Question - where did the terms "snowflake" and "safe space" originate from?

[Initech]

That is a new term that I've only heard in the last year but conservatives love it. Where did it come from? And why it such a widespread meme among conservatives and especially Trump fans? It seems to me that Trump fans are the ones who really need safe spaces - since the election they've staged over 25 different boycotts. So what gives?

[shraby]

1. Snowflake first came from the embryos that were left over from invitro fertilization.

People started adopting them.
Safe place is from the places that are created in the home where a person can hide in case of a home invasion by burglars or worse.

These are my recollections.

[ananda]

4. No, safe place was that Black practice at Yale ..

.. that got so twisted and vilified by people who
didn't understand.

[dpd3672]

2. My understanding is

Snowflake is a sarcastic term referring to how delicate and fragile a person may be, and stems from the concept that everyone is unique and different.

Safe space...I thought...was something that started on college campuses; a place students demanded be established on campus where they'd be somehow safe from offensive or threatening speech, icons, etc.

[Initech]

5. I know what it means, but when did it first start getting used?

[bluepen]

3. Here:

Safe spaces has its roots in this: “Why People Are Wearing Safety Pins After the Election” http://motto.time.com/4567844/safety-pin-hillary-trump-election/ And there’s also a strange movement in schools, even colleges, where students want “safe spaces” so they’re not exposed to things they don’t like, things they are easily offended by, rather than moving along with their adult lives.

And I think “snowflake” came about because of how many young(ish) parents these days treat their kids as if they’re amazingly unique and special. But maybe more so the tendency to raise kids as extraordinarily fragile. (I can see that part of the criticism. It seems like kids these days are trained to be weak and, worse, fearful of everything. Can a kid even play in the yard these days without a helmet on?) So then this bled over to adults, the culture of being offended by everything, trigger warnings, etc.

[Beartracks]

10. People who "want 'safe spaces' so theyre not exposed to things they dont like" Conservatives.

So many conservatives want to turn the entire country into their "safe space" where they won't be exposed to non-English languages, non-traditional gender relationships, and non-capitalist Christianity.

================

[Quayblue]

6. The first place I saw them was on reddit...

So possibly 4chan (never go there).

[The Genealogist]

7. My take on how wingnuts use these terms

"snowflake" is used sarcastically for someone who they think is fragile, weak, spineless, easily injured by the least bit of provocation. One who is in this state is "triggered." "Safe Space" is where the "snowflake" goes, as a playground bully would taunt "to cry like a baby wahhh wahhh."

I personally get tired of this language, mainly because the person using these taunts is the one who is actually "triggered" and behaving according to the definition of snowflake. Wingnut "tough guys" seem always to be exhibiting behaviors that reflect their idea of what a "snowflake" is and seem to get "triggered" all the time by someone or something: women being unchained from a stove, LGBTQ people being allowed to exist, non-whites who "don't know their place," etc.

[Initech]

8. I find it hilarious that the people who use this language are the ones most easily offended.

I mean like Milo gets kicked out of Arizona because no one wants him, does that mean his supporters will boycott Arizona?

[UTUSN]

9. Plus, wingnuts specialize at twisting propaganda phrases to their own use, "low information voter"

"Low information voter" started out referring to the Fox network viewers, but then the wingnuts took it over and twisted it to refer to US (all of their enemies). LIMBOsevic specializes in appropriating/twisting stuff. He took over the phrases of praise we have for FDR and applies them to RAYGUN.

[msongs]

11. safe space years ago meant symbols in windows etc for lgbt people to go

and feel secure and or safe. classrooms, houses on the block and so forth. that was years ago tho

[kskiska]

12. Teabaggers is another one

Invented by wingnuts, but disowned when they found out it already means something else relating to homosexual behavior.

[muriel_volestrangler]

13. Maybe the movie 'Flight Club', for 'snowflake'

On October 15th, 1999, the film Fight Club[1] was released. The film features one of the protagonists, Tyler Durden (Brad Pitt) telling the men looking to join the fight club:

“You are not special. You are not a beautiful or unique snowflake.”

http://knowyourmeme.com/memes/special-snowflake

For 'safe space', their article is a lot woollier: http://knowyourmeme.com/memes/safe-space . The earliest definite date for the precise phrase given is 2009 (Wikipedia currently says "In 1989 Gay & Lesbian Urban Explorers (GLUE) developed a safe spaces program", but it's unclear if they were using the phrase or just the idea), but the concepts are traced a lot further back.

[meadowlander]

14. The first time I heard "safe spaces" was as a grad student in the mid-1990s.

The idea was to provide a space where victims of violence or racism could talk with each other about the experience without being shouted down by trolls. We were talking about it in the context of rape victims, but it may not have originated there.

I imagine from there it expanded to mean any place where the integrity of a discussion is protected by banning disruptors. For example, DU is a safe space for the left.

And then the alt-right coopted it to imply that there is something weak or shameful about wanting to have an actual discussion with people that aren't Nazis.

"Snowflake" has been around since the 1980s as a way to make fun of hippies and the self-esteem movement in the 1970s with the idea that we are all "special and unique snowflakes". There's a reference to it in Fight Club in 1999 which was probably picked up and amplified by the alt-right who don't understand that the film is being ironic about jackbooted counter-culture movements.

[Skittles]

15. they call us snowflakes while they worship the biggest snowflake of all

go figure