The term snowflake comes from a line from the famous novel Fight Club. The book published in 1996 was then adapted into a movie in 1999 and the term mentioned signifies someone beautiful and special. Millennials have been called the snowflake generation. According to a new study young people do not enjoy being called that and it can even affect their mental health.More on the study
Aviva, the insurance firm, has conducted a survey from which 72% of the young people, belonging to the 16-24 age group, consider that it is not fair them being called snowflakes. Most of them believe this label is not representative of them and it can potentially affect their mental health.
Fight Club author does not mind at all
If young people feel offended being called snowflakes, there is someone who does not mind at all. That is Chuck Plahniuk, the author of the famous novel Fight Club. In his opinion, every generation has something specific they get offended by. He even called it a Victorianism of some sort. Apparently, the younger generation gets offended easily.
What do experts think about using the label snowflake?
Dr. Doug Wright believes that the younger generation lives in a time with more stimuli and it is much more susceptible than older generations to suffer mental health issues, and, thus, the label snowflake has appeared. Due to the fact that the younger generation is also more sensitive, Dr. Wright believes that it is not a good idea on behalf of adults to keep refer to young people using the term snowflake. Any segment of the population can get offended if they are described using a term with inherently negative signification.
Most adults understand that the term is not helpful or encouraging for the younger generation.