"Snowflake" rage

[hter]

As in, "delicate little snowflake".

... I think this is one of the most loathsomely trite putdowns with no compassion behind it. It instantly makes me think the speaker is a sneery, nasty person.

Anyone else feel the fury when they see someone writing this?!

I've only ever heard it used by racists as a response to their racism (or any other form of bigotry) called out. So I have an issue with it.

"Snowflakes" aren't people who dislike racism and bigotry

They are people who think that they are oh so unique and special and anyone who tries to inhibit their uniqueness is a hater

Snowflake is a brilliant and accurate description of many people. Like barbara 'who prefers not to capitalise her name', the legal representative of the non gendered parent in Canada who's just given birth to a non gendered baby.

I've heard it used against people with liberal views. Hence my last post.

For the MN record, I abhor Donald Trump's political stance. But the opposite extreme is also anathema to me. Sensible politics is decided in the centre. And teenagers are likely to be snowflakes, for a few years, but who wants them to be cannon fodder or victims for plausible rogue extremists. That's why I'm posting.

Yes, of course! Well remembered whoever said C. Palahniuk, Fightclub. What a book.

OK I'd forgotten that but apart from that and MN who is using this term day to day?

We all used snowflake as a term growing up and I'm in my 40s. My mum and my nana both use it as in "don't be such a snowflake, you're not going to melt" usually said to us in reply to - complaining about the house being cold, having to catch a bus to work, not liking dinner, - usual whiny adolescent complaints. I use it as a term - I find it very apt to describe the behaviour of some people I know of all ages.

That's brilliant, Dyson. You complain it's cold and the response is, don't be such a snowflake, you're not going to melt? It's like something from Alice in Wonderland.

Anyone who uses the term 'snowflake' when they're not talking about actual snowflakes is a knob.

Well yes, its not the child's fault, this saying is used to describe the entitled parenting of some, which means their child revolves around everything, nobody can dare say anything to correct the child. Totally justified in some incidences. I would just prefer, entitled parenting.

I detest it too, but it is quite handy because the minute I hear or read someone use it I immediately think tosser, which helps weed out people nicely. It's sneery, patronising and lazy and so it pretty much means that anyone using it is too.

The use of it generationally is particularly ridiculous as it is directed at millenials by the generation that brought them up, rather than at their own peers who were the ones responsible for what's being complained about.

I find it's a useful word, in that I can write off the speaker as monumentally psychically insecure as they display the of lack of insight, self awareness and any understanding of irony that using the word involves.

*minus stray of

YANBU. In my experience, the people who shout 'snowflake' are the quickest to get all hot and bothered when someone critiques something they cherish I'm looking at a lot of people I know back home in the US.

Its not just overused, its completely wrongly used much of the time.
It has evolved from being a description of someone who must be tip-toed around, and who believes themselves to be more unique than anyone else. Now it is used so broadly, and as a sneary dismissive putdown, often against someone who has the temerity to disagree with an extreme view.

Exactly! They use it because someone has a different opinion to them. Just who exactly is precious in that scenario?

It's use by members of the 'alt-right' is blissfully ironic, being as they tend to be both white and cold.

It's become unoriginal and clichéd. A way for someone doing the insulting to shut the other person down. Also the term is used in a reductive and condescending way to stereotype whole swathes of people or a generation. Usually used by people who can't come up with a good argument.

"virtue signalling" is very similar, in that it used to be quite apt, but has become so wildly overused that 9 times out of 10, the user is being a knob. Both "virtue signalling" and "snowflake" have become oddly politicised, too.

Snowflake is totally politicised! It seemed to become (to my perception), more popular after Brexit. Isn't the term now, 'liberal snowflake'?

I used to call people obsessed with their "identity" speshul snowflakes, but you are right, it is an insult to snowflakes why does spelling improperly some how make you better than someone who is self obsessed ?

Snowflakes are beautiful. CDH babies are snowflakes because they're all unique, special etc. So it doubly pisses me off to take something so beautiful and use it to dismiss someone's feelings

I'm proud to be a snowflake, from what I read on twitter it seems to mean in not a raving right wing prick.

why does spelling improperly some how make you better than someone who is self obsessed ?

This is internet culture...deliberate misspelling or mistyping to convey sarcasm. Originally from I Can Has Cheezburger. See also 'health cundishuns', 'quote your sauce', 'open sores software', 'frist post' and so on.

It's kind of hard to describe.