Generation Snowflake

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

As a generation Snowflake ( generation Snowflake ) is born after 1995 in the United States in a polemical intention Generation Z called, often extremely sensitive , emotionally highly vulnerable, mentally fragile and less resilient is perceived. In particular, it is said that she is more often offended than previous generations and unwilling to grapple with views that contradict her own. The term is generally considered highly derogatory to offensive ( insulting ). In November 2016, it was selected as one of the ten words of the year by Collins English Dictionary .

Origin of the term

Snowflake, or Snowball, had been a nickname for white-haired African Americans since the late 18th century . In Missouri in the 1860s, the term was used in controversies over the abolition of slavery. He referred to advocates of slavery who followed the racist ideology, according to which white people should be given greater value than people of other colors. However, this use of the term remained regionally limited. Later, the derogatory slang term snowflake (every snow crystal is unique) referred to white young people who believed themselves to be unique and developed a sense of their supposedly prominent status without this uniqueness being justified in any way.

Are snowflakes unique? Or is there a basic pattern?

In 1986, David Bertelson used the term in his analysis of the influence of individualization in US society on gender roles to characterize the phenomenon of “hypomasculinity”, ie a weak male habitus that defies traditional role expectations. As the downside of this crisis of conventional role and identity models , he regards the often brutal hyper masculinity of the American South, the military or the police, a form of masculinity that attracts younger, poor and uneducated men, but can also be found as an exaggerated form of gay culture.

More recently, the metaphor of the snowflake has been used disparagingly for the “young adults of the 2010s”, who are perceived as slightly vulnerable and not very resilient. On the other hand, the metaphor alludes to the self-perception of uniqueness and peculiarity assumed by this generation. The pejorative use of the snowflake metaphor, which particularly refers to academically trained members of the millennial generation, is often attributed to the cult book Fight Club (1996) by Chuck Palahniuk , in which one member of a consumer-critical group reproaches the other members that they are not beautiful and unique snowflakes, but instead consist of the same organic matter as all the others and would end up on the same compost pile ( we are all part of the same compost pile ). In the 1999 film adaptation of the book by David Fincher , Brad Pitt speaks these words.

Current use as a battle term

First in Great Britain, the opponents of Brexit were referred to as Snowflakes by a UKIP MP . The Urban Dictionary for English slang took up such a discriminatory definition.

In the 2016 American presidential election campaign, the slang term of the Snowflake generation developed into a political battle term. It is used by the US political right for allegedly overly sensitive people who are particularly keen on political correctness , not only for young people, but also for "liberals" and members of minorities who are easily vulnerable or who feel and are easily injured Claim a safe space , also for vegetarians or anti-alcoholics. During the election campaign, the extremely conservative Media Research Center in Reston (Virginia) tried to show on a satirical website how the Snowflakes are moving away from the American ideal of masculinity.

In the eyes of their critics, snowflakes are considered lewd ; they are unable to grapple with views that differ from their own. They often talked about their feelings, felt morally superior, needed special attention and constantly demanded justice for themselves, which they understood to mean positive discrimination against their own group. They avoided all supposedly trigger stimuli ( "triggers") that disrupt their well-being, challenge them or might even frighten. Ultimately, the legitimate demand to allow more diversity, which is always associated with social unreasonable demands, is being replaced by the snowflakes' striving to stay in comfort zones that are homogeneous in terms of ethnicity, gender or sexual preference .

According to the British lexicographer and slang researcher Jonathon Green , there are other negative connotations of the term snowflake such as weakness and self-delusion, psychological fragility and exaggerated perception of one's own meaning. Refusing to accept opinions that are not a reflection of one's own is generally considered narcissistic . The transformation of a derisive slang term into an aggressive battle term of the alt-right movement (alternative rights), which agitates against migration and feminism, reflects the deep division in American society. Social media are contributing to its rapid spread.

The vulnerability described by the metaphor of the snowflake also characterizes people who suffer from a deficit in positive feedback without having been objectively discriminated, or who think that minorities are preferred. This also includes many of the people who elected Donald Trump in 2016 and whose moods would have been aroused in a short time by the hyper- resonance of emotions in social networks. Even Donald Trump called for a protection zone from liberal critics of his politics at a cultural event.

The role of the media

Many observers see the change in media use as a cause of the phenomenon of emotional hyperresonance and the declining judgment of millennials. This is how Tom Wolfe , who, even in old age, carried out long observations of students on a campus as the basis of his novel I am Charlotte Simmons , judges that millennials only use reading as a time killer , just as you pass the time with knitting: " They no longer read. [...] They will only believe what the next person says to them in the ear. ”This opens the door to conspiracy theories. With this diagnosis he is in agreement with Gay Talese , the columnist Enid Nemy (* 1924) and the literary critic and essayist Daphne Merkin ; he also explicitly ties in with Marshall McLuhan's pessimistic predictions about the death of the book and its replacement by the audiovisual suggestion from the 1960s. The average US newspaper reader is now 59 years old; the younger ones would kill their time on social media .

In her blog, the author and blogger Kristen Lamb describes a whole new generation of authors who produce masses of bad instant literature as Generation Author Snowflake , because they received only friendly support and no criticism. Few - starting with teachers or lecturers who stopped using red ink for fear of hurting the feelings of the students - dare to give critical feedback or set quality benchmarks , especially if the authors have a certain popularity in social media.

The media theorist Anthony N. Smith analyzed the changed orientation of the US cable media such as Fusion, FXX or Revolt TV as a result of a significant decline in viewers among members of the younger generation, who are switching more and more to streaming services. Using the television series Mr. Robot , he shows how the media stereotype of millennials as snowflakes , in which the widespread assumptions about the audience are reflected, is taken up by network operators with commercial intent and intensified, so that they use their (supposed) To recognize the state of mind. In the place of self-assured and optimistic heroes under blue skies (“hyper-masculine dramas”) there are “authentic” people; a melancholy to sad tone prevails. Fearful and lonely protagonists struggle with psychological problems, such as B. the character of Elliott in Mr. Robot . In addition, there is a changed visual style: muted brown tones and closed windows dominate, the main characters are on the edge of the picture or in the corners of an empty room. Michael Serazio states that the online media are playing with the fears of this young generation of viewers. B. with the fear of getting into debt through student loans. Jean Twenge emphasizes that this includes the fear of losing family support; the fears, but also the narcissism of the highly networked media , are greater than they have been for 80 years.

Generation snowflake in literature

Jonathan Franzen in his novel Purity (2015) portrays a young woman of this generation who is suffocated by her mother's care, gripped by self-pity, is in debt with 130,000 dollars through student loans and knows little about herself . he was then accused of sexism .

In her novel After the peace (2018), the British feminist author Fay Weldon creates the portrait of Rozzie, a “sperm bank baby” born in the 1990s, and makes for the felt and real dependency of millennials on their parents, the educational system and the Responsible labor market.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c Rebecca Nicholson: “Poor little snowflake” - the defining insult of 2016. In: The Guardian , November 28, 2016. Collins defines the generation as follows: The generation of people who became adults in the 2010s, viewed as being less resilient and more prone to taking offense than previous generations.
  2. ↑ Maciej Widawski: African American Slang: A Linguistic Description. Cambridge Universita Press, 2015, p. 254.
  3. ↑ No, 'Snowflake' as a Slang Term Did Not Begin with 'Fight Club' , Merriam-Webster . January 2017. Retrieved April 4, 2017. 
  4. ↑ David Bert Elson: Snowflakes and snowdrifts: Individualism and sexuality in America. Lanham MD 1986.
  5. ↑ Jessica Goldstein: The surprising history of 'snowflake' as a political insult. www.thinkprogress.org , January 19, 2017.
  6. ↑ No, 'Snowflake' as a Slang Term Did Not Begin with 'Fight Club' www.merriam-webster: Words we're watching , accessed March 12, 2017.
  7. ↑ Uwe Schmitt: The pampered "snowflakes" and their enemies , www.welt.de, December 3, 2016.
  8. ↑ Uwe Schmitt: The pampered snowflakes and their enemies. In: www.welt.de , December 3, 2016.
  9. ↑ Generation Snowflake on urbandictionary.com, 2016.
  10. ↑ www.savethesnowflakes.org
  11. ↑ Jessica Goldstein: The surprising history of 'snowflake' as a political insult. www.thinkprogress.org , January 19, 2017.
  12. ↑ Matthias Horx : Trump and the future. www.zukunftsinstitut.de , accessed March 12, 2017.
  13. ↑ Uwe Schmitt: The pampered "snowflakes" and their enemies , www.welt.de, December 3, 2016.
  14. ↑ Interview with Tom Wolfe, in: www.celebitchy.com , March 20, 2017.
  15. ^ Kristen Lamb: Generation Author Snowflake & The High Cost of Instant. December 30, 2016.
  16. ^ Anthony N. Smith: Pursuing "Generation Snowflake": Mr. Robot and the USA Network's Mission for Millennials. In: Television & New Media , July 24, 2018.
  17. ↑ Michael Serazio: Selling (Digital) Millennials: The Social Construction and Technological Bias of a Consumer Generation. In: Television & New Media 16 (2015) 7, pp. 599–615.
  18. ↑ Jean Twenge: iGen: Why Today's Super-Connected Kids Are Growing Up Less Rebellious, More Tolerant, Less Happy - and Completely Unprepared for Adulthood - and What That Means for the Rest of Us. Simon & Schuster, 2017.