The Culture of the Special Snowflake

     Millennials are a generation like no other. Raised by parents who compensate for their feelings of neglect stemming from their parents, they try to protect their children from every earthly harm. In theory this is not such a bad thing, but in practice in has made a generation ill prepared for a world that does not pull any punches. The hug boxes they grew up in conditioned them to feel entitled to always feel good, to never be confronted, and to get everything they wish.    

     One example of this problem is how some adult age college students resort to acting like children when faced with something they do not like. Students at The American University in Washington, D.C. were protesting a guest speaker. Milo Yiannopoulos, a flamboyant homosexual libertarian, was invited to make a speech about freedom of speech as part of his "Dangerous Faggot Tour". According to Christian Spencer on DailyCaller.com, students clamed that his imminent arrival was causing crippling anxiety. Stephanie Black, a freshman at the university, said, “I haven’t slept in the last three weeks. To see those stupid posters posted all over this campus with those pink little letters glittered…I can’t breathe walking down the fucking street at night in [sic] this campus.” “Triggering is real,” Black insisted. Children like Black were taught that others will always respect your beliefs. Conditioned to think that what they believe will be never challenged and they will never have to defend those beliefs. Millennials remain in the grade school mentality of running to the teacher crying because "Billy hurt my feelings". They have yet to realize that in the real world your feelings do not always come first and that progress can only be achieved in discomfort.     
     

     Another example are the students at Brown University. On the Brown Daily Herald, Mei Novak wrote the article, “Schoolwork, advocacy place strain on student activists”. Novak quotes some students she interviewed. “My grades dropped dramatically. My health completely changed. I lost weight. I’m on antidepressants and anti-anxiety pills right now. (Counseling and Psychological Services) counselors called me. I had deans calling me to make sure I was okay,” he said. Another student she interviewed complained that a professor would not push the due date back on an assignment. These students are attending an Ivy League school that costs over $53,000 a year and will set them up for success just from the prestige of the school itself. Instead of using this opportunity to the fullest they instead leave during classes to go to meetings and complete activist work over schoolwork or exams. They do not take any responsibility for what they are doing and instead look for ways to make other people conform to them. They go crying to the deans of the school until they are given a “Deans’ note” to give to the teacher. This is basically the dean telling the professors to pass the person in the class even if they are failing. The priorities of these students are backwards. If they feel so strongly about an issue that they will flunk out of college to focus on it, perhaps they should take a semester off of school. Perhaps they could realize that in the real world, sometimes you can not have every thing you want.  

     The mentality that every one is special has caused a lot of problems.  Coddling parents have raised a generation of children that think exceptionalism is deserved not earned. They feel that the world owes them success and that they can have everything they desire with out having to put in the blood, sweat, and tears. When confronted with a challenge, they complain until someone else fixes it rather that facing the problem head-on. They celebrate mediocrity, but demonize the truly exceptional. One would be wise to fallow the sage advice of Rachel Dawes, “It’s not who you are underneath, but what you do that defines you.”