Let It Snow; One Man’s Mission to Redefine The Snowflake

Joelle Fredman
WMAL.com

VIRGINIA — (WMAL) One Arlington man wants to take back the derogatory term, “snowflake”. And he’s going to do it one pin at a time.

When Ballston resident Michael Getter heard that his friends who attended the Women’s March in January were called snowflakes because they opposed Trump policies, he was inspired to do something about it.

“People who I know who went, I know of them not to be snowflakes,” Getter said. “I felt that I sort of became a snowflake too because I was opposed to Trump’s agenda and his administration’s agenda, and it just sort of stuck in my mind.”

Another source of inspiration came from the recent snowstorm that plagued the East Coast.

“This is sort of when I realized that snowflakes really have a significant power when there are lots of them,” Getter said.

Getter began designing snowflake pins to represent different issues that people may oppose and created a design guide on his American Snowflake Facebook page.

The Bad Hombre Snowflake pin, for example, is green, white and red. The message of the snowflake, according to the guide, is “I am NOT paying for YOUR wall.”

There are 15 snowflake designs so far, and Getter said he hopes people will wear a snowflake for every issue they believe in and not limited themselves to just one.

Getter also hopes that customers will know that the pin is not an excuse to stop fighting.

“What I don’t want to happen is that people are just buying the pin and wearing it and thinking that they are done,” He said. “I hope by wearing that pin it means the person is taking an active stance.”

Getter will open a KickStarter campaign May 1.