Generation Snowflake, or Snowflake Generation, is a term used to characterize people who became adults in the 2010s as being more prone to taking offence and less resilient than previous generations, or as being too emotionally vulnerable to cope with views that challenge their own. The term is considered derogatory.
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Background
"Generation Snowflake" may be derived from the term "snowflake", which has been used in referring to raising children in ways that give them an inflated sense of their own uniqueness. This usage of "snowflake" may originate from Chuck Palahniuk's 1996 novel Fight Club, and its 1999 film adaptation. Both the novel and the film include the line "You are not special. You are not a beautiful and unique snowflake." In January 2017, Palahniuk claimed credit for coining this usage of "snowflake", adding "Every generation gets offended by different things but my friends who teach in high school tell me that their students are very easily offended"; Palahniuk has called it "a kind of new Victorianism.”
The term "Generation Snowflake", or its variant "Snowflake Generation" is thought to have originated in the United States. It came into wider use in the United Kingdom in 2016, particularly after Claire Fox, founder of the think tank the Institute of Ideas, published a book called I Find That Offensive! In it she wrote about a confrontation between Yale University students and faculty Head of College, Nicholas Christakis. The confrontation arose after Christakis' wife, Erika Christakis, a lecturer at the university, had suggested students should "relax a bit rather than labeling fancy dress Halloween costumes as culturally insensitive", according to Fox. Fox described the video showing the students' reaction as a "screaming, almost hysterical mob of students". Fox said the backlash to the viral video led to the disparaging moniker "generation snowflake" for the students.
The term "snowflake generation" was one of Collins Dictionary's 2016 words of the year. Collins defines the term as "the young adults of the 2010s, viewed as being less resilient and more prone to taking offence than previous generations". Similarly, in 2016 the Financial Times included "snowflake" in their annual Year in a Word list, defining it as "A derogatory term for someone deemed too emotionally vulnerable to cope with views that challenge their own, particularly in universities and other forums once known for robust debate" and noting that the insult had been aimed at an entire generation.
Usage
"Generation Snowflake" and "snowflake" have been used in relation to purported generational differences; "snowflake" and similar terms have also been used more broadly.
Generational differences
According to Fox, members of Generation Snowflake "are genuinely distressed by ideas that run contrary to their worldview"; they are more likely than previous generations of students to report that they have mental health problems. Fox and journalist Bryony Gordon described these traits as being coupled with a strong sense of entitlement. According to an article titled "The 'Snowflake' Generation: Real or Imagined?" from the John William Pope Center reasons proposed by researchers for the reported increase in mental health problems among university students differ. They vary from increased pressure on students, reduced self-reliance resulting from overuse of mental health services, to university authorities' expectations of student fragility.
Fox argues that Generation Snowflake was created by over-protecting people when they were children and she argued the emphasis on self-esteem in childhood resulted in adults "tiptoeing around children's sensitivities" to avoid "damaging their wellbeing". In the UK, Tom Bennett was recruited by the government to address behaviour in schools. He commented that Generation Snowflake children at school can be over-protected, leading to problems when they progress to university and are confronted with "the harsher realities of life". Bennett argues being sheltered from conflict as children can lead to university students who react with intolerance towards people and things that they believe may offend someone or toward people who have differing political opinions, leading to a phenomenon called "no-platforming", where speakers on controversial topics such as abortion or atheism are prohibited from speaking on a university campus.
In 2016 some law lecturers at the University of Oxford began using trigger warnings to alert students to potentially distressing subject matter. This drew criticism from Fox and GQ writer Eleanor Halls, who related the phenomenon to Generation Snowflake, and questioned how well law students educated with trigger warnings would function as lawyers. The university had not adopted a formal policy on trigger warnings, leaving their use to the discretion of individual lecturers.
The negative connotations of the term Generation Snowflake have been criticized for having been applied too widely: Bennett also commented: "It's true that, for some of these children, losing fast wi-fi is a crisis and being offended on the internet is a disaster.... But then I remember the other ones, and I reckon they all balance each other out." Richard Brooks wrote in The Daily Telegraph that "students have always been instrumental in turning the tide of public opinion", and Mark Kingwell, philosophy professor at University of Toronto has objected to the use of the term to characterize political protesting as "whining", in response to protests by Millennials following Donald Trump's election as president of the United States.
Serena Smith, writing for The Tab says the term "Generation Snowflake" shows "Millennials can never win" because they are either stereotyped as politically disengaged, or they are called "snowflakes" when they do engage politically. Smith also states: "most, if not all, of these comments on 'special snowflakes' originate from the baby boomer generation—i.e. the generation that kicked up the biggest fuss of the 20th century: the 1960s. A generation that led a sexual and cultural revolution, now telling us that we’re whining for trying to make our voices heard? It seems slightly hypocritical."
Broader usage
In her syndicated column, Michelle Malkin criticized the provision of the Affordable Care Act which requires employer-based health coverage to extend to adult children up to 26 years of age, describing it as the "slacker mandate" and calling these young adults "precious snowflakes". Malkin argues the provision has "cultural consequences" in that it "reduces the incentives for 20-somethings to grow up and seek independent lives and livelihoods".
Jessica Roy, writing for the Los Angeles Times, says the alt-right in the United States describes those protesting Donald Trump as "snowflakes", using the term as a pejorative.