Millennials. Stop being offended by, like, literally everything

Millennials are a generation defined by the words like “check your privilege”, “feminist”, “consent”, “safe space”, “gender norms” and “trigger warnings”. These words are like a set of tediously clichéd buzz-words – circulated, probably by Cuntry Living (the "Oxford-based feminist zone"), on "Generation Snowflake" letter-headed paper with a Post-It stuck to it that says “use in case of debate.” I.e. use if you want to shutdown any debate within seconds.

And it seems 2016 has reached new heights of absurd millennial fragility. A year in which the word millennial has become a buzz-word in itself: “that’s so millennial”, “how do we appeal to the millennials?”, “our millennial readers”. It’s like they’re a new alien species. This year, millennials have really taken to being offended. They love it – it’s the new millennial #trend.

This year, millennials asked for a historical statue of Cecil Rhodes to be taken down from Oxford University’s Oriel College as part of a movement to “decolonise” education. A #RhodesMustFall hashtag took over Twitter and the font page of the nationals. The opposition overruled the campaign and Cecil Rhodes, despite being a thoroughly nasty man and a racist, has remained in his place. A plaque to explain the historical context will be added instead. Whilst it is indeed un-progressive and morally nebulous to keep a statue of a tyrannical man who upheld the values of colonialism outside Oriel College, if the statue were to fall, where do we then draw the line?

Imagine if we had to topple every statue or memorial of every nasty man in history across the world? We may as well censor every exhibition, or burn every book cover with Mussolini or Hitler’s face on. Surely “decolonising education” would involve banning “post-colonial” syllabuses from schools and universities? Why must the assumption be that, because Oxford has a statue of Cecil Rhodes, which dates back to 1911 and was built because of his very large donation to the college, Oxford University want to uphold the principles of colonisation?

America faces even more controversy. Outrage surrounded the fact that one of Yale’s colleges is named after John Calhoun, a supporter of slavery, and that Princeton’s Woodrow Wilson school is named after a former president that also shared racist views. By re-naming them, we’re re-writing history. Isn’t that what Generation Snowflake might call "stifling the voice of the victim”? On the theme of education, trigger warnings are now being used in Oxford University’s law department to warn sensitive students before lectures dealing with “potentially distressing subject matter such as criminal cases involving rape and murder.” How are these lawyers going to do their jobs? Are they going to turn down important cases if they broach the topic of rape and murder? Imagine if doctors were allowed to turn down patients if their emergencies related triggering issues. Picture the call out: “Calling Doctor Smith to the emergency room for emergency resuscitation. Oh hang on a sec, can someone send through a trigger warning to Doctor Smith – the victim has been raped and stabbed."

Sometimes it feels like millennials gather in droves to trawl through the net – hungry to drink the blood of their next victim to “shame” on twitter or through a bull-dozing think piece. It seems like rationality and context are irrelevant. Doesn’t matter what the piece was about, just pull out that juicy quote that sounds completely offensive in isolation. Cuntry Living posts sometimes seem like “baits” to trap someone from a white, privileged background into commenting, so that they can be swiftly shamed.

Recently, Bristol university demanded that student Benjie Beer take down an online short story – a first-person narrative about a sexual predator who targets women at Lakota and Lizard Lounge – or face a disciplinary hearing after a small number of students complained that the story “sweeps issues of rape under the carpet”. It recalls the controversy that embroiled Stephen Fry a few months ago when he said we shouldn’t skip over works of literature just because they might mention scenes of rape. Yes, the phrasing was incongruously clumsy, but Generation Snowflake didn’t even give him a chance, they took his words out of context and twisted them until they gave them the perfect canvas for them to react against.

It’s the Generation Snowflake equation, rehearsed to perfection - if you can’t find something to be organically offended by, find something that can loosely be moulded into an offence you’d quite like to react to. It’s probably good for your brand.

Only two days ago, the Greater Manchester police had to issue an apology for staging a mock terror attack in which the police bomber shouted "Allah Akbar!". Think about this for a second. They actually had to apologise, despite the fact they were training themselves to fight against terrorism and protect our country and its people. Were they really going to shout “We are the Quakers!” or “Trigger warning, this is not a sweeping generalisation about Muslims, trigger warning, we repeat this is not an Islamaphobic remark, trigger warning alert: Allahu Akbar!” What a mouthful.

Frankly, it's time for Generation Snowflake to stop melting and get an icier grip.