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Edited by Raptorkid24: 11/23/2013 2:52:46 AM
18

'Special snow-flake syndrome'

So, after wandering the wilds of tumblr recently, I've developed a theory on 'special snow flake syndrome' aka, people who think they are exceptional or special, despite their justifications for this claim being features or ideas or preferences that many other people also have. These people have likely had an interest or preference (big anime fan, bisexual, reads a lot) that in their real life community, was quite rare, making them unique, and allowing that feature to help define them in that small community. However, once they enter the incredibly larger and more varied community of the internet, they find out that there are thousands upon thousands of people just like them; sharing, developing or even improving on that special trait that made that person so unique in real life. In a sense, that person feels like a huge part of his/her individuality had been removed; a scary concept, especially for teenagers who are struggling to develop their own identities. In response, these people can sometimes try and narrow or develop new 'unique traits' (e.g. describing themselves as terms like 'demisexual' or 'sapiosexual', watching or reading obscure foreign media then bragging about it). Others may seek to define their traits by excluding or separating themselves from people they deem to make up the majority (e.g. petty social justice blogs of 'safe zone blogs'). All these are attempts to gain a sense of individualism in a network teeming with millions of people, all on the same social level. Perhaps if social media was more anonymous based, people would not resort to this behaviour as they know their full identities and the identities of others are not as fully shown, so people don't feel as threatened. But maybe if social media was more personal, with greater exchanges of communication between lots of strangers, allowing people to get the full extent of their personality across, this behaviour would also be reduced. After all, a person is much more complex than a series of preferences and quirks.

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