rarely oppose mainstream society, claim highly tolerant views of others, buy lots of expensive and exotic items, and believe American society to be meritocratic.

Bobos are noted for avoiding indulging in high acts of conspicuous consumption in favor of spending the greatest amount possible on the "necessities". Brooks argues that they feel guilty consuming in the way typical of the so-called "greed era" of the 1980s so they prefer to spend extravagantly on kitchens, showers, and other common facilities of everyday life. They "feel" for the labor and working class but may refuse to buy American made goods. The term "bobo chic" was applied to a style of fashion, similar to "boho chic", that became popular in uptown New York in 2004-5.