Red vs Blue takes on Trigger Warnings

[happyninja42]

I think some of the frustration some people have with the whole trigger warning thing, is that it's really hard to gauge what is/isn't a trigger. That 3 part article about PTSD/Triggers on this site brought up some good points on that. You can't really predict what's going to set someone off.

Now, this is a purely fictional example, but I think it works to illustrate my point. In the movie The Green Mile, it opens with the old man in the nursing home, watching an old movie. The scene in question had absolutely nothing bad in it, just two people dancing and singing on a stage. But it caused him to have a severe flashback, and start crying.

There isn't any good way to be able to predict what will/won't cause a trigger. So, it leaves people with the choice of either not bothering with the warnings at all, and getting bitched at by a certain sector of the audience for insensitivity. Or trying to cover everything, and having a ridiculously long list of things that might upset someone.

These are extremes of course, but I'm mostly using them for example purposes.

Personally, I don't see the issue with trigger warnings. As others have posted, it's not really different from various other types of warning labels on stuff we produce, that we've been doing for decades:

Parental Advisory: Explicit Lyrics
Movie Ratings: This movie contains violence, nudity, profanity, etc.
The following news clip contains graphic images of dead bodies, viewer discretion advised
and so on.

This isn't anything new. This is just a new term for an old concept. This period in history has lumped all of these things under the single label of "Triggers Warnings", and I'm fine with that. The term is fairly explanatory, and inoffensive in general.

I don't really understand the huge debate over this subject though. I mean, if you don't have triggers, why is this any more annoying/insulting to you, than it is to see the movie rating scrawl come up before a trailer or movie starts? It takes like 5 seconds of time, and doesn't do anything more than simply say "Hey, the stuff you are about to see might be disturbing, so fair warning, brace for it if you need to."

*shrugs* Seems a reasonable thing to me.

 

[BloatedGuppy]

People like to complain about "Tumblr feminists," but I suspect it's because they're actively looking for them. The site is not overwhelmingly feminist/SJW/PC/whatever, but it gets the rep because people have a fetish for it.

Do you remember when that guy did a study on major gaming publications for words like "sexism," "diversity" and feminism? He came back with a .4% total mention rate. Less than half a percent. People are outraged that feminism is taking over gaming, but what they're reacting to is less than half of one percent. They're not really mad that it's taking over. They're mad the conversation exists at all.

They're not even mad that the conversation exists. They're "mad" about it. It gets them all riled up and excited. It's why they stuff their feeds with it, scour social media sites for evidence of it, form "consumer revolts" that are functionally obsessed with it, and spend vast dollops of their free time arguing about it.

Someone helpfully posted this a while ago:

 

[Areloch]

Out of curiosity, when did pointing out "Man, this behavior is pretty stupid" turn into "______ hate"?

I can point and laugh at tumblr for all it's utter stupidity without also somehow being in a hate crusade for it.

 

[CrystalShadow]

I'm no big fan of trigger warnings. For several reasons.

1. Lots of people use the word "trigger" for anything that makes them the slightest bit uncomfortable.

2. If you do have a real trigger (as opposed to "thing you don't like"), then it's your responsibility to work on getting rid of it. You have no right to tell others that they gotta warn you, just like someone allergic to nuts can't tell everybody they're not allowed to eat nuts. Your health, your responsibility. Mental or physical.

2 is absurd. All kinds of things warn of the possible presence of nuts. It's not about telling someone else they can't like nuts, it's about the basic fact that someone allergic to nuts may well need to be warned that some things are dangerous to them.

A warning is vastly different to banning something.

And a person who would be allergic to nuts has every right to try and avoid you if you're eating them. What would be incredibly rude would be to go right up to them and start eating nuts right next to them.

But... Whatever. Apparently not being a dick about things is too much to expect.

 

[irishda]

Nothing triggers people faster than the thought that somewhere, a blogger is upset that there wasn't a trigger warning. Because having a paranoid fantasy that anonymous internet users are slowly taking over a phrase through sheer force of SJWill, implying that they're fakers who don't have real problems and therefore haven't "earned" the right to be upset, doesn't say more about you than it does about the nameless people you're upset with.

 

[Queen Michael]

I'm no big fan of trigger warnings. For several reasons.

1. Lots of people use the word "trigger" for anything that makes them the slightest bit uncomfortable.

2. If you do have a real trigger (as opposed to "thing you don't like"), then it's your responsibility to work on getting rid of it. You have no right to tell others that they gotta warn you, just like someone allergic to nuts can't tell everybody they're not allowed to eat nuts. Your health, your responsibility. Mental or physical.

2 is absurd. All kinds of things warn of the possible presence of nuts. It's not about telling someone else they can't like nuts, it's about the basic fact that someone allergic to nuts may well need to be warned that some things are dangerous to them.

A warning is vastly different to banning something.

And a person who would be allergic to nuts has every right to try and avoid you if you're eating them. What would be incredibly rude would be to go right up to them and start eating nuts right next to them.

But... Whatever. Apparently not being a dick about things is too much to expect.

But if you choose to stand next to a guy on the subway, it's your responsibility to leave if he starts eating nuts. And if you don't want, say, rape to be mentioned, you need to turn off the video when it starts talking about that.

 

[Areloch]

I'm no big fan of trigger warnings. For several reasons.

1. Lots of people use the word "trigger" for anything that makes them the slightest bit uncomfortable.

2. If you do have a real trigger (as opposed to "thing you don't like"), then it's your responsibility to work on getting rid of it. You have no right to tell others that they gotta warn you, just like someone allergic to nuts can't tell everybody they're not allowed to eat nuts. Your health, your responsibility. Mental or physical.

2 is absurd. All kinds of things warn of the possible presence of nuts. It's not about telling someone else they can't like nuts, it's about the basic fact that someone allergic to nuts may well need to be warned that some things are dangerous to them.

A warning is vastly different to banning something.

And a person who would be allergic to nuts has every right to try and avoid you if you're eating them. What would be incredibly rude would be to go right up to them and start eating nuts right next to them.

But... Whatever. Apparently not being a dick about things is too much to expect.

Michael's example was poorly presented, but I get what she meant.

A better example would be something along the lines of:

"Tumblr trigger warnings seem to be like if you were eating a sandwich, and someone sitting next to you started complaining about their peanut allergy, but they don't actually have one."

Actual, for-realsies PTSD triggers is a pretty serious thing, but as covered in the other threads about trigger warnings, the tumblr-style community has ramped it into the absurd and make the entire premise look ridiculous.

My friend reads a lot of fanfics and the like, on tumblr or other sites, and she's shown me a lot of examples of people getting incredibly worked up about the lack of trigger warnings for anything from an image not being tagged as 'gore'(it was an image of a cut-open pomegranate, but it looked like guts, so it was good enough for them to complain), up to a specific character appearing in a fan fiction story.

This sort of behavior is completely absurd, is detrimental to people that actually have PTSD triggers, and should absolutely have have ridiculous they're acting be pointed out. In my experience, anyone that actually has a real PTSD trigger doesn't try to make the world revolve around them, because it's a problem they want to go away, not fester.

 

[Thaluikhain]

There isn't any good way to be able to predict what will/won't cause a trigger. So, it leaves people with the choice of either not bothering with the warnings at all, and getting bitched at by a certain sector of the audience for insensitivity. Or trying to cover everything, and having a ridiculously long list of things that might upset someone.

Yes and no. While people can be triggered by all sorts of things, there are some things which are much more likely to be triggers than others. Trigger warnings are going to miss things, sure, but that doesn't mean that people shouldn't give warnings for the more common ones. One of the more common arguments against having them is that you can't warn against everything, so warning against anything is a bad idea.

As an aside, Shakesville has gotten rid of trigger warnings and has "content notes" instead. In that people might not be triggered by reading about gang rapes of kids, for example, but might not want to read all the graphic details just now.

 

[Something Amyss]

They're not even mad that the conversation exists. They're "mad" about it. It gets them all riled up and excited.

Yeah, there's a reason I compared it to my porn searches. I probably could have gone for something less stigmatising, but I don't think it encapsulates what I suspect the intent here is.

It's why they stuff their feeds with it, scour social media sites for evidence of it, form "consumer revolts" that are functionally obsessed with it, and spend vast dollops of their free time arguing about it.

Yeah, I've been guilty of reactionary responses to SM myself.

Someone helpfully posted this a while ago:

[/quote]

Stolen.

I only ever use Tumblr for anime GIFs and fanart, personally. My girlfriend follows a few comedy/artist blogs, but that's about it. Suppose it's got something for everyone.

And doesn't that make you angry?

 

[Fappy]

And doesn't that make you angry?

It does when they don't load properly! I swear, Tumblr's image galleries are borked half the time I look at 'em!!! >:O

 

[Something Amyss]

It does when they don't load properly! I swear, Tumblr's image galleries are borked half the time I look at 'em!!! >:O

YEAH! LET'S BURN DOWN TUMBLR!

 

[Fappy]

It does when they don't load properly! I swear, Tumblr's image galleries are borked half the time I look at 'em!!! >:O

YEAH! LET'S BURN DOWN TUMBLR!

I like your style, Zach. You get the matches, I'll bring the kerosene.

 

[Something Amyss]

I like your style, Zach. You get the matches, I've bring the kerosene.

Well, fantaticism is in this season year lifetime.

 

[BloatedGuppy]

You claim your not strawmanning but you seized on the fact I said Vid instead of video, and use that to avoid adressing my post? Isn't that... strawmanning?

No.

A "straw man" is an exaggerated/distorted version of either your opponents argument or what you presume your opponents argument is. Something that is very easily argued against or "pushed down", as if it were a man made of straw. "Straw man" is not shorthand for "arguing in bad faith" or "evasion" or "comment I dislike".

Also see "Tilting at Windmills" for arguing against straw men of your own creation when your hypothetical opponent is in absentia.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tilting_at_windmills

The phrase is sometimes used to describe confrontations where adversaries are incorrectly perceived, or courses of action that are based on misinterpreted or misapplied heroic, romantic, or idealistic justifications. It may also connote an importune, unfounded, and vain effort against confabulated adversaries for a vain goal.

 

[BloatedGuppy]

It still fits when I raise a point and Dynast Bass goes out of her way not to address it, lumping me in with "that other group".

No, it doesn't. What motivations Dynast does or does not attribute to you privately is sort of irrelevant. Simply evading a question is not straw-manning you. You may feel like he's arguing in bad faith, but a "straw man" is very specific fallacious argument. It's not a catch-all term used to indicate bad debating form.

But yeah this is why people hate trigger warnings. You engage in people complaining about it and they give you this kind of response instead.

I'm sure there are a great many reasons why "people" hate trigger warnings. In many cases it appears to be because they're offended by the concept. I'm sure you can appreciate the irony in that.

 

[happyninja42]

There isn't any good way to be able to predict what will/won't cause a trigger. So, it leaves people with the choice of either not bothering with the warnings at all, and getting bitched at by a certain sector of the audience for insensitivity. Or trying to cover everything, and having a ridiculously long list of things that might upset someone.

Yes and no. While people can be triggered by all sorts of things, there are some things which are much more likely to be triggers than others. Trigger warnings are going to miss things, sure, but that doesn't mean that people shouldn't give warnings for the more common ones. One of the more common arguments against having them is that you can't warn against everything, so warning against anything is a bad idea.

As an aside, Shakesville has gotten rid of trigger warnings and has "content notes" instead. In that people might not be triggered by reading about gang rapes of kids, for example, but might not want to read all the graphic details just now.

Oh I agree. As I said later in my post, I don't see any problem with providing those warnings for the viewer. I was simply voicing the complaints that I've seen from other parties about trigger warnings. I wasn't saying that I agreed with the logic of it, just that it's the stance I've seen presented in the past. I tend to play middle ground a lot when I'm posting things, and presenting the opposing view from my own in a reasonable (if it's possible) manner.

 

[Redd the Sock]

Oh, good, I'd feared RvB had changed. My own thoughts:

The old saying is "you need to get back on the horse": a reference to if you fall off a horse you need to get on and try riding again to confront your fear of falling off again or you end up living with the fear of horses the rest of your life. Trigger Warnings are like telling someone it's okay to not get back on the horse, that it's okay to be afraid of the horse, and in the extreme, that the world can and should rework itself so that your fear of horses doesn't inconvenience you. It's just enabling avoidance.

I get people are trying to help, but it's like keeping your child from getting a needle because it will hurt, and forgetting the disease the needle is trying to prevent will be longer term and potentially worse. This seemingly increased need for trigger warnings is just a sign of how much untreated mental health issues we have in this country, and our going along with it, a sign we'd rather label everything than deal with it.

 

[EternallyBored]

Oh, good, I'd feared RvB had changed. My own thoughts:

The old saying is "you need to get back on the horse": a reference to if you fall off a horse you need to get on and try riding again to confront your fear of falling off again or you end up living with the fear of horses the rest of your life. Trigger Warnings are like telling someone it's okay to not get back on the horse, that it's okay to be afraid of the horse, and in the extreme, that the world can and should rework itself so that your fear of horses doesn't inconvenience you. It's just enabling avoidance.

I get people are trying to help, but it's like keeping your child from getting a needle because it will hurt, and forgetting the disease the needle is trying to prevent will be longer term and potentially worse. This seemingly increased need for trigger warnings is just a sign of how much untreated mental health issues we have in this country, and our going along with it, a sign we'd rather label everything than deal with it.

Poor comparison, trigger warnings are ideally used in therapy to prepare a client for a situation that will cause significant distress. You don't confront a fear of riding by strapping a person to a horse and forcing them to race in the Kentucky derby, likewise you don't help a traumatized combat vet by taking them to a fireworks show two weeks after the event that traumatized them. Trigger warnings are an intermediate step setting up a safe environment for a person to begin confronting their trauma.

Also, triggering events that can cause full blown panic attacks, paranoia and even self-harm or lashing out at others is not even close to getting back on a horse after falling off. Confronting genuine trauma is something that has to be done carefully or you risk causing permanent psychological harm, trying to simplify it with a down-home folksy saying like "getting back in the saddle" does the issue a massive disservice.

Using a trigger warning as a way to never confront a trauma is also bad, but any method can be misused, ideally a trigger warning is there so that the client can mentally fortify themselves to confront something that causes an uncontrolled panic reaction, without that preparation the person has a greater chance of completely withdrawing from the situation rather than progressing. Trigger warnings can't be put on everything of course, they are most valuable in therapeutic settings and on articles aimed at at-risk populations, like blogs about PTSD or overcoming trauma. This is not an ideal situation, if we put trigger warnings on everything then they would basically just be content ID warnings under a different name, and we already have content ID warnings on almost all forms of media already.

 

[bartholen_v1legacy]

I don't know how you can "take on" such a bullshit concept like trigger warnings. Content warnings have existed for a long time, and generally grown up people can deride what a piece of media will or can include if it says, for example, "sexual content" on the cover. Trigger warnings are a concept made up by pussies on Tumblr who can't take on reality as it is, and instead retreat to their hugboxes and bawl whenever something comes knocking on their door. Merely the implication that images on the internet can "trigger" people when they've had no past experiences that would actually set that reaction off is enough for me to start using some seriously foul language.

If I ever met someone who genuinely believed trigger warnings to be necessary, and wasn't a rape victim, a war survivor or something of that calibre, I'd point them to this scene from Wreck-it Ralph


and then ask them "Is this the kind of reaction words on the internet can make you have?"

 

[Risingblade]

So what's wrong with adding trigger warnings for stuff like rape and domestic abuse?