'Fight Club' Writer Takes Credit For Coining The Term "Snowflake"

Jennifer Konerman
The Hollywood Reporter
Tue, 24 Jan 2017 05:25 UTC

Chuck Palahniuk thinks Trump supporters were inspired by his line: "You are not special. You are not a beautiful and unique snowflake."

Fight Club writer Chuck Palahniuk says he coined the term "snowflake" long before Trump supporters began using it.

Fox News contributors and Donald Trump counselor Kellyanne Conway have been using the term referring to Trump protesters, but the author says the phrase started with him.

"It does come from Fight Club," he told the Evening Standard. "There is a line, 'You are not special. You are not a beautiful and unique snowflake.'"

Palahniuk says that the term "snowflake" is even more accurate today than it was when the film Fight Club was released in 1999. "There is a kind of new Victorianism," he said. "Every generation gets offended by different things, but my friends who teach in high school tell me that their students are very easily offended."

Conway and Mike Huckabee have been using the term "snowflake" to refer to protesters who took to the streets after Trump's victory. "Get over it, snowflakes, your snow has melted," Huckabee said of the election results on Fox & Friends this month.

Just after the election, Fox News' Sean Hannity asked Conway about the "liberal crybabies" who wouldn't accept Trump as the then president-elect, and the college students who either didn't go to class following the election or flooded their campuses in demonstration of the election results. "We're treating these adolescents and millennials like precious snowflakes," she told the Fox News host.

On the rhetoric, Palahniuk added that he believes liberals and the political left need to rethink their strategy when it comes to protesting Trump: "The modern left is always reacting to things, once they get their show on the road culturally they will stop being so offended."

Comment: See also:

Precious snowflake syndrome: The most ridiculous college protests of 2016

The Health & Wellness Show: Precious Snowflake Syndrome: Cry ins, safe spaces and microaggressions

Reader Comments

gdpetti · 2017-01-25T20:39:33Z

Yes, which is why I prefer the term "marshmallows", as it seems a more apt term... as they aren't unique, just different sides of the corral... same herd.

Highland Fleet Lute · 2017-01-25T20:49:27Z

[Link]

Highland Fleet Lute · 2017-01-25T21:19:14Z

Tumblr's nonbinary special snowflakes compilation...[Link]

Ruth · 2017-01-26T06:28:43Z

I suppose it's a good enough explanation as to why the word might have hit global consciousness.

Highland Fleet Lute · 2017-01-26T08:57:25Z

Of course, from one point of view people are unique special snowflakes, but only within the context of "get a grip, so is everyone.else".

'Fight Club' is a really interesting film. It's got a couple of flaws in it here and there, but it's a film that really prompts you to use your grey matter, unlike the bog-standard Hollywood "drink me" swill of 'V for Vendetta', 'They Live', and 'The Matrix'.

'V for Vendetta' could quite easily have been dreamt up by George Soros.

Back to the subject of 'special snowflakes', a while ago I watched that really funny documentary about the life of Sid Vicious in which there was a cracking quote from Marco Perroni....

"A hero is someone who can do things that you can't do. Not someone who can't even go to bed without setting fire to himself".

LOL.