Snowflake

Snow, cold, or winter — read literally almost every time. It turns up on snow-day texts, weather updates, ski photos and Christmas greetings. Its six arms copy the six-sided shape real ice crystals grow into.

People noticed that shape long before emoji. A Chinese text from 135 BCE contrasts six-pointed snow with five-pointed plant flowers. Swedish bishop Olaus Magnus's 1555 book shows one recognisable six-rayed flake among fanciful ones, and in 1855 James and Cecilia Glaisher drew observed crystals for weather scientists — drawings that also inspired ornament.

Japan grew its own tradition: falling-snow motifs appear on craft objects from the 1500s, and Doi Toshitsura's illustrated study of real crystals, published in 1832, popularised detailed snowflake patterns on kimono and accessories.

Is calling someone a 'snowflake' an insult?

Yes — it mocks someone as oversensitive or self-important. The sting lives in the word, not the ❄️ picture: a lone emoji in a chat still just says winter.

The word has an ugly history in the United States. In Civil War Missouri it labelled pro-slavery whites, and in the 1970s it was aimed at Black people seen as acting white. The modern “special snowflake” put-down spread through the novel Fight Club (1996) and its 1999 film; around 2016 it became a political jab at liberals, who threw it back at conservatives.