Some other people like to call bullshit, but there’s doubtlessly at least a certain amount of truth to the metaphor. Snowflakes are pretty to look at and each of them is, indeed, unique, provided you just look at it closely enough.

But what does that say about one unique little snowflake’s chance to attract attention in the presence of countless other equally unique little snowflakes?

Obviously a lot less than many advocates of the beautiful-unique-little snowflake-school of thought would have you believe.

Because our culture is not about merely being unique – it’s about standing out. People preach individualism, but what they actually cherish is rarity. (Logic of the market: value is a function of supply and demand, and thus automatically increased by rarity).

All snowflakes might differ from each other in numerous details – but these differences are only visible under a microscope. From a certain other, rather more common perspective they are completely insignificant. (We can actually find a little consolation in that thought too).

There is nothing wrong about advocating the microscope-perspective. Just think of all the fascinating things forever undiscovered without microscopes! But people won’t (and probably cannot) view the world through a microscope all the time. And it might be harmful to be too delusional about that.

But even the microscope does not solve the problem of rarity. Snowflakes under the microscope are evidently unique, but not necessarily in a way that makes individual snowflakes stand out. Merely being special doesn’t guarantee special attention. Not every unique feature can be used as a unique selling proposition.
The desire to be outstanding is nothing but a demand of the ego – legitimate to a certain degree, but clearly not something that has to be indulged under all circumstances. Egos are like little kids – they need to be nourished and a little bit pampered (occasionally) and must not be neglected, because if they are, this comes back with a vengeance, but they really don’t need to get everything they want, because they simply don’t always know what’s good for them.

I crave the label “outstanding” rather for certain accomplishments in my chosen field of expertise than for my personality in general. Probably because I was raised in a very performance-oriented environment. Basing your self-worth too much on accomplishment instead of on intrinsic qualities however can be a risky strategy, as it leaves you ill-equipped to cope with failure and failure is an integral part of human existence. So telling kids that they have intrinsic value seems to be a laudable approach. That’s what the unique snowflake metaphor should be all about.

Unfortunately it is often used to feed into our desire to be outstanding by implying a promise of special attention that it cannot really sustain on closer inspection. The uniqueness of the snowflake implies a notion of value that has little to do with our pre-dominant notion of value and without a marked awareness of this disparity the unique-snowflake-metaphor is basically useless.

Oh, I do think that all children are unique little snowflakes. Of course they are. There’s nothing they can do about it. But the accomplishment is not in being a unique little snowflake; it’s in being able to appreciate it.