Generation gap, the SJW Special Snow Flake phenomenon. -

[Ravenor]

Generation gap, the SJW Special Snow Flake phenomenon.

Now before I start this is just a thought I have had and have been mulling over for the past few day's, it's far from complete but I would like some input on it.

There is a reason the majority of SJW's an Special Snow Flakes are in a early twenties an mid to late teen age range and that's two philosophies. The first is my Kid is awesome an perfect in every way they don't need to change the world needs to change for them School of parenting, and the belief that the world is a horrible place the delicate spawn of your loins must be protected from the mean world in every way. This isn't the odd over protective parent this was for about ten years the predominant school of parenting, every activity had to be not just safe but excessively so, not just protecting a Child from Harm (always a good idea), but upto an including emotional booboo's.

For a long time Children where brought up an rewarded just for taking part in a activity, last year I was invited to my friends son's Sports Day. Now little C isn't the most athletic 8 year old but he is keen now he come 4th in the sack race, he wasn't only given a prize he was also given a badge saying "I am still a winner", the kid who came last was given the same badge but a small prize for and I quote "The last winner". This was far from the first time this happened Big C had been to the last 3 Sports day's an told me it was par for the course. I was in a position to ask the Head Teacher about this an he said, All the kids need to feel good they are good enough as it is.

For a whole generation, a lot of kid's where told you need to do better. I have seen "Marking guides" for teachers with "Positive enforcement" advice for really abysmal marks. In a test in school if I got "1/10, I would have a mark in red pen saying "SEE ME AFTER CLASS", I would have had to hand in my maths home work in a English class to get a mark like that. But According to this officially sanctioned GCSE coursework marking guide book you could hand in a random scrawl in crayon and be given "Great effort, but please try an read the source work a little closer 1/10".

This has lead to a portion of a generation who feel's they don't have to achieve better, they are already excelling at everything. But they have all used the communication methods they feel comfortable with and with age have found that they are lacking in a few areas an no longer perfect. And haven't compensated for this by getting familiar with the lacking skill what ever it happens to be, because they have never had anything hard happen to them, the whole Idea of others not sharing the same opinion as them has become alien, and turely terrifying to them. And they have built hug box communities around this as they don't want to grow up.

Tl;Dr version, Kid's have never grown up, and seek sympathy from others of there ilk as they know nothing other than being spoiled an told your the embodiment of Perfection.

 

[Infinity]

The internet, I feel, has made it worse too. Everyone wants to feel special and unique, especially teens who are just finding their identity. But then they get online and see that they aren't all that unique, that's there's lots of people like them. Now well-adjusted people would be happy to find out people share their interests/identities, and that's how some of the better online communities are made. But then you get the people who just have to be more special, more unique than everyone else, and that's where the constant "one-upping" of super specialness comes in (I'm looking at you, Tumblr).

 

[melty]

While this rest of this sounds spot on, I think people really overstate the importance of "everyone gets a trophy." I grew up with this mindset of everyone gets a trophy/ribbon/prize/gold star sticker, we had basically the same sports day you described, and no one is really stupid enough to think last place is as good as first. Everybody knows who is the fastest runner and who's the slowest and the teacher pretending like it doesn't matter doesn't really change anything. CWC is kind of an exception here with his honor roll nonsense, but it's not something I've really seen in other lolcows? A lot of them genuinely got good marks and did better than the other kids in school as well, so even if we didn't have this everybody wins mindset they would still have gotten trophies, etc.
I think it has way more to do with parents coddling their kids than everyone getting a purple ribbon at sports day. It's the parents telling their kids that they are just too special and the teacher//their peers just don't understand their specialness.

 

[meatslab]

I'm gonna have to disagree. Every generation has spoiled brats. Just work retail, especially fast food.

Plus as someone who played sports as a kid and got those participation trophies, kids know who won and lost (none of us gave a shit if we lost. We just wanted our free soda at the end of it), especially with rabid parents always having to have their kid be the best at sports instead of letting them have any fun in just playing with other wee ones.

Just saying, none of this "I think I'm special" stuff isn't anything new.

 

[Ancani]

I'm gonna have to disagree. Every generation has spoiled brats. Just work retail, especially fast food.

Plus as someone who played sports as a kid and got those participation trophies, kids know who won and lost (none of us gave a shit if we lost. We just wanted our free soda at the end of it), especially with rabid parents always having to have their kid be the best at sports instead of letting them have any fun in just playing with other wee ones.

Just saying, none of this "I think I'm special" stuff isn't anything new.

As someone from the same generation mentioned in the OP, I'm inclined to agree with this.

I think it's also worth noting that a lot of the younger special snowflakes and SJWs actually seem to come from genuinely shitty backgrounds, sometimes even dealing with full-on abuse. And I honestly think that kind of situation would play a role as well--if you're constantly told you're not important or special, then of course you're going to want to somehow prove that you are! I think it's important to find a happy medium.

Take my upbringing, for instance. I had (and still have) loving, nurturing parents--but I was also disciplined when I needed to be, and while my parents rarely got truly angry at me, they did express their disappointment when I did poorly on something they knew I could do better at. (In fact, I got grounded from the internet for a few months in sixth grade for consistently failing to do my English homework; they knew it was simply a matter of laziness on my part and that I really could do wonderfully if I put in any effort whatsoever.) And obviously they weren't perfect parents, but I don't really think it's possible to be a truly perfect parent, and they did their best. And I like to think I turned out relatively okay, all things considered.

Of course, there's also the whole nature versus nurture debate. You could be a nigh-ideal parent and still have a kid who's a spoiled, entitled brat or a total delinquent, and conversely, you could be an unbelievably shitty parent and still have a kid who's pretty damn normal. But I do think upbringing plays a major role as a rule.

Not really sure much of it has to do with constant praise by teachers and coaches and such, really--especially when you consider that there's gonna be more than one kid in a specific class with a specific teacher, and some of them might end up awful and others might end up wonderful.

This got long and a bit rambly but I hope I got my point across.

 

[XYZpdq]

It's hard to get a feel for how fucking stupid people were in previous generations because the internet wasn't available to document and broadcast how completely fucking stupid they were.

So if somebody thought he had a lemur soul his options to express it to random strangers were much more limited.

 

[Heretics on Holiday]

I'm from the same generation, but my school experience was just the opposite. I come from an affluent town that is pretty much "perfect" - very Christian, 97% White, full of beautiful houses with green lawns, schools with high budgets, housewives wearing dresses and heels while running errands, the whole deal. We were brought up to be competitive, we always had to be the best, or otherwise our peers would eat us alive. I remember waking up at 5 AM every day in high school so I could put on a full face of makeup and style my hair and have coffee and still have enough time to see my friends before class started.

Kids still cracked, kids still turned to fantasy worlds, likely as an escape from the pressure that living in such a community would build. I mentioned in another thread that I knew a soulbonder. The thing is, weird kids will be weird kids no matter what. Being expected to compete really does not solve the problem of them being isolated from others - a lot of the time, it only exacerbates it.

 

[PsychedelicDiamond]

Nah. I think that's overthinking it. Young people are immature. I mean' that's pretty much part of the definition. That's what it was always like. I don't think that its worse now than it has always been. These people just come to our attention more easily due to social media.

 

[Ravenor]

Thank you all that have replied so far, I value your contributions, it's interesting to hear your thoughts on the subject.

 

[QI 541]

There aren't necessarily more spoiled brats than previous generations. The main difference this generation is that we reward them for it.

 

[tehpope]

I kindof agree with OP, but I think you have to take into consideration GIFT (Greater Internet Fuckwad Theory). I.E. Normal Person + Anonymity + Audience = Fuckwad. So you have these folks who are truly fucked in the head and are spoiled brats with bad parenting and then you have folks who try and fit in with these people because they're popular. And then there's the normal person who is susceptible to being converted to anything and and a SJW tries to convert them.

Ravenor, I like your post but my inner Grammer Nazi popped up and I fixed your OP.

Spoiler

There's a reason the majority of SJW's and Special Snow Flakes are in their early twenties, slash mid-to-late teens. IMO, its based around two philosophies. The first is "My Kid is awesome and perfect in every way. They don't need to change, the world needs to change for them" school of parenting. While the second is "The world is a horrible place and the delicate spawn of your loins must be protected from the mean world in every way". This isn't the odd over protective parent, this was, for about ten years, the predominant school of parenting. Every activity had not just to be safe but excessively so. Not just protecting a Child from Harm (always a good idea), but upto and including emotional booboo's.

For a long time, Children were brought up and rewarded just for taking part in a activity. Last year, I was invited to my friends son's Sports Day. Now little C isn't the most athletic 8 year old, but he is keen now he come 4th in the sack race. For this he wasn't only given a prize, he also received a badge saying "I am still a winner". The kid who came last was given the same badge but a small prize for and I quote, "The last winner". This was far from the first time this happened. Big C had been to the last 3 Sports day's and told me this was par for the course. I was in a position to ask the Head Teacher about this and he said, "All the kids need to feel good they are good enough as it is".

For a whole generation, a lot of kid's where told you need to do better. I have seen "Marking guides" for teachers with "Positive enforcement" advice for really abysmal marks. In a test in school if I got "1/10", I would have a mark in red pen saying "SEE ME AFTER CLASS". I would have had to hand in my maths home work in a English class to get a mark like that. But According to this officially sanctioned GCSE coursework marking guide book, you could hand in a random scrawl in crayon and be given "Great effort, but please try an read the source work a little closer. 1/10".

This has lead to a portion of a generation who feel like they don't have to achieve better, they are already excelling at everything. But with age they've found that they're lacking in a few areas and are no longer perfect. They haven't compensated for this by getting familiar with the lacking skill, whatever it happens to be, because they have never had anything hard happen to them. This whole idea of others not sharing the same opinion as them has become alien, and its truely terrifying to them. Thus, they have built hug box communities around this as they don't want to grow up.

TL;DR: This generation haven't grown up, and thus seek sympathy from others of their ilk as they know nothing other than being spoiled & told you're the embodiment of Perfection.

 

[Luna]

As far as people not growing up you have to realize there's the thing going on now where we have less formal introduction into adulthood. Previous generations had large-scale drafts because of war or people went directly from high school into the workforce or got married and immediately started having children and that 'special snowflake' grown up child kind of attitude was really only associated with affluent kids who could sit around college for years and didn't have an immediate reason to get a job when they finished school (you can see that kind of ideal in the 'Liberal Elite' stereotype). Nowadays the job market means younger inexperienced workers are less likely to get a job, which means they're less likely to move out of their parents house so they continue to live more or less how they did as teenagers, and with an elective only military no one is forced into a situation where they have to suddenly deal with being an adult.
(Yeah I'm speaking from an America-centric viewpoint. Sue me.)

 

[Tragi-Chan]

I think the only real difference is the Internet. I was born not too long after Chris, so the Internet really became a universal thing when I was in my teens. Before that, we had kids who were snotty spoilt brats, but they kept quiet about it because frankly, that's the sort of thing that gets you beaten up at school. On the Internet, though, you don't have to listen when people tell you to STFU. Hell, you don't even have to hear them calling you that. And the people who agree with you can speak out, again without fear. Brats can seek each other out. I guess that's the downside of the social revolution brought about by the Internet.

 

[The_Hissing_Vigilant]

I am enjoying this thread. One of my favorite internet subjects, special snowflakes.
Good insight everyone. Everyone's point here makes sense. It ads to the Big picture of timeless fuck-up-ery.

About the fact that kids have always been spolied. About the job market, no one is forced into adulthood so immaturity lingers and the fact that bratty young people are nothing new.....but the internet is. There is more exposure and more catering to immature bullshit than any other time. At least all the narcism has come to surface so we can see what's coming.

Year 1439: Kids these days and that darn printing press! Spoiled brats. These young aristocrats are going to loose their social skills, no more news being told word of mouth....lazy spolied brats can just read it....oh! They may grow ignorant....the bubonic plague cometh!

2014: kids these days and that darn internet! These young first-worlders are going to loose their social skills, they may even catch a case of the the spergers....the burgers cometh!

 

[Adamska]

My hypothesis is just the increasing speed and access to information. Most of these events or individuals were likely there already, but people back then were not aware of them due to the lack of services such as internet. Weird Cousin Eddies just became a lot easier for people not familiar with them to find, since Weird Cousin Eddie can now put his stuff up on services that anyone can find now.

 

[drtoboggan]

I got those participation trophies. I knew back then that they were bullshit. I do agree shit parenting is nothing new, but at least teachers didn't bullshit (or put up with as much bullshit) previously. Now they have to capitulate to more parents that want their kid treated like they're oh so special.
Now, or previously, the level of human entitlement is absurd. It kills me how many morons expect special treatment because they have no concept of other people.

 

[Conrix]

All of the points here are damn good. The special snowflake bullshit is so thick on tumblr, I suspected that at least one of the SJW/otherkin blogs I was lurking on was trolling just due to the completely absurd responses to the tiniest criticisms. I never wanted much to do with being completely "normal", but how the hell does one expect a pat on the ass just because they think they're a wolf soul or a fartgendered lesbian fart/fartself/whatever? That's kinda like expecting praise just for owning a very rare ornamental dildo.

I'm glad to see more into these..."unique" people and what makes them tick though. If I were to pitch a point here, it would be a combination of the internet making it easier for the weirdos to make their weirdness so everyone can see it, and their upbringing (considering nature vs. nurture, whether the parents were just shitty or the person's just fucked in the head despite decent influences).

 

[Henry Bemis]

Personally, I can't imagine how conflicted the older LGBTQ guard must feel about a lot about these issues. On one hand, people want to identify as being outside the norm. On the other hand, they bandy about said identities - identities that have gotten countless numbers killed (and still do) - like baubles on a fourth-grade key chain.

 

[Ja'mie]

Like most adolescents, I tried on different subcultures and identities (Goth, b-girl, punk, church girl, hippie, etc). Pretty much all of the time I had an age ending in "teen", I was throwing stuff against the mirror to see what stuck. From what I've seen and read, that's pretty normal and continues to a lesser extent into adulthood.

Having the internet available during my formative years just exposed me to music and personalities I probably wouldn't have encountered otherwise. Now the internets is even more accessible and has even more options for developing personas/personalities. So now somebody that thinks that deep down inside, they're a fried baloney sandwich has a platform to express that and meet other soul sandwiches trapped in human bodies. They're also open to more ridicule and trolling, so that leaves the door open for decent people, ass patters, and SJWs to take up the opposing side.

 

[DangerousAngel]

I do think there is an epidemic of grossly extended adolescence happening, but I think it has more to do with the state of the economy and the lack of opportunities for unskilled workers (which, let's be real, includes people with college degrees these days). college enrollment exploded in the 90s and, as a result, various workforces were overflowing with applicants; employers were overwhelmed with options and naturally chose the cream of the crop and most were locked out of jobs, forcing people to either go back to school for an advanced (or different) degree, join another (often completely unrelated) type of career, or turn to the service industry for entry level positions. securing a decent job becomes less about your education and more about who you know and if they're willing to pull some strings for you. in addition, many companies have outsourced incredible amounts of their labor overseas. on top of that, wages for so many are abysmally low. if you're making less than $15 an hour, it's going to be very difficult for you to live on your own, depending on your cost of living.

too many of us owe massive amounts of debt and realistically won't pay it off during our lifetimes. it's no wonder a lot of 20-somethings are still living at home with no real prospects. labor conditions are shit. this isn't the 70s or even 80s anymore where you can expect to raise a family and have health insurance and buy a house while working at a grocery store.