Trigger Warnings - Do they ever have a place or purpose?

[SeaPancake]

I feel like we supply our own trigger warnings in everyday conversation when recommending or talking about certain things. "Don't see this movie, it has X, Y, and Z." From our interactions with others we can begin to gauge what they're able to handle. Assuming that everyone can handle ultra-violent content is stupid, but assuming that everyone won't be able to handle child abuse or mentions of rape is equally stupid. The only trigger I think I possess, if at all, is the sight of syringes being inserted into skin, but such a thing is rarely shown out of the blue. Most shows and movies set up the event by filling it with liquid or having the person hold it up to the camera before stabbing it into someone, so I know when to look away.

This isn't something you can't do during, say, a lecture in school because it'd make you look like an idiot, but I remember in school we had to send forms home for our parents to sign before watching certain films because of the content they had. Whether the parents or the kids would be triggered was solved in that capacity. One girl was consistently excused if the film featured war, sex, or offhand criticisms of religion. Pretty lame.

 

[ToroidalBoat]

I remember a time before trigger warnings.

People can live without them.

 

[Orc Girls Make Due]

Major powerlevel here, but it's relevant to the topic.

I go to a DBT program during the days, and there are a lot of women from all sorts of backgrounds in there (it's women only, but trans people are allowed in). Some of them have PTSD that's considered more "acceptable" since it came from war, rape, etc. Others - who perhaps don't have PTSD - tend to use the term "trigger" pretty liberally - ie, saying they were "triggered" into a panic attack or some sort of mental breakdown. Something about that just doesn't feel right, because unless my own PTSD is fake or I'm a moron, triggers cause flashbacks. Overstimulation of the senses or mind - which usually causes these breakdowns - isn't exactly a "trigger". You can't really slap a trigger warning on something that might overstimulate the senses or brain, especially since different people can be overwhelmed by different things.

But regarding the actual defintion of trigger for people who have actual PTSD, and not just the more woobified defintion of it: there are certain types of triggers where exposure therapy simply cannot work - those are where having PTSD is "understandable" to those who don't have it. Trigger warnings for that type of stuff work. At the same time, some triggers are EXTREMELY obscure or so rooted into our daily lives that the only thing that can be done is exposure therapy. For others, where their PTSD comes from a traumatic event that took place at a specific place or doing a specific thing, it can take a lot of time for them to warm up to the concept of exposure therapy. Forcing it on them, or chastising them for being unable to cope with it, can create a more negative reaction to it in the future; you need to find the "balance" of not trying to make a safe space for them, and exposing them to something specific that might trigger them in small doses.

So TL;DR : It really depends.

This is exactly right and there are many led arcticles on such a thing .

In fact, I recently had to do reading on traumatic death and how it affects PTSD victims.

If say coming from a war or surviving an accident your friend was in, you get a heavy guilt that eventually turns into certain triggers as it were. Being anywhere near the object of guilt or anything reminding of the person can cause flashback and mental or catatonic break in a person.

That is the average PTSD victims reaction to a non-copable event. Usually repressed until brought on by smell, word or action. Sometimes object.

What Tumblr and munchies have done to the medical reasoning and word is just a bastardized slur at this point. Less and less people are being taken seriously when going to psychiatrists and therapist when trying to explain a trigger.

 

[Tragi-Chan]

In theory they're not a bad idea, but they became almost like a contest to see who had the most triggers. You'd get people on Tumblr complaining because they were triggered by the colour red and no one put a warning for that, or something equally stupid. It got to the point where you had people complaining about the phrase "trigger warning" because they were triggered by the reminder that they had triggers and they needed to be warned, so you got that "content note" bullshit.

 

[scared sheep]

Dunno if someone has already said this, but there is some merit to them.

Let’s say I’m having a rough day. Suddenly, I come across something with extreme content. I should be able to pick myself up and move along, right?

Well...

Worst case scenario, the content ends up triggering an anxiety attack, which progresses to a panic attack, and now I’m completely unable to do anything constructive for 24 hours, there’s vomit on the floor, and my sleep schedule is fucked.

Once again, this is worst case scenario, but if you could avoid it, wouldn’t you?

Let’s take another example.

College class. We’ve been assigned a movie that has a rape scene. Unwarned, this may cause flashbacks, etc. but with a warning, with the knowledge going in to expect it, the person can watch it mentally prepared, with lessened consequences.

This is the power of “trigger warnings.” They’re like how a pedocow will usually have the fact that they’re a pedo in the subtitle. If you don’t want to look at a pedo, you can avoid it, right? It’s a warning that this content contains something that may cause a bad reaction, so proceed with caution. Think of it like a nut warning on food. Except it’s for your mental health.

Of course, you can abuse the concept, but you can take literally anything too far. So... that argument is, by itself, silly.

 

[de_DEVIL_tails]

No

 

[LazarusOwenhart]

Maybe what we need is an SJW specific browser plugin that displays a massive splash screen reading "TW: Everything" anytime you open it then goes on to just blackbar censor every line of text.

 

[Wraith]

We used to have some common sense trigger warnings in a way, they were called movie ratings. They were meant to separate people who didn't want to see a certain class of film because of violence and da sexy time, and also keep them out of the hands of da childrens. It was a maturity and supposed moral component to things.
Now it's just pansy little bitches whose crap lefty beliefs are so wrong and fragile they can't handle opposing points of view. It's a form of narcissism and demand for other people to protect you from having who you are and what nonsense you believe challenged. They're so delicate and mentally deranged they can't analyze a situation, and mentally come up with a thought process to deal with the situation at hand, a form of mental breakdown that would normally get people the straight jacket thirty years ago.
Just think of anybody who had a real traumatic experience like watching a loved one die in a horrible way, war PTSD or something, and then take a long time to heal from it. That's a real trauma, but with time things that would remind them of that situation can heal them. These little bitches are sheltered little pukes who have been indoctrinated into stupid, and it reminds me of a movie. Anybody see Dr. Strangelove? That one doc who kept wanting to do a nazi salute or whatever (it's been a while since I've seen it, so if someone wants to correct me, please do,) reminds me of these whiners. They've been conditioned like freaking Pavlov's damn dog not to be able to respond to opposing stimuli, and just cry like a bleating sheep who sees the wolf or lion about ready to munch on it's hide. There's no toughening, no mental condition, nothing that even has a semblance of maturity.
In essence, grown up 2 year olds, and nobody wants to be around them. They only end up making Sonichu comics and scream on live stream about how they are "pushing buttons" and whine about "online lag."

But then again, that's just a guess from the top of my wraithy head.


EDIT: - - Just dealt with this. This video (made by an old nasty white male who is charismatic, oh noes!) can help deal with the whininess.

 

[One Man Bland]

I think two huge problems that have come out of the current trigger warning debacle is that they often get mixed up with the concept of content warnings, and most of the uber SHE Tumblrinas who demand them the most can never seen to agree what constitutes as a sufficient amount of "warning."

Usually when people point to stuff like movie, television, and video game ratings, what they're actually describing are content warnings. The biggest distinction being that they tend to give a very broad idea of the nature of the content and the estimated age demographic that content would be best for, but outside of that the audience is expected to decide to view it at their own risk based on the rating and the description of the material. For instance if you're go to see an R-rated slasher film, you're probably going in with expectation that you'll see some violence but the details on the exact kind of violence will vary. Trigger warnings however are often meant to be much more specific because triggers are usually related to really specific events. Which also means that it's often impossible to account for every trigger because you can't predict that someone is going to freak out over a certain song being played in the film or because someone said a certain line of dialogue because it reminded them of a traumatic event, and that level of micro-managing shouldn't be made the responsibility of the creator.

The other issue I found, especially in fan communities, is that no one who advocates for trigger warnings can seem to agree where to draw the line. There's often a demand that creators take it on themselves to factor in for every bit of upsetting content and warm for it, even at the expense of their storytelling, and it's kind of what leads to nonsense like "tag your pomegranates" or instances where common sense is thrown out the window where you have people crying about how "you didn't explicitly say that this prison/war/gang story would have VIOLENCE in it!!!" to the creator rather than realizing that such a situation is entirely on them. This same attitude I've seen also lead to over-warning for everything where you'll see a big fat "TW: BLOOD" over some character having what barely passed for a nosebleed or things equally tame where any reasonable person would think that anyone so sensitive wouldn't be on the internet.

I've also noticed that trigger warning discussions inevitably circle back to the question of "Well if this content could potentially upset/trigger someone, why should it be allowed to exist at all?" Which is never a productive discussion since and some people have noted that it tends to lead to people foregoing even content warnings just to avoid people who think that it's not enough to just tag warnings.

TL; DR as people have said, fine in theory and the content warnings/ratings that currently exist work well enough to cover the broad areas, but attempting to make creators account for every potentially upsetting moment in their work is a fruitless effort that often leads to either sanitizing fiction to the point of being patronizing or looking to simply making such content off limits.

 

[SeaPancake]

The other issue I found, especially in fan communities, is that no one who advocates for trigger warnings can seem to agree where to draw the line. There's often a demand that creators take it on themselves to factor in for every bit of upsetting content and warm for it, even at the expense of their storytelling, and it's kind of what leads to nonsense like "tag your pomegranates" or instances where common sense is thrown out the window where you have people crying about how "you didn't explicitly say that this prison/war/gang story would have VIOLENCE in it!!!" to the creator rather than realizing that such a situation is entirely on them. This same attitude I've seen also lead to over-warning for everything where you'll see a big fat "TW: BLOOD" over some character having what barely passed for a nosebleed or things equally tame where any reasonable person would think that anyone so sensitive wouldn't be on the internet.

Archive of Our Own, the place where you go to post your filthy RPF smut that 50,000 people apparently want to read, is nuts with tags. There will be tags upon tags upon tags upon tags detailing every single little thing that could be in a story. I've seen some stories where I lost all motivation or interest to read it because the whole story was essentially told in the tags. If it's a stand-alone, I guess I understand - sometimes you just want a little sweet and fluffy story to read. If it's porn, yes I want certain things tagged - I don't want to click on a story only to be confronted with a Haikyuu!! adaptation of A Serbian Film.

The purpose of a book or a story is that you don't know what's going to happen in it. Some things should be warned for, like really disgusting or gross things, but if you expect a tag for every little icky thing that is realistically and canonically rape-filled, murderous, and abusive as its source material (i.e. Game of Thrones, Hannibal)...I don't know what to tell you. I guess some people like to be warned about everything, or they want a story that has specifically this, this, and this like a Subway sandwich, but what's the point of reading a story if I know exactly how the relationship or story will progress?

 

[One Man Bland]

Archive of Our Own, the place where you go to post your filthy RPF smut that 50,000 people apparently want to read, is nuts with tags. There will be tags upon tags upon tags upon tags detailing every single little thing that could be in a story. I've seen some stories where I lost all motivation or interest to read it because the whole story was essentially told in the tags. If it's a stand-alone, I guess I understand - sometimes you just want a little sweet and fluffy story to read. If it's porn, yes I want certain things tagged - I don't want to click on a story only to be confronted with a Haikyuu!! adaptation of A Serbian Film.

The purpose of a book or a story is that you don't know what's going to happen in it. Some things should be warned for, like really disgusting or gross things, but if you expect a tag for every little icky thing that is realistically and canonically rape-filled, murderous, and abusive as its source material (i.e. Game of Thrones, Hannibal)...I don't know what to tell you. I guess some people like to be warned about everything, or they want a story that has specifically this, this, and this like a Subway sandwich, but what's the point of reading a story if I know exactly how the relationship or story will progress?

Ao3 is definitely the most guilty when it comes to over-tagging. Though I think it's more because of that Subway-style "have it your way" mentality you described more than anything due to the nature of Ao3's organization and search system. Fangirls can be weirdly picky about their fanfics and OTPs, to the point that you'll occassionally see one throw a massive bitchfit over a fic not explicitly tagging which character in their yaoi OTP is gonna be the "top" or not whether or not a certain sex act is or isn't included. Which might make sense for something that revolves around specific kinks/fetishes or tags like "slow burn" that are basically code for "this is gonna be several chapters long" but it often gets to a point of basically asking to be spoiled before you even open the tab.

While it's definitely related to the current trend of over-warning, it's kind of a "chicken or egg" situation as to whether general fangirl pickiness hijacked the concept of triggers to make more demands or if the paranoia of tagging made people feel obligated to tag everything to be safe. One thing that I've never seen anyone who advocates for trigger warnings adequately explain is why necessitate for several specific warnings, and thus give an author shit if they happen to miss one, when a single broad tag will cover all the same bases. Why demand the inclusion of tags like "gun violence" or "eye trauma" or "stab wounds" when those are all covered under "Graphic Depictions of Violence" or "Gore"? Why should something already listed under the genre of "Psychological Horror" also be asked to include a tag for every element and/or phobia that's already included under that umbrella? Hell, why does something require additional tags for every sex act that will be included in a rape scene when it's already been tagged as "Rape/Sexual Violence"?

The only explanation I've come across is that some people might be able to handle some elements that fall under the same category but not others, but frankly I can't see a rape victim browsing Ao3 and going "Oh thank goodness there's only anal rape in this!" or someone looking up a SAW crossover or a torture fic and then bailing out because, while they could handle the disembowelment and dismemberment, the fact that the author didn't list eye gouging is just too much for them. It's especially dubious when you see a fic that is listed as having all sorts of horrendous torture and gore, but then tags felt the need to include shit like "TW: Gendered Slurs" because one character calls another character a bitch or something.

Spoiler: Example. Really wish I was making this up

Good thing they specified that there's ableism and bad words in this fic full of rape and torture!

Although, ironically, Ao3 also gets tons of shit for its extensive tagging system by SJWs/Tumblrinas, the biggest criticism being that "They aren't warnings, they're advertisements!" and therefore that content should be banned. Which, while partly true, seems to negate the demands for trigger warnings in the first place.

 

[KerryDixon9]

On Kiwi Farms spoiler tags are often used as trigger warnings. Let's just imagine that a Brianna and Frank Wu sex tape and pics are leaked. That shit's going to be hidden behind ten spoiler tags because the content is so horrific you're going to have to click on those spoiler tags to prove you willingly abused your eyes in that way. So when you're deal with true horrific content it is the best for everyone to provide a warning.

Trigger warnings for SJW delicate flowers? Fuck them they're fucking cunts and they deserve triggering.

 

[ghostmice]

I feel they have a time and place, as a concept they aren't bad, they're just a little notice saying "hey! this stuffs in the thing your about to watch!" from what i've seen they also aren't always put as a safeguard against people fucking REEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE'ing over being offended by something, often times they're put as a little "hey this probably won't upset you but a quick warning that this has 'insert topic' in it" so people can mentally prepare themselves. Personally though I do feel like they get out of hand sometimes but taking a "TRIGGERED MILLENNIALS DESERVE TO BE TRIGGERED" stance on the topic does nothing but make yourself seem like kind of a fucking asshole. I can understand where people are coming from when they say they feel talked down to, I think a simple rebranding would help with that, or adding it into "viewer discretion advised" warnings, something just detailing "this thing your gonna watch has rape and graphic torture scenes" but idk i'm also partial to the topic because of some background stuff

 

[Henry Wyatt]

Yes, but they are over used by tumblr.

An acceptable usage: Warning this article contains content that may be upsetting.

Warning: this article is NSFW and contains a picture of an autistic trans womens taint

Not acceptable: GRAPEFRUIT THAT LOOKS LIKE GORE

 

[Jazz never died!]

Good god is this thread dead. I feel the need to bring this thread back up because i just watched a youtube video that had a trigger warning for a poorly aged skit of Doug Walker's back when he was making demo reel. When i point out that trigger warnings are childish and coddles people because real triggers happen unexpectedly over innocuous shit or when your at your breaking point. I find that trigger warnings are ineffective due to it being too individual on the persons will/sanity. I would know from personal experience. Here is a bad example of a trigger warning

.

 

[Mrs Paul]

Common sense is key. I'd like a heads up if one of my teachers was going to show a snuff film or some shit like that.* Or on another board, there's this guy who had a habit of just slipping in seriously graphic sexual descriptions or stories out of nowhere into his posts, and the mods finally said, "you know, TMI, people are tired of hearing about it?" He liked to give these "hypotheticals", but after awhile, often he'd just drop in some kind of really out there sexually violent crap, and people would be like, "da'fuck? Could you at least put a NSFW, cuz, you know, I read this at work?" Or whatever. Or he liked to just start talking about his own sex life. (You know the type).
He got all butthurt then and stomped off. Not so much a trigger warning, as "tmi, dude!"

I think it's just common courtesy, because you know, someone could be reading in public, or on a shared computer, so you don't want to all of a sudden click on something and have your teacher or your boss see you come upon something that's really graphic.
BUT...sometimes trigger warnings do go too far. Nobody wants to just happen upon A Serbian Film, or pictures of puppies being thrown into a woodchipper. But giving trigger warnings for something like a fender bender, a hockey fight, etc. Those college kids who flipped out when people wrote "TRUMP" in chalk on the sidewalk, for example. EVERYONE was making fun of them. They were laughing about it on The Daily Show, The Nightly Show, (Larry Wilmore suggested some of them were trying to get out of their midterms) the right, the left, etc.


And quite honestly, there are some places you should know better to visit when you're at work. *coughtheFarmscough*




*Or at least the time we had to do an I-search and this one vegan chick (a real PETA type) did her's on the slaughterhouse industry and showed us all an extremely graphic video of a pig being slaughtered. Now I suspect it was heavily edited (it should not take twenty minutes to slaughter one freaking pig). But I really did NOT need to see that without SOME prior warning. Especially as this was right around lunch time.

 

[Bandicam Watermark]

Trigger warnings, and by extension "content warnings" have started to become more and more mainstream, especially on Twitter.

In short, my thoughts are that they aren't bad, but trying to police or "harass" others on using them is stupid, and the misuse of them is only bad depending on their approach; nothing is wrong with letting others know that they want to share something a bit more serious or graphic, but the idea of calling out others for not using them shows the bigger issue with many people who use them. They're advocating the "I'm offended and you need to do what I say or else I'll get my 50 followers to attack you " type of life, the one that people here on this site mostly loath, besides the fact it can make for some interesting lolcows. The issue with trigger warnings I dont think is what the borderline usage is, but rather what people who have heard of it want to use if for. I wouldn't mind using them myself even, but the idea that things need to be policed to a level that before you post something online that you "need" to put them before you post is not what they should be used for; online strangers aren't here to cater, they're here to do some random shit that they'll forget about in about 5-10 years, they aren't required to use them and they dont care as much as your ass wants them to, deal with it.

 

[dirt lamb]

back in my day we used the word "disclaimer" and it wasn't for pansy shit. the term trigger warning seems like something to stir someone up before even saying what the warning is about. it's stupid and i hate it.

 

[Serbian Peacekeepers]

If its a warning for legit shit like flashing lights or ear rape than yeah , put 1000 of them in your video.

 

[GenociderSyo]

Working in mental health we teach people to know their triggers so they can use their coping skills with them. This is because its healthier to know how to deal with triggers and how to deal with them unexpectedly since life is not meant to come with trigger warnings. WRAP is what is mainly used now to set up plans to deal with things.

The funny thing is the words in the trigger warnings would be a trigger in of themselves if someone was truly that affected by them.

Though as others have said there are things that should be warned about such as epilepsy warnings in things, its a weird line but most trigger warnings you see in tumblr, etc. are people just playing a game and not actually people who are triggered.