Something happened recently that bothered me. And since it may have happened to other TAH readers, I decided to write this article detailing the facts – just in case someone else might need them.
The other day, I was conversing with a friend who’s more liberal politically than I am. They informed me I shouldn’t use the term “special little snowflake”, as it had a dark history. They weren’t much more specific.
Now, unlike some I tend to do a bit of homework before running my yap. But something about that claim just didn’t sound right to me. I decided to check into it.
What I found leads me to believe that someone is trying to create a false meme for political purposes. Once again, the political left is trying to redefine language – this time through blatant falsehood.
If you search the Internet, you’ll see claims that the term “special snowflake” or “snowflake” is of Nazi origin and is a racial slur. The claim is that the Nazis used it to refers to Jews – more specifically, their remains in the form of crematoria ash from Nazi concentration and/or death camps that “fell to the ground like snow”. There’s even an Urban Dictionary entry to that effect.
Well, that means it must be true, right?
In a word: no. Those claims are absolute bullsh!t.
There is no evidence that the Nazis ever used the terms “snowflake” or “special snowflake” to refer to Jews or crematoria ash. Those claims are a baldfaced lie.
The US Holocaust Museum’s Holocaust Encyclopedia does not contain the terms. Their archives do not show the terms used in that manner. Museum officials are unaware of Nazi soldiers routinely using the term “snowflake” or “special snowflake” with that meaning.
The same is true of the education team at the Illinois Holocaust Museum. They were also unaware of that use of the term “snowflake” or “special snowflake” by Nazis during the Holocaust to refer to crematoria dust or Jews.
Don’t believe me? Well, don’t take my word for it. Check out Snopes – who actually researched the claim and found it to be BS. Snopes may lean a bit left, but they’re generally extremely good at fact-checking questionable claims like this. And they’re honest about what they find.
As far as Snopes could find, the sole purported source allegedly “documenting” Nazi origin for the terms is an entry in an Internet site called the “Racial Slur Database”. To put it charitably, the “Racial Slur Database” is unreliable as a source. As Snopes states in their entry I linked, the “Racial Slur Database” site freely admits that their entries are “entirely from data gleaned off the ‘net and via submissions from people like you and your parents.” In plain language, that means they just put any and everything they find on the Internet or that someone sends them in their database – NQA, and without fact-checking.
In reality the sarcastic phrases “special snowflake” and the variant “special little snowflake” probably gained popularity as a variation on the following quote from the 1990s book and movie The Fight Club.
“You are not special. You are not a beautiful and unique snowflake. You are the same organic and decaying matter as everyone else.”
Couple that with the common knowledge that every snowflake is unique, and the phrases “special snowflake” and “special little snowflake” – used sarcastically – practically suggest themselves. Indeed, one commonly accepted definition of the phrase “special little snowflake” is as follows:
A below average kid who is coddled and rewarded for mediocrity, usually by an overprotective mother, a ‘sensitive’ dad, or the public education system. The term stems from the concept that, like a snowflake, all children are special and unique and thus they should be treasured just the way they are so as to build their self-esteem.
Use of the phrases are so ubiquitous today that they’ve spawned a related term, Special Snowflake Syndrome:
A malady affecting a significant portion of the world’s population wherein the afflicted will demand special treatment, conduct themselves with a ludicrous, unfounded sense of entitlement, and generally make the lives of everyone around them that much more miserable.
. . .
So how did the term become falsely associated with the Nazis? Dunno for sure, but I’ll hazard a guess.
Here’s what I think happened. One day, some bozo was acting like an immature, conceited, childish twit – a “special little snowflake”, if you will – carrying on and acting as if they were the center of the universe while demanding special treatment they didn’t rate. When they got called on it, the person calling them out used the term “special little snowflake”.
The jackass in question didn’t like being called out – and particularly didn’t like the perfectly descriptive term used in calling them out. So they decided to try and “poison the well” regarding the use of the term by creating the false entry in question in the “Racial Slur Database”.
What they apparently didn’t count on was the fact that although the Internet makes it easy to spread lies, it also makes it easy for someone who wants to fact check bogus claims. And there are reputable sources out there that do the latter.
In other words: someone tried to pull a fast one using the Internet and got caught lying.
So if you run across someone who tries to tell you that the term “snowflake” or “special little snowflake” is “racist” or has a Nazi past, tell them they’re full of it. And then tell them to check Snopes for verification, since they probably won’t believe the truth from you.
Author’s Note: Definitions above for Special Little Snowflake and Special Snowflake Syndrome are also from the Urban Dictionary. I won’t repeat their thoroughly-debunked-as-bullsh!t definition that falsely associates the term Special Snowflake with Nazism, as it’s been proven bogus and was obviously written by someone on the Left with a political agenda.
