What does it take to make a snowflake?
The complaints are everywhere. Kids, young adults included, are incapable. Dumbed-down! Inept! They’re “snowflakes.” Drifting with the breeze, piling up to weigh down roofs and flatten fences, snowflakes melt at the slightest rise in temperature while more await being pushed aside so functioning adults can get to work.
But nothing happens in a box. The modern snowflake didn’t arrive like a Currier and Ives Christmas card. Their existence owes in part to previous generations being either too busy working, or inventing methods to avoid work, that no thought was given to product quality at home. (Where the heart is, remember?)
Enter social media.
Latest studies would indicate Smartphones are actually killing our children by way of suicide and crushing their potential and their personality. Accomplishments are being redefined to mean navigating a blizzard of tweets texts and Instagram brag blogs. (Mean girls can really get it going when there’s a faceless crowd to stroke vanity via upvotes and catty chats online.)
And the messages we hear growing up become that little voice in our head. Our children’s heads! Judging, humiliating, shaming, and dissuading. Being on the giving or receiving end is immaterial. The lesson is the same. Superficial is where it’s at, baby. Adults aren’t immune either. Even Mick Jagger, of Rolling Stones fame, insisted that he got no satisfaction, but then he equated being a man with a cigarette brand.
“Dr. Twenge (Professor of Psychology at San Diego State University and author of iGen
Prepare yourself!
“There is a 50 percent increase in a clinical level depression between 2011-2015,” the article concludes.
Take a look at the cartoon clip below to get the skinny on what it takes to make a snowflake:
[jwplayer N1c4xlvK]
Could that be due to the constant pressure to be “on” 24/7? Embarrassments are fodder for the mill. A bad hair day, a breakup, or breakouts are tweeted for world consumption where memory never fades. Perspective is always tuned to microscope proportions. Bullying goes viral. And the desire to just have fun is blown because someone “is” watching with an eye to become popular at your expense.
Victoria Prooday, occupational therapist and writer at YourOT.com, says: “There is a silent tragedy developing right now, in our homes, and it concerns our most precious jewels – our children.”
Check out her stats:
- 43 percent increase in ADHD
- 37 percent increase in teen depression
- 200 percent increase in suicide rate in kids 10-14 years old
Who even thinks of 10-year-olds killing themselves?
The article concludes, “Counselors like Ellen Chance in Palm Beach say they see evidence that technology and online bullying are affecting kids’ mental health as young as fifth grade, particularly girls. She says she now sees cutting incidents pretty much weekly at her elementary school, and while they vary in severity, it’s a signal that not all is right.”
Ya think?
Equality – just what we want
Another area of ramping pressure for the would-be snowflake is confused equality.
Somewhere along the way – please comment below if you know when and where – the idea of treating people with equal dignity and respect has morphed into everybody having to “be” the same. Any acknowledgement of reality – that is, the existence of differences or even the acknowledgement of likenesses – must be eliminated!
Check out the medieval mind torture in the following video of equality as it “should” be:
[jwplayer pVuSNgs1]
Potential subjugation lurks inside every compliment or conversation. Every encounter between life forms that will remain purposefully unnamed – labels of all kind will be avoided unless approved – must be expunged of offensive verbiage, to be determined by the prevailing victim group of any given season.
If you think we’re talking farce, you’d be correct! Not exactly utopia!
Baby vs. manservant: We know who wins
Another window into the world of the would-be snowflake can be seen in the following hilarious interview of a father interviewing with his baby girl. (An actual infant!)
[jwplayer BK3GgTVG]
How too true this is – cannot be measured! Trouble comes when that same attitude is exhibited after 30 years – by both father and child.
The death scene that will never die. Media is a killer!
Who can forget the stellar performance of Bülent Kayabaş, Turkish film star whose1973 performance in “Karate Girl” has garnered over 17 million views since 2012? Interest in Kayabaşhas resurfaced since his death in April of this year. The memory? Take a gander:
[jwplayer xPhcKtSF]
“Turkish Film producers,” says Green Minister, “director and all actors with whole film crews thought they made best scene with sound and moves and they thought its very creative genius work they have ever made in history of Cinema. LOL”
That’s enough to make a snowflake out of anybody!
