“What is freedom of expression? Without the freedom to offend, it ceases to exist.”
– – Salmon Rushdie
Snowflake (plural snowflakes)
“(slang, derogatory) Someone who believes they are as unique and special as a snowflake; someone hypersensitive to insult or offense, especially a young person with politically correct sensibilities.” – Urban Dictionary
The moniker seems to have been conceived in the late 90’s, gaining popularity after the film “Fight Club” from the quote, “You are not special. You’re not a beautiful and unique snowflake. You’re the same decaying organic matter as everything else.” It has since evolved into an integral part of the social media lexicon, a lazy buzzword mostly used by the soon to be mentioned “Broflake”. But It was once in good standing and a useful term, delegated to those who seem to have a limited understanding of context and have deemed certain terminology to be offensive despite the situation in which it appears. The Snowflake title has been mostly attributed to Millennials, a generation born in the midst of the “Stranger Danger” era of the 1980’s, when the media first began dipping into sensationalism, scaring the bejesus out of parents everywhere with their overwrought coverage of the missing children of the day, Etan Patz, Steven Stayner, Adam Walsh and Jaycee Lee Dugard. It is said that in the midst of the panic, frantic parents inadvertently began coddling their children, holding them close to the bosom and not allowing them to go to playgrounds alone, bike without a helmet and even preventing them from taking a tumble when learning to walk. The result, a generation of mollycoddles with the inability to cope with challenging situations. A wave of armadillos without their shells, a susceptible population without the street smarts of their Generation X predecessors.
I believe this is a half truth, and there is much more to unpack here. Yes, the way children are raised nowadays is very different from the way those born before 1975 were. You just have to check out the social media page of anybody over the age of 45 to find a meme proudly telling you so…
*rolls eyes*
But as much as the oversensitive parents of the 80’s and 90’s may have invented play dates and time outs, they also decreased the childhood death rate by a significant margin. That’s a good thing isn’t it? Though George Carlin may disagree, decreeing that “Sometimes the kid who eats the most marbles shouldn’t go on to have any kids of his own.”
I don’t believe the problem with Snowflakes has as much to do with the youth as it is a sociological construct. In an era of social media, there are plenty of people in their 40’s, 50’s and 60’s also falling victim to the virtue signaling and soapbox preaching that manifests from a platform where the very thought of a “like” can fire off an enslaving round of endorphins, leading them to say just about anything to receive another one. And therein lies the problem first derived at by the utterances of Tyler Durden in “Fight Club.” When you combine the ingredients of a delicate sensibility in a post civil rights era where racist slurs and prejudice syntax are rightfully shunned, fuel it with existentialism and add a dose of social media platform, you get a Snowflakian stew that when consumed, causes many to lose their frame of reference. In a rush to gain their fill of self-important validation and “sui generous”, a dangerous precedent can be set that could potentially evolve into a threat to free speech itself.
From the blocking of certain speakers at campus philosophy events, to the call to ban books like “The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn” or “To Kill A Mockingbird”, sometimes a well-meaning movement for equality can go terribly wrong. In a rage of misguided sanctimony, literary context and historical awareness can all but be ignored, and a single word may be given so much power to offend, that it becomes a peril in and of itself, even though its very connotation usually depends on the hundreds of words that surround it. The slightest resistance to a rigid political ideology is sometimes met with blind shrieks of racism, and identity politics is infused even when completely irrelevant to the issue at hand, and potentially destroying one’s reputation without merit. I can’t express how detrimental this could become to the fabric of education and honest discourse. The public shaming of someone that even benignly expresses themselves in a way that incenses just one Snowflake can sometimes explode into a social media witch hunt that makes the Salem trials look like a game of tag. It’s imperative that we start exploring nuance and shake off the urge to straw man or lose our shit on anyone who may say something we don’t like. There’s an Orwellian tone to the Snowflake mentality that makes me extremely uncomfortable, which perfectly sets up my breakdown of their “Mirror Mirror” counterpart, The Broflake.
Broflake (plural broflakes)
“(slang, derogatory) A commonly seen stereotype of the quintessentially conservative, heterosexual, white male, who despite all his privileges and advantages in life, is easily sensitive to any criticism or mockery. Unable to see outside of his own perspective, and takes everything personally, even when it’s not about him specifically.” – Urban Dictionary
If a Snowflake is someone who is easily offended, what do you call someone who is easily offended by someone who is easily offended? Apparently, it’s a Broflake. The term is self-explanatory. An obvious spin off of the word “Snowflake”, and a counter punch by liberals delivered to those who have overused their adopted slight on social media to the point of exhaustion. Everyone knows a Broflake. He (and it’s usually a he) is that guy in your comments section who pops up immediately after a post about a #MeToo story, a proclamation of support for a kneeling football player or if a transgender person simply wants to be called by a different pronoun. A dude so convinced of the impending genocide of his ilk at the hands of political correctness, he can’t help but air his grievance that “this would’ve never happened in my day!” If you’re still not sure which guy I’m talking about, allow me to introduce you to The King, The Emperor, The Caliph, The Caesar, The Pasha and The Mikado of Broflakes, Donald J. Trump. A man who is so powerful, so rich, so privileged and so unaffected by marginalization, yet still feels threatened by even the most mild stirring of a persecuted people.
Broflakes don’t seem to understand the notion of push back. Whenever an oppressed group begins a movement in reprisal of their mistreatment, Broflakes have a tendency to instantaneously claim they’ve already given away too much, and obliviously assume that every facet of humanity had all been positioned at the same place on the starting line before the race began. “When has it gone too far?!” is one of their favourite adages. If it’s a Black Lives Matter rally, the Broflakes are there, claiming “All Lives matter”, when several women make allegations of sexual assault against a single perpetrator, the Broflakes are there, suddenly very concerned about judicial process, as if 18 women conspired against a single man like a film crew under Stanley Kubrick faking the moon landing. When a protest gains momentum to remove a statue of some Confederate General represented with an air of admiration in a predominately black neighbourhood, the Broflakes are there, claiming that there is some sort of historical value to a marble pigeon shit collector. And when a group of Native Americans decide that a team name like “Redskins” has run its racist, archaic course, the Broflakes are there, crying about the destruction of a “tradition”. Yes. The very precious tradition of a bunch of grown men in colourful pyjamas running around trying to kill each other over a rubber ball. It seems that whenever there’s a slight inconvenience that disrupts their comfort zone, the Broflakes are there. They’re like the Tom Joads for the upper class. As much as a Snowflake may unreasonably misuse heavy characterizations like “racist” or “Nazi”, the Broflakes also overstep the boundary with idiotic labels such as “Libtard” or “Feminazi”.
I often wonder if we’ve actually deteriorated in our political discourse from Liberal and Conservative or Democrat and Republican to Snowflake and Broflake. Has the narrative of tangible ideological issues faded so obscurely into the abstract, that it’s been reduced to a bunch of people bitching at each other over trivial nonsense because of their inability to control their emotional state? Have we become so entrenched in our tribes, and shameless self-branding, that we’ve relinquished our potential to have well-grounded exchanges in ideas and civil political debate? I hope not. But until we do, I’ll continue to berate both Broflakes and Snowflakes.
Yeah, I know what you’re thinking, if a Snowflake is someone who is easily offended, and a Broflake is someone who is easily offended by someone who is easily offended, what does that make your author? My answer would be someone who is willing to identify and call both of them out for it, a Snowflake/Broflake Prosecutor if you will. Yep …a Proflake. But in the end, I’d prefer that we all didn’t categorize people into conglomerates of internet pseudonyms, as every viewpoint should be debated on its own merit and not with the pretext of a sweeping judgment about who we’re colliding with. Trust me, I’m guilty as charged. And I know as well as anybody that it’s not an easy habit to break…
