Tough Times for the Snowflake Generation
I doff my cap to salute author Fay Weldon, 87 who has come out in strong defence of so-called 'snowflakes' and told the older generation to stop slagging them off. She fired on baby boomers with all barrels saying they deserve no respect for bequeathing the younger generation a slightly insane world and a mess to clear up. Well, quite.
The constant denigration of the young is one of today's most destructive and unhelpful social trends as those who should know better look down on twentysomethings with raised eyebrows and sneering contempt.
Baby boomers laugh at the supposed fragility of snowflakes and the ease with which they get upset but then they get all red-faced with rage when they take at face value some preposterous anti-EU lie printed in the Daily Mail.
The general differences between the generations are stark. Snowflakes tend to be a lot smarter, better educated, more clued up and enlightened about the world and more willing to engage with it than many people of a certain age. And they’ve decided that being racist, homophobic and transphobic is not for them.
The snowflake generation is supposedly less resilient than previous ones. What utter hogwash. If some snowflakes do moan it’s because they have it hard, definitely tougher than their parent's generation. Some grew up in broken homes and experienced deeper poverty than the generation before them yet worked harder and with greater success at school than their parents. And their reward? A shrinking job market, stalled wages, absurd commutes and a cat in hell’s chance of getting on the property ladder. Nor will they ever be sitting pretty with generous financial salary pension schemes unlike some of today’s pensioners. But they forge on valiantly.
Snowflakes sure have been dealt a rough hand. But it’s going to take lot more than ceasing the vilification and a glass of kombucha and a slice of avocado toast to help them. I’m always in two minds about Ryanair. On one side I have never wanted a company to fail so much because of the arrogance of its CEO, the indifference of its staff, the dismal food, the stupid landing music, the lack of seat pockets, the scratch cards and the constant selling of stuff while you’re trying to get some shuteye. But then again I love the fact that they fly to a zillion locations and really are cheap.
Nonetheless, I smiled a little at the profit warning it issued on Monday. The company has cut its full-year profit guidance by as much as 12% blaming it on the impact of strikes and rising oil prices. I would like to think that this puts them in such a precarious position that they’ll start to bend over backwards for customers to win more of us over, or at least treat us like humans. Sadly, there’s probably fat chance of this happening because they’re still going to be sitting pretty on a yearly profit that is somewhere north of £1 billion.