Do you feel content warnings are beneficial?
I understand the idea of shielding people from content that would be upsetting, but my own experience is, that I feel a little anxious as soon as I read Trigger Warning [...].
How is your experience with it? Are you happy with it, or do you thing there are better ways to address dark topics?
I grew up in the 90's. The wild West of the Internet. I've accidentally seen things so beyond fucked up. I had a friend back then that I've lost contact with and she used to email me fucked up images that just opening the email, there it was. But she'd also send high quality jokes or nudes of herself so it was kinda all or nothing. I think at that time my email was @rammstein.com lol. But were talking fatal crash pictures, one was a woman fucking a cactus, stuff seared into my memory that I wish I could get rid of. So yeah, if you think trigger warnings are excessive, you are probably too young to have experienced the 90's and early 00's. Even going to picture sites like imgur today, back then nothing was categorized so you'd get everything. Nsfw sites back then included EVERYTHING nsfw, from people smoking pot to stills of decapitations.
The traumatizing shit I saw on the Internet in those days, I'd compare to my experience in Iraq. That's not to say that visual imagery is as bad as IRL, with the sights, sounds... And smells, but when you're not expecting that sort of thing, it can be a big deal. Honestly those things probably jaded me to a point where I could more adequately handle war, but in ANY other scenario I'd say those days of no rules Internet were very harmful to a lot of people.
I appreciate them. You are what you eat. That goes for what you put in your eyes and ears as much as your mouth
Depends. I'm fine with most stuff, but I certainly want warnings if a video is titled "revolving door fail" but the content warning is "NSFL" (dude got his fingers caught and visibly cut off)
Not having a NSFL tag would be a major disservice to the viewer.
eh, shit i've read and seen on a screen, while it may have bothered me at the time, isn't actual trauma, which does not fucking ask permission.
And yeah, there's media that triggers that-but it's media. I close it. I leave. I can. it's not actually happening to me, right now.
I think it's a decent notion, to annotate. It's for sure people trying to be good for one another, and that's laudable.
But. As I said, the worst of the world does not ask permission, and I think enforcement of content tags or what have you would likely lead directly to even more oppression and censorship in the storm of that which we are currently in.
I will say ao3's pretty on point about it, from what i've seen-it's voluntary, and it's actually voluntary. How you keep that across the ages is anyone's guess
I think it's content dependent. I lean towards not having them, but I can think of a couple episodes of the magicians where I would have appreciated the warning instead of the after the fact help line screen. It's also true that adding a warning lessens the impact of the scene being warned about which I think is also counterproductive.
I think we need more granular ratings than we currently have. Kickass and I Spit on Your Grave having the same R rating is essentially meaningless.
Just to head this off at the pass, because someone is bound to bring up exposure therapy: hi, hello, I am someone who has been through exposure therapy (technically Exposure/Response Prevention, or ERP). Yes, it is broadly speaking true that avoiding triggers increases anxiety in the long run. However, one thing that was stressed to me over and over in ERP is that exposures have to be VOLUNTARY to be beneficial. Meaning, just hucking a tarantula at someone with arachnophobia is going to do far more harm than good. Likewise showing them a bunch of pictures of spiders with no warning. However, putting a content warning puts the decision to engage back into the hands of the person with the phobia (or trauma, eating disorder, etc), which effectively turns it into a voluntary exposure should they choose to engage.
You're right on point, though I gotta say your example of "hucking a tarantula at someone with arachnophobia" had me laughing harder than I have in a long time. Don't mind me though, I'm just really fucked up In the head from all the times I've seen horrible shit unexpectedly. I'm what happens when you don't have some kind of guidelines.
It depends on the implementation. Some good implementations are: Tags on AO3, Content Warnings at the beginning Movies/TV, using tags on the fediverse There is one implementation that really bothers me and it's the Content Warning on the fediverse, the fact that it hides the whole post by default means that most of the time I end up expanding the content and seeing it anyways. I would prefer if the fediverse would just move to spoiler tags where you can hide only the content that the warning is for: ::: spoiler like this tada! :::
I think of them like food content warnings for non-lethal allergies, like lactose intolerance. It's a kindness to have a warning that helps people avoid shitting their pants. However, we all need to recognize that it is just that, a kindness. There is an inherent risk when someone says 'hey, taste this.' If you have a high sensitivity, you have a responsibility for self-care through self-denial. If you were uncertain if a food contained something to which you had an extreme sensitivity, you'd say 'no, thank you.' Same holds true for the whole world of media. You can hope for kindness, and put in the effort give it to others where you will, but don't trust that it will always be given to you because it is an extra effort.
Had a friend with an extreme peanut allergy, and she couldn't even enter places that MIGHT have them. Chinese restaurants, steakhouses (back then every steakhouse had buckets of em and people would discard shells on the floor) baseball games, it's not always about going so far as eating it, sometimes just having the particles in the air is enough. Imagine it like scrolling reddit back in the day for memes and coming across r/spacedicks.
Depends on what are they warning me about. If it is about gore of something similar I can appreciate it, if it about foul language they can shove that warning up their asses.
I hate graphic depictions of sexual violence. Moves like "A Clockwork Orange", "The Accused", and "Requiem for a Dream" all have scenes that I wish I didn't remember.
Content warnings are information that allow media watchers to make informed decisions. People who are annoyed by them are just contrarian assholes with the teenage mentality that gore and cusswords are cool.
I absolutely appreciate them. They give me the chance to decide for myself whether to engage with a topic, depending on where I'm at. Suicide is often hard for me to deal with, due to my own family circumstances, so sometimes I want to get in and help people who are struggling, but other times, I just need to avoid the discussion for my own wellbeing. Content warnings give me the opportunity to make that choice
Do you feel content warnings are beneficial?
Nope. Quite the contrary.
But it may be worth mentioning I'm getting old (nearing my 60s) and I have been educated in a now remote time where the idea that being confronted with hardship and with failure is what would help us learn to overcome them. Not being shielded from them.
do you thing there are better ways to address dark topics?
Confront shit ideas with better ideas. The rest, any form of censorship or control, never works, never did and I doubt will ever.
Heck, aged 16 my best friend and I decided to read Mein Kampf in order to understand how that 'Nazi' stuff managed to seduce so many people. While we were reading it, as seriously as we would have read any other book, we just discussed it freely meaning without fear of being judged ('being cancelled' one may say nowadays): we would point out stupid shit as well as things that seemed not, to young us at least, not that stupid trying to confront them through a free and open discussion. Decades later, I can safely say it was one of the best cure against me ever risking getting 'seduced' by those shit ideas and the hate they thrive(d) on.
There’s an episode of the excellent podcast “Search Engine” about this, it’s called “What do trigger warnings actually do?” and it brought me from the “maybe they’re effective” thought group to the “they are not effective” group.
Thx for the podcast, I did not know it.
Here is a link to the relevant episode, for anyone interested: https://www.searchengine.show/what-do-trigger-warnings-actually-do/
Content/trigger warnings are not about "being shielded from hardship;" they're about not springing trauma triggers or upsetting shit on unsuspecting people (or not causing actual physical harm to people, in the case of epilepsy warnings).
Like, OK, cool, you read Mein Kampf. I don't think that's a bad thing to do, for the reasons you did it. But you did that freely and knowing what you were getting into ("by Adolf Hitler" serves as an implicit content warning IMO). Suppose you were a Jewish student and your history teacher sprung a reading from Mein Kampf in the middle of a lesson with no warning. Or hell, just imagine having "Old Yeller" sprung on you the day after your dog died. I don't think it's babying anyone to warn them about something that could ruin their day.
Ruining your day isn't ruining your life.
Life sucks. Get a helmet
Seeing something objectionable in media is not a "growth through suffering". It is also not censorship. Nobody ever became a Nazi simply by reading Mien Kampf. (It's usually complaining about made up shit like cancel-culture that pushes the dim-whited into the far-right).
There should have been a content warning on this thread: graphic depictions of boomer philosophy.
You know, fairy tales for children generally involved horror, murder, dismemberment and worse.
To get the kids to be aware of the actual horrors of the world, which are worse.
Hearing a story about, or seeing a fictional or even actual video of some of the fucked up shit people do to each other for stupid fucking reasons is still not actually traumatic.
Experiencing depictions of such shit should absolutely bother you. Should absolutely put you a bit on your toes, in real life, on the daily.
So you can avoid those situations. So you know shit like that's possible, and fucked up fuckers have done it and will do it, and they'll think they're right the whole time.
Because when it does actually happen, that's when it is traumatic, and not just being smart and aware
thx for this fine demonstration.
Depends on the magnitude of what is being warned of.
"Warning, graphic gore"? Absolutely appreciated. "Contains scenes of actual combat, those with PTSD may wish to leave the room"? Yeah totally reasonable. "This book contains vivid descriptions of sexual abuse"? I can see why people would be squicked out by that.
But then we get into the absurd side of it. A film about the Holocaust, needing to warn its viewers that some contents may be distressing? Wow. You don't say. A memoir about a tragic death, needing to put a warning that... someone dies? "This politics discussion may discuss slavery, racism, and oppression"? Oh no, we have to think about upsetting things that happened!
And before someone suggests those are unrealistic hyperbole, those are all things I've seen. I don't feel those are helpful.
I saw a post once that had a content warning for music. Just. Music.
Clickbait?
I don't remember the details because it was 9 months ago but I'm pretty sure they were serious. It didn't feel funny enough to be a joke at least.
Seeing unexpected gore has ruined my day before. It's not that hard to give a warning.
Yes, they are. For a literature class, I taught a very short story, which is expertly written, about an infant who is scalded. It’s a fantastic piece, but something I’d totally expect some people to opt out of given the content.
If you get a little anxious when you read a trigger warning that is your issue to deal with.
Wait a minute...
Most people like to be coddled, few with admit it but it's clearly a preference. They don't bother me but I do my best to ignore them.
I prefer to go in with a little foreknowledge as possible, life doesn't have trigger warnings, why should art? Bumpers are for children.
And this is not a, "I am very bad ass, nothing bothers me!" there are things that will consistently 'trigger' me, literally nope out but I'm a "buy the ticket, take the ride" type of person.
I also have a tendency to automatically dismiss groupthink. Occasionally to my own detriment but I'd rather maintained my agency rather than hand it off to a human void I rarely agree with.
To each their own. They don't benefit me because they aren't for me.
To answer the second half, if I had the wherewithal, my improvement would be for people to predefined their triggers and allow the medium to alert only when a trigger matches.
I find them pointless to me (sometimes irritating as noise and insurrection), but I understand they could be helpful and useful for others, so it's fine to me when people use them. I simply was past them.
I feel a little anxious as soon as I read Trigger Warning
I feel a lot more anxious when a show dumps graphic violence or ear piercing screams on me with no warning.
Warnings tend to at least let me adjust my TV volume in advance. Much better than those YouTube clips or TikTok videos that try to blow out my speakers in the first five seconds
I don't think they serve any other purpose than to signal that the person wishes to come across as considerate.
If it's gore, porn or such then yeah but if we're speaking of just text then no.
Really depends on what it is. If it’s gore I would like to be warned beforehand because I don’t like gore and if I’m eating then it’s even more disturbing. So they can be beneficial but as I said it's heavily dependant on what's being warned against. I once saw “tw: food” on a post that had a photo of someone’s McDonald’s meal and thought that was stupid
Do you prefer to see someone crushed by heavy machinery, or something like that, without a warning? You don't know when you get into a wrong part of the internet
I feel some kind of warning is deeply important, as it allows people to decide to skip a post instead of reading it in detail. Personally, I prefer to be given a chance to gird my brain against the potential onslaught of feelings that a serious, dark topic post might bring up. If I am ready to read and engage with a post of that nature, often a productive discussion is had as a result. As for general Trigger Warnings, I appreciate those as they activate my automated mental hardening responses and allow me to read without being overly concerned or stressed.
Yes, I find them beneficial. I prefer when the warning itself is spoilered too. That way I can choose to totally swerve the content and don't face anxiety over the subject matter at all.
Yep! Love em. I use filters and such all the time. I have several topics I do not care for at all, so I skip right over those.
I mean, I might just prefer:
[warning: rape, gore]
or whatever awfulness is present.
Nope. Not at all.
My life has been pretty trauma free, but even I sometimes benefit from trigger warnings. Sometimes you're just not in the mood for certain themes.
I was once on a long flight to attend the funeral of a close friend, and was watching a movie on the flight. I didn't know there'd be a funeral scene, and that hit way harder in the state of mind I was in at the time. I don't regret watching the movie, but it did give me a glimpse of how triggers work, in a form probably much milder than how people with real trauma would experience it.
In general I often find that accommodations for people with special needs often also benefit the general population. Accessible web design is often more pleasant to use in my experience, and probably easier for search engines also.
I don't think I've ever been dissuaded by one, but I'm glad they are there for the people who appreciate them.
If it's NSFW or NSFL, I appreciate the warning.
Other stuff, I don't care personally, but if others find it helpful, that's fine by me.
Prudish origins aside... I do think they're an excellent tool for parents and individuals to make informed choices. It's not practical to screen everything yourself. Going to a 3rd party like rotten tomato's is just option A with extra steps.
There is a study that showed empirically that reducing the media coverage (and strictly avoiding coverage of methods and some other aspects) of suicides reduced the rates of suicide in the affected populations.
So there's science behind the avoidance.
IMHO the media do seem fairly clumsy going about it though.
I think the only thing I have experienced so far about content warnings is that the material behind it/them is interesting to me to look at.
Definitely even if i never bother opting out due to it is more than fair to warn people about things like gore and graphic descriptions of death.
I feel content. Warnings are beneficial.