News Trigger Warnings Becoming A Fad?

[hodge]

I agree with Joey. If we can't be open about what has happened to us here, where can we be open about it? Yes, absolutely, we should title our posts appropriately in order to let people know there will be graphic material therein. But I think we should all expect any post here to potentially contain graphic material. This is a PTSD forum. It's the nature of the beast, unfortunately.

 

[lostforgottensoul]

@hodge, i fully agree but the point is, "possible trigger" is replacing "maybe upsetting" on every site, not just this one, most especially social media, and so thats why im advising a short and sweet 'graphic content' warning and leave it at that.

Im not triggered by graphic content so that leaves me open to not be "scared away" by a trigger warning. And like JL said, its replacing "you may become a little upset" and thats not a trigger, its a stressor so it waters down what a trigger is making is trigger will have to be called somerhing else.

 

[joeylittle]

im advising a short and sweet 'graphic content' warning and leave it at that.

I personally don't think 'graphic content' works without somehow specifying 'content', minimally. 'graphic involving rape', or 'graphic mutilation' or 'graphic medical', 'graphic violence'..whatever will be graphic in description. 'Graphic' itself just means 'explicit'

 

[Nessa7]

Tumblr is the social media site that is usually given credit for starting the trigger warning fad. A big part of the reason is that a lot of it comes from people trying not to be rude because of the way the website is set up. A lot of people having a reason to warn for completely reasonable things devolved into people being asked to warn for balloons.

Balloons are a real and unexpectedly common example.

Tumblr is designed so that you have the option to add tags to everything that you post. These tags help people find your posts. There is a search bar that works like most search bars do. You also have the option to click on a tag to be taken to a page with everything that has that tag. You also have a dashboard with has everything that people you follow have posted, advertisements, and recommended blogs.

Tags are serious business. There is a general consensus about how they are to be used. A lot of it is for practical reasons. People that wear Lolita fashion would not want to scroll through posts about the novel. If something is controversial, people might want a tag only for people that like or dislike it.

Quite a few people have something that they can use to block certain tags. I would guess that a lot more people use them to avoid spoilers, subjects that they just aren't interested in, and spam than use it solely for trigger warnings. (For example, I'm currently blocking Orange is the New Black, IDI, some spammer urls, virralift, Pitch Perfect, and bethyl.)

The search is where things get tricky for people like me that only post stuff that could be triggering. This is also where @joeylittle 's advice would stop being too helpful. If you post a photo, there is absolutely no text. So someone searching for "dementia" is going to see my gif of a man crying and being forced to drink alcohol by his caretaker. They would only see a content warning if they decided it would be a good idea to click on the photo to see more information, and it would be rather late for it then. It would be as rude and inconsiderate as someone coming here to post random violent images.

His performance is amazing, but I guess that would probably make the whole thing worse.

Then, you add that there is a standardized format that people have to adopt for all of this to work. The one that takes the least amount of work and is advised for putting the responsibility on the person wanting to avoid content? Slapping "Trigger" on all of your posts to make people figure out for themselves if they want to see it. I generally refuse to do this because of my discomfort of the word. I do not really judge people that do, because I know that there are people that face more pressure than I do.

 

[lostforgottensoul]

I do not really judge people that do, because I know that there are people that face more pressure than I do

Face pressure from whom though?

Please excuse my ignorance as I dont used Tumblr and following one singular person but is Tumblr saying "well if its upsetting like material you have to put a trigger warning or we may pull it down"?

Why not choose a lesser trigger picture? Or is the picture the point? The person im following has a blog but not sure if its a 'blogger-like' only thing.

I see bad things going down this road. Soon all content everywhere will have to have "this is possibly triggering, viewer discretion advised" for all news casts and Cops episode and pictures of a man drinking vodka.

And then here we are, with PTSD, whom actually know what a trigger really is. But then in 10 yrs that would be "the good old days before we had to trigger warn everything we say everywhere". Whats the point in all of that? Eventually it wont mean anything!

 

[aut555]

I know, let's super complicate everything and assign color levels to the triggers, like the terrorists alert codes. We could really muck this up. Where do we draw the line?

 

[EveHarrington]

Trigger warnings online will soon be useless. Thank god content advisories on TV aren't run by social media people who are scared of their own shadow.

It boils down to wanting to live in a fuzzy bubble where you're protected.

Then again, I don't "live" online. This site is the extent of my online socialization. I visit a few other sites for news, shopping, etc-----and that's it.

 

[EveHarrington]

I know, lets super complicate everything and assign color levels to the triggers, like the terrorists al...

This is hilarious.

 

[aut555]

This is hilarious.

Thanks

 

[Nessa7]

Face pressure from whom though?

Please excuse my ignorance as I dont used Tumblr and followi...

Not tumblr itself, but I do want to put some of it on them for not doing more to protect people from harassment. There can be a mob mentality directed towards people. I avoid the kind of attention that can lead to that, but it can be very extreme. The only way to avoid it once it start heading your way is to completely isolate yourself, but sometimes people do not forget. I've seen a lot of times that people are still being attacked years later.

You also run the risk of tarnishing your reputation, which can be a big deal when your blog is in any way connected to anything relating to your real life or something that you benefit from financially.

I really tightly restrict the things that I blog about so that I don't have to face that pressure to the extent that other people do. I don't have to worry about a lot of that because I am a horror blog and 99% of my posts are original content.

The best comparison I can think of is it being like if you had the people that write political attack ads waiting for you to mess up.

As to why I chose that picture, there isn't anything that I could have chosen that would have been appropriate for a page of search results for "dementia." It is a movie that is about an elderly man being abused, so it is all pretty upsetting. Having to use a trigger warning bothers me less than letting having to use a trigger warning keep me from posting about a movie with an amazing performance with one of my favorite actors.

Things that I choose not to post are ones that could have real life consequences. I don't think that I have any reasonable reason to worry that people would use that picture to encourage elder abuse, so I would be okay with having it on my blog itself.

 

[joeylittle]

So someone searching for "dementia" is going to see my gif of a man crying and being forced to drink alcohol by his caretaker. They would only see a content warning if they decided it would be a good idea to click on the photo to see more information, and it would be rather late for it then. It would be as rude and inconsiderate as someone coming here to post random violent images.

Well, no - because if they are searching for 'dementia' then I'm not sure that it's valid to try and keep them from seeing an image of dementia that they don't like. I think a better example would be if someone who had very little sophistication with the site went searching for teddy bears and stumbled upon some furry sex scene.

But even then - it's a tough way to learn, but the internet is essentially the wild west. You need to figure out how to set your browser so it helps you, and then not go looking for things in highly diverse image environments, like tumblr or pinterest. Some onus has to be on the searcher - that's my only point. They need to know where they are, what they are looking for, and be careful of what they can and cannot handle. Sometimes they will experience a triggering thing - and it will suck, but they will live, and hopefully know how to navigate better the next time. If we want to preserve basic freedoms of speech, that's the way it needs to work.

 

[EveHarrington]

I'm laughing at the idea that a horror blog would need any trigger warnings whatsoever. I'm not insulting you at all, rather it's insane that someone would go to a horror blog and then get upset for the very essence of horror. Because yes, everything that is stereotypically triggering could fall under what is expected in the horror genre.

I'm an insanely private person. I've thought seriously about starting an anonymous blog but then I realized that instead of "doing" what I love I'd be blogging about it------and that's essentially taking away from living. (To me.) No Offense to people who do blog, as many other hobbies, past times, etc are more suited to the blogging thing anyway. I can't even imagine having my reputation ruined by strangers. Nothing ever disappears from the internet so anything other than complete anonymity is too much of a risk to me. I can't even imagine being ganged up on by tumblr bullies. That's just crazy to me. I wanna tell these people to "step away from the Internet and start living in real life----"