Generation Snowflake: Why do ‘The Sun’ hate young people so much?

Elizabeth Whittingham·3 April 2018·7 min read
Generation Snowflake: Why do ‘The Sun’ hate young people so much?

Seriously, why does The Sun hate us so much?

From countless articles in which young people are compared to snowflakes through to constant references to the youth as childish, lazy and selfish, The Sun really does seem to have it in for young people lately.

A Sun article published recently even accused young people of not realising that life is tough, attacking the rates of depression and student mental health as false and even labelling young people as a ‘self-mollycoddling group of millennials’.

The Sun tends to lean towards a general attack on the work ethic of young people, mainly because more and more of the youth head to university before going into work.

There are constant Sun articles labelling young people as pampered, despite wages not matching up to the cost of living; rents being extremely high; endless numbers of students working long hours to keep themselves going through university and thousands of young people working up to 70 hours a week for the NHS.

How can young people possibly be called lazy?

It appears that The Sun also seems to have an infatuation with the idea of mental health being a weakness. Oh, joy.

More students than ever before are killing themselves.

Student depression is at an all-time high.

But what does The Sun decide to write about instead of the importance of opening up the conversation with mental health?

Oh, they decide to dedicate an article listing the top ways to identify a ‘snowflake’, moan about the drain of resources that mental health costs the NHS and also divert the article from the topic of mental health to a collection of snaps of topless models at the bottom of the page.

The ‘charming’ George Harrison, a writer for The Sun goes on a tirade against the youth in his articles, slamming young people as snowflakes who have ‘never had it so good’, whilst fellow writer Olivia Utley delights in mocking the experience of a young teacher suffering from mental health issues and stress, who had to pull out of work; calling him weak and ignorant to the real struggles of life.

Utley also stresses how the weak youth of today tend to jump on the mental health wagon and generally holds a dislike towards any young person who decides to take any kind of vocational occupation or decides to travel.

In her article, (which I am sure she is very proud of…), entitled ‘Snowflake teacher who quit because he ‘got home at 6.30pm left the UK to work at Greek holiday resort after months moaning about having to work too hard’, Olivia slams said teacher; Eddie, for quitting his job and heading off to travel and work abroad.

She labels the young graduate as ‘workshy’ and posts the images of his year abroad as if to demonize his actions, when in fact any sensible person can see that he is travelling, earning money and that he is happy.

What’s all the fuss about?

The comments, not surprisingly, seemed to agree with Olivia Utley, mentions of not allowing Eddie to even return to the UK were frequent, along with references to him as a prat and a complete wimp.

Further mentions refer to the fact the idea that Eddie probably voted Labour and that his generation is destroying the work edifice of the country as opposed to the hard working and honest old generation.

Right…

In response to the inevitable backlash caused by the bold articles, The Sun decided to dedicate a whole article, which for them consists of about two hundred words, to explain the mental process behind the making of their ‘Snowflake Dartboard’.

The articles, dubbed; ‘ONE HUNDRED AND FLAKEY: Get your own back on moany millennials with The Sun’s snowflake dartboard’ evidenced The Sun’s apparent lack of sympathy for the people annoyed by their articles, stating that they had compiled all the biggest ‘snowflakes’ they could find onto a dartboard for their own playing pleasure.

The Sun also published an article detailing and explaining exactly what a snowflake was, how to spot one and what to do if you ever come to face with one, or, god forbid, find yourself turning into one.

Sun columnist Corinne Redfern has labelled young people as ‘hysterical crybabies’, whilst an article published by The Sun last month labelled students as ‘snowflakes’ for stating that the monster in Frankenstein is, in fact, a victim.

Yes, The Sun actually wrote an article about that.

Said article in question, titled ‘Snowflake Students Claim Frankenstein’s monster was ‘misunderstood’ and in fact a victim‘, gained a lot of media attention, with many people tweeting the newspaper to mock the story, which was later removed from The Sun’s twitter page.

Somebody joked that it had taken two people to write the story, their names cited below the picture of the green monster, whilst others stated that the students had actually worked out the meaning of the Gothic tragedy novel. Think about it, The Sun was attempting to criticise young people for reading a book?

George Harrison and Olivia Utley clearly stand for the negative opinions that surround young people of today.

Why, in the modern day, do a newspaper insist on using the term ‘snowflake’ to refer to a whole generation, not only brandishing themselves with the same brush, as they are in their early twenties themselves, but urging the rest of the country to view young people in this rather ignorant way as well?

Jobs can be vocational, part-time and inventive. You can work from home, start up your own business or even make money from YouTube, the ignorance around employment and the youth of today stands for the judgment and pressure loaded onto the youth every day.

The Sun have truly displayed themselves, through these few articles, to ultimately stand for a company that is not only ignorant to the hard work of the young, but also as a company who has become complacent in being seen as the incapable newspaper that they truly are.

What do you think of being called a snowflake? Are you sick of The Sun, leave your opinions below!