The Special Snowflake in its Natural Habitat

I want you to stop. Stop what you’re doing, right now, whatever it is, and ask yourself this highly important question: How many times in your life have you heard the term “I’m not like the other girls?” Or the term “normal people?” Or, for that matter, all the other variations on the theme, such as, “I’m different from the rest of them,” or “They just don’t understand me because I’m weird,” or even just the term “everyone else?”

Now, ask yourself this: how many times in your life have you used those terms?

These, my friend, are the common calls of the Special Snowflake.

The Special Snowflake is an interesting and all too common specimen. This is what I personally define as a Special Snowflake: someone who views themselves as not only different but superior to a general “everyone else in the world,” and often experiences social alienation (usually due to their lack of social skills or their intense conceit) and blames this alienation on the fact that no one understands their superior, special mind.

Recently, a YA novel called Gamer Girl came to my attention. It gained notoriety for its terrible writing and loathsome main character, so naturally, I just had to read it. Boy oh boy; I have never seen a finer specimen of our Special Snowflake than Gamer Girl’s defensive, self-righteous heroine, Maddy Starr.

Maddy perfectly showcases the problematic Special Snowflake mentality that thrives within much of our culture. You can see it everywhere – in TV characters telling their lady loves that they’re “not like the other girls,” or in YA movie heroes who have always felt like an outcast but eventually turn out to be special. It’s not always as obvious as it is in Gamer Girl, which is why that book is such an excellent example of prime Special Snowflake mentality.

Maddy is not like the other girls. The “other girls,” in this case, means everyone else at her school – the population of which she often refers to as “Aberzombies” or “clones.” She makes fun of them for wearing Hollister instead of Hot Topic and being blonde and having friends and, basically, not being just like her. The book tells an exaggerated story of how she’s “bullied” by the “popular” kids for being “different,” which in this case means “reading manga and wearing black.” In the end, Maddy rises, triumphant, over her “bullies” by having her genius recognized by everyone else in the school, and getting the hot guy.

I see Maddy as a representation of a good chunk of our country’s population. I know the Special Snowflake type very well, because for a short period of my life, I was one. The most important thing to note about people like Maddy Starr, whose stories come to a shining conclusion when every else in the world just realizes how great they are, is that it’s easier to tell yourself that other people just don’t understand you because they’re not as different or smart as you are than to admit that the reason you don’t have friends is because you never talk to people and you have a superiority complex.

In order to release yourself from the clutches of being a Special Snowflake, you have to make a very important realization: there is no “the other girls.” There are no “normal people” or “Aberzombies” or “clones.” There is no “everyone else.” That is the delusion of the Special Snowflake mentality. It’s not you against the world. Everyone on this planet is different. In reality, we’re all like snowflakes – no two are the same.