Fragile masculinity on thin ice: Broflake

Remember that line in the 1999 cult classic, Fight Club, that Brad Pitt says into the megaphone while pushing fellow alpha males to toil on? ‘You are not special. You are not a beautiful or unique snowflake. You are the same decaying organic matter as everything else.’ Well, that putdown/reality check of ‘snowflake’ by author of the 1996 novel Fight Club, Chuck Palahnuik, has become the byword for lib left-phobes and anti-wokers to describe oh-so-sensitive people flinching at what they consider to be politically incorrect. Now, ‘snowflake’ seems to have come full circle to bite the conservative, alpha male in the buttocks through the mutation of ‘broflake’.

Broflake is a species of masculinity so delicate, it makes a snowflake look like a rock. These fine gentlemen have the remarkable ability to melt at the slightest challenge to their manhood. In their delicate sensibilities — ‘But what about International Man’s Day?’ and ‘Boys will be boys’ — lie a wealth of comedic material just waiting to be mined. The broflake’s ego, fragile as a Fabergé egg, shatters into a million pieces when confronted with dreaded things like ‘feminism’ and ‘gender parity’, leaving behind nothing but a puddle of insecurity. The broflake’s natural habitat is the internet. Here, they roam freely, their delicate feelings shielded by happy anonymity.