Red vs Blue takes on Trigger Warnings

[Vault101]

No no, obviously soldiers are faking it when they hear a backfiring car and black out, or flashback. Those hysterical ladies, asking for so much special treatment.
I mean "Trigger Warning" really ruins my day, not like a flashback. They just need to man up.
/s

I'm genuinely confused as to what your trying to say

I wasn't saying people can't be triggered by random noises, my point was ANYTHING can be a trigger so you can't anticipate everything with a trigger warning can you?

snip!

As it was explained to me by someone from tumblr, being "triggered" by something means something makes you feel uncomfortable,

which is really stupid and they should find another term (hey you know I saw people saying that very thing on Tumblr)

can I talk about Tumblr for a second? the Tumblr Hate is really ridiculous its got the same cross sections as other sites, the same inane viral stuff and tons of really really good art and fan-art, its just a continuous feed of stuff you like, if you want stuff that suits your sensibilities its there [sub/]I could also speculate why such a "female/other" leaning site gets so much hate but that's for people for knowledgable than I[/sub]

I'm apparently as SJW as people get but my even I roll my eyes sometimes, but I like tumblr for the same reason I stay the fuck off "main" Reddit, I don't get that sinking feeling everytime the topic of "feeeemales" or "other group" comes up

[(these tend to be the same people who use the term microaggression seriously) .

there's really nothing wrong with the term "microagression" it means the small unconscious things people say/do that might be considered [whatever]ist

 

[gLoveofLove]

I don't mind people using trigger warnings, which I find to be unnecessary(all of them btw). It's the people who demand other people use trigger warnings and get angry over someone not warning them before they talked about dolphins- because a dolphin just sat there and watched, without helping, as this person got catcalled on the beach.
Patriarchal seafood bisque scum!

So express your annoyance to those people, crazed minority that they are, and stop throwing veterans, cops, firefighters and rape victims of both genders under the bus.

So saying they shouldn't have the ability to dictate whether others do or don't put trigger warnings on their work is throwing them under the bus? I've suffered full-on anxiety attacks from watching stuff several times, a warning up front might have helped to prevent them, it might not have. Either way I would never expect them to cater to my subjective reactions. You(hypothetical person) get triggered, that sucks, but the world is under no obligation to coddle you.
Once again I should probably restate my position. If someone WANTS to use trigger warnings I have absolutely no issue. But don't complain to them for not doing so.

 

[Zontar]

[(these tend to be the same people who use the term microaggression seriously) .

there's really nothing wrong with the term "microagression" it means the small unconscious things people say/do that might be considered [whatever]ist

Given how microaggressions has devolved into things including "being in a group of white people" and that believing that the person who is most qualified for a job should get it is racist, it's hard to take the concept seriously as anything other then someone complaining about their own thin skin.

 

[Sleepy Sol]

snip!

As it was explained to me by someone from tumblr, being "triggered" by something means something makes you feel uncomfortable,

which is really stupid and they should find another term (hey you know I saw people saying that very thing on Tumblr)

Or they can just use a "content advisory warning" like Fappy said which I think gets the point across much better for most people since content that just potentially makes someone uncomfortable is not really the same thing as a "trigger" in any way for a lot of people.

The terms are already there, people just have to use them.

 

[Akjosch]

snip!

As it was explained to me by someone from tumblr, being "triggered" by something means something makes you feel uncomfortable,

which is really stupid and they should find another term (hey you know I saw people saying that very thing on Tumblr)

Or they can just use a "content advisory warning" like Fappy said which I think gets the point across much better for most people since content that just potentially makes someone uncomfortable is not really the same thing as a "trigger" in any way for a lot of people.

The terms are already there, people just have to use them.

To that effect, I like South Park's content warning: "The following program contains coarse language and due to its content it should not be viewed by anyone."

I also made it a general rule that I mark everything I create as "18+", "mature audience only" or "NSFW", as applicable.

 

[Vault101]

Given how microaggressions has devolved into things including "being in a group of white people" and that believing that the person who is most qualified for a job should get it is racist, it's hard to take the concept seriously as anything other then someone complaining about their own thin skin.

[i/]oh did they just?[/i]

or are we just missing the point? as most people do...all the time

 

[Thaluikhain]

Well, as always, the video was funny and the comment section is terrible. C'mon guys, can we lay off the 'Lol Tumblrites' for 5 fucking seconds? I hear about 10 times more 'Fukkin' Trigger Warnings!' than I see people using Trigger Warnings in the wrong manner, so it'd be far more accurate to go 'Lol Redditors!' than 'Lol Tumblrites!'.

Though, given there's sizable groups, on Tumblr who also do the 'Lol Trigger Warnings', we could probably hash in the 'Lol Tumblrites' thing anyway when we go down the 'Fucking people going Fukkin' Trigger Warnings!'.

Very much this.

Also, what's with the idea that being on tumblr means you care about social justice, as opposed to pictures of cats or weird porn anyway?

Fucking hell guys, I know it's the internet and Everything Is Serious on the internet, but throwing an entire thing away because a handful of tumblrites are using the term inappropriately is literally the stupidest thing I've ever heard.

But...how are we supposed to dismiss the idea of microagressions then? I mean, I don't want to have to worry about other people.

 

[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.