Would LMAO if it wasn't so SAD

[Aegon]

Step 1: Claim a group of people are over sensitive
Step 2: Relentlesssly belittle, insult and ridicule them for being part of that group
Step 3: Use their understandable disdain for being insulted as proof they are over sensitive.
Step 4: ???
Step 5: Profit

[Angrboda]

Minimization and demonization are age old tools of political oppression. Is there something new here that I need to be apprised of?

[Rev. Rye]

Minimization and demonization are age old tools of political oppression. Is there something new here that I need to be apprised of?

Maybe that the oppressed can also end up using those tools against their oppressors, given the opportunity? The hell if I know.

Seriously, we're more alike than we think, and that's where the dangers really lie.

[Aegon]

Minimization and demonization are age old tools of political oppression.  Is there something new here that I need to be apprised of?

Social media and other revolutionary technologies.

[Divinity]

It's fucking hilarious how Right Wing Nuts always bitch about people talking about how things offend them, then...

-Have the most thin-skinned creature on the planet as their leader
-BITCH endlessly about "Happy Holidays"
-Get upset at inclusiveness
-Whine the fuck out about people kneeling during a stupid fucking song
-Bitch about it when people don't want to date them or do business with them (but are more than happy to deny service to others.)
-And cry into their pillows whenever anyone mentions that Jesus loved the dick, and was fucking all twelve apostles. Usually anally. They should really make a porn about that. If they haven't already.

[brewer]

Even more so when Conservatives always bitch when they get called names

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I wonder how much A Theist gets in royalties for this?

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. . . and so the pussification of America continues . . .

I think that was a UK article and survey.

[LadyForCamus]

You can laugh or you can cry. The Telegraph reports that calling young people "snowflakes" could be damaging to their mental health. My take-away is either: 1) being called overly sensitive makes you overly sensitive or 2) overly sensitive people are sensitive to be being called overly sensitive. Can't decide which.

Don't Call Us Snowflakes

Calling children names is harmful.  It’s called “bullying”.  Why is that funny?

[Neo-Scholastic]

I do not consider college age people children. I also acknowledged two mutually exclusive possibilities and uncertainty about which is the correct interpretation. The first was favorable towards the millennials;, the second was more skeptical. I will say however that there is a disturbingly (to me) and not uncommon false equivalence between offensive speech and physical violence. For me it is mostly about using those words that most accurately reflect a given reality or concept. For example, people often use the words assault improperly. Assault is an intimidating threat of injurious violence whereas actual physical injurious violence is battery. The same for jealousy and envy. Jealousy is about protecting what belongs to you from other people who want to take and/or messing with it. Envy is about wanting for yourself what belongs to someone else. And the difference between precision and accuracy, etc.

For the record, as President of my Fraternity in college I pushed and succeeded to eliminate all forms of hazing of pledges and junior members.

[I_am_not_mafia]

. . . and so the pussification of America continues . . .

I think that was a UK article and survey.

It was.

But let's get past the spin that the UK right wing newspaper puts on it and actually get to what was said specifically about the term snowflake and ignore the rest about mental health issues:

But research by insurance firm Aviva found that 72 per cent of 16-24 year-olds think the term is unfairly applied, while 74 per cent think it could have a negative effect on young people's mental health.

So what is Neo scholastic actually arguing against here?


A) That 72 per cent of 16-24 year-olds think the term is unfairly applied
B) 74 per cent think it could have a negative effect on young people's mental health

If he is arguing against A then he should explain to us why he thinks that 16-24 year olds are snowflakes.

If he is arguing against B then he should explain to us why being belittled through the use of pejorative language does not have a negative effect on someone's mental health. And if this is what he wants to argue, then perhaps he can explain what the purpose of such language is if not to make someone feel worse about themselves.

[Neo-Scholastic]

I thought the article was interesting, worth sharing, and discussing. I am not advocating for any particular interpretation, mostly because the article lacks the depth required to draw any real conclusions about millenials and/or generational stereotypes. I see it mostly as a springboard to talk about the effects on individual self-esteem by being exposed to either prejudicial generalizations or positive stereotypes. When presented with a stereotype, when do people take it personally and when (and how) do they ignore them. Can someone acknowledge that something is true, in a statistical way but not universally applicable? Moreover, the article suggests broader questions about the interplay between language and culture. I kept the OP short just to see what direction the conversation would go.

As for the title of the thread, “LMAO” is indeed about taking generational stereotypes too seriously. Every generation suffers from both negative and positive stereotypes. The idea that this is anything new is laughable. I feel the same about an academic study that sees millenials as uniquely victimized in a way that GenX (slackers) and Baby Boomers (nacissists) were not. Before there were snowflakes, there were preppies, yuppies, etc.

At the same time I find it very sad that we live in a culture where victim status is a badge of honor that confers legitimacy (sometimes with but often without justification) while feeling like a victim (rightly or wrongly) diminishes one’s sense of self-worth. To me this is analogous to when the idea of dysfunctional families was popular in the 90’s. All of a sudden everyone claimed to have been raised in a dysfunctional family, even when the bad experiences of their childhoods were relatively mild.