Trigger warnings

General Off-Topic Discussion
41

Not personally being sensitive to reading offensive things, I thought trigger warnings were a little silly, like some other posters here.

However, I recently read http://slatestarcodex.com/2014/05/30/the-wonderful-thing-about-triggers/, which makes many excellent points including that having “trigger warnings”/“content notes” can open up the possibilities of what we can write. It’s slightly harder to argue something should be banned for its obscenity when it warns those who would be offended to stay away.

Also, people are sensitive creatures. If we can be accommodating of each other by making small changes in our behavior that we might not completely understand the need for or even agree with, but which seem to make other people happier, that seems like a win.

I remember that Interstate Zero, which contained a “Contains some adult content” warning had its source code pulled because someone was reading the source code (not playing the game) and was very offended. So this isn’t a new issue.

42

I’d like to add that I hadn’t considered the compromise of adding content-warning labels behind a player-voluntary command or menu item before encountering this thread. I like this idea so much that I’ve added it to the already-existing section in the IFComp FAQ about content warnings: ifcomp.org/about/faq, third question down. (Feedback very welcome, but consider forking into a new thread or a private message if it’s getting off-topic for this one, of course…)

I am a very spoiler-averse media-eater who has for a long time felt more ambivalent about CWs/TWs than I’d like, particularly when they are presented with such prominence that they sometimes seem to act as a primary categorization method for some online collections of work! This alternate, more subtle solution has immediate appeal to me, and I’d love to see wider application of it.

43

The FAQ entry links to a list of subjects authors may wish to warn about, from a Tumblr blog called Kyriarchy & Privilege 101. According to that list, if the authors of Colossal Cave had exercised “common courtesy”, they would’ve warned about:

  • Corpses, skulls or skeletons
  • Any time slurs are used (this includes words like “stupid” or “dumb”, which are still widely considered to be socially acceptable)
  • Dismissal of […] differences
  • Death or dying
  • Snakes
  • Serious injury
  • Trypophobia [dark holes]
  • Slimy things

This reminds me of a warning I see daily in real life: “This area contains chemicals known to the State of California to cause cancer, birth defects, or other reproductive harm.” Visitors from out of state are often surprised by the danger that seems to lurk in every restaurant, parking lot, and vending machine here.

44

That article is based, once again, on a misunderstanding of what a trigger warning is. For what feels like a millionth time: Trigger warnings are not about protecting someone from being offended. They’re about informing people that content might cause them actual distress. The reaction they’re designed to prevent is not “ew” or “I’m offended” but an actual panic attack.

No, they say “some people may experience distress, flashbacks, or a panic attack upon reading this content, because it brings up X.” This is not about “oversensitive people”, it’s about people with PTSD, phobias, or a similar/related anxiety disorder. The reason for trigger warnings on transphobia is not that it’s offensive (though it is) or suppressive content, it’s that a significant proportion of trans people have experienced transphobic violence, abuse, or harassment, and that has emotional consequences for anyone.

Members of certain ideological persuasions have consistently misrepresented what the purpose of a trigger warning is, and the Slate Star Codex post just confuses the issue further by being written from a position of obvious ignorance. Triggers aren’t offensive, they’re harmful; what is offensive is implying that people’s attempt at protecting their emotional well-being is just a cynical shot at censorship, bullying, or building an ideological bubble.

I do prefer the term “content warning” purely because I want to sidestep the asinine argument about whether or not something counts as a “common trigger,” but I’m also not viscerally opposed to the term “trigger warning” like some people seem to be.

45

So it’s a good thing that the context in which the article was quoted was a post where someone was made aware of how important a trigger warning is, and is arguing for their existence in not only the “it’s only decent” tack but also the “it’ll give you, the author, another perspective on your work”. Maybe he misunderstood what the TW is, but he still came off the better for it. As have I, in this discussion, which has opened my eyes to this issue.

This is not the first time this has happened, incidently. This is a great place to discuss things, even (especially!) non-IF related, I learn tons of stuff and end up looking at things in a different light.

As you yourself say, TW keeps getting misrepresented. If I don’t know enough about TWs - and this whole thread EXISTS because I mispreresented it in another thread - then I’m being ignorant. If I’m being ignorant of some facts, then I’ll draw my conclusions on the facts that I DO have available, not even knowing that I don’t have the full story. And the facts may lead me to conclude that TWs are all those three things you said.

And then what happens is that that comes out in conversations, ideas get exchanged, I learn that I was being ignorant, and I accomodate these new facts to reshape my view of things. But that was impossible up until things started getting discusses, because I didn’t KNOW I had the wrong end of the stick.

I really like Vaporware’s post because I’m always on the fence about how far anything can be taken, even with the best of intentions. And the best thing is, no one is forced to include TWs, so authors can do so at their own discretion, and decide how deeply they want to go about it.

Because, basically, it’s easy to exaggerate anything past the point where it’s reasonable. The trick is finding the middle ground.

I think I had an overall point but lost it somewhere, but that’s fine. I like where I ended up.

46

What irks me isn’t people being wrong, it’s Slate Star Codex being wrong and then pontificating from a position of ignorance. You can be wrong, but loud, “authoritative” wrongness - ie a blog post on a that blog, which is mostly authoritative pontificating - is actively harmful, and it either suggests SSC didn’t bother to research the issue before expressing their uninformed opinion, or they just don’t really care.

47

You actually prompted me to read the article. I hadn’t bothered yet.

I rather like it. It explores another use for the TWs, and expounds at length - convincingly - on the fallacies of people supporting its non-existence. Rather than ignorance, I get the feeling the author looks at the situation from a different viewpoint. I found it refreshing. It complements everything else said here nicely.

Though without the information shared in this thread I’d admit that from that blog post alone I wouldn’t see just how harmful some content could be, necessitating the creation of TWs in the first place. On that I’d agree with you.

But section III of that post also shows clear awareness of the harm caused by triggers, so, I dunno. I liked it.

I can’t, however, take the “content note” at the beginning seriously. :slight_smile:

EDIT - And that bit about what the TW is that you quoted was taken out of context. In context it makes more sense. It’s not supposed to be an actual definition of TW, it’s the author making a point.

48

Isn’t it both depending on the case?

I mean, on the one hand there are people who’ve been in traumatic situations and may suffer panic attacks when reminded of that trauma, who ask to be warned about content featuring rape and other violence.

On the other hand, there are people who say they have animals, fictional characters, and other people living in their head, who ask to be warned about content that is “anti-otherkin” or “anti-multiple” (the latter being explicitly endorsed as a warnable trigger by the page I mentioned earlier, linked from the IFComp FAQ). The most charitable explanation there seems to be that these are people suffering from mental illness who find it stressful to face the possibility that their beliefs are false. That seems like a clear case of building an ideological bubble, even if it’s done in order to avoid discomfort.

49

There have been a few times that I quit playing an IF, mostly because I was going through a long personal spiritual/religious crisis. Some situations and themes would set off a feedback loop in my mind that I couldn’t break free of, compromising my ability to interact with other people and to be productive in school. It still happens to me from time to time, although not quite in the same way and no longer triggered by the same things as when I was a teenager.

I would never call my experience a trauma, out of respective for people who have endured real horrors. However, that doesn’t mean that the content wasn’t triggering.

50

I’m going to break off into a tangential point, and put it in a rant tag appropriately. Feel free to respond or ignore. I think it’s relevant, but too tangential.

[rant]A number of Twine games that deal with difficult themes provide, sometimes at the beginning and sometimes during the actual game, links to end the experience, should it be too overwhelming. Invariably, clicking those links ends with a message like “That’s ok. It’s fine. Everything’s good. You are loved.”

“You are loved”. That’s so cheapening.

Oh, the intention is stellar. The intention is to boost someone up who probably needs boosting. The intention is to reach out to someone who needs a helping hand (otherwise they probably wouldn’t have clicked that link).

But the author doesn’t love the person who’s playing the game, doesn’t even KNOW the player. That alone makes it a lie. The author also doesn’t know the player, and doesn’t know whether they ARE loved. And if the player is suffering from depression, that alone can harm the player. I’ve had difficult times when I read things like “You are loved”, and my reply was “The fuck I am! What do YOU know about it? You never met me, you don’t know me, fuck off!”.

My sanity may be debatable, but I do know for a fact that I am not triggered into spirals of self-harm by the written word. Imagine if I was!

I also find it very, very cheapening. Which is where it gets relevant towards this discussion, as there’s talk of a proliferance of TW and supposed TW defendants cheapening really traumatic experiences. “Love” is not a word you just throw out. For a game to say “You are loved” like that is to make it meaningless.

Not to mention that, in the experiences that I’ve read about, almost everyone who really DOES need to hear those words is intelligent enough and suffering enough to immediately reject them with a thousand rationalisations. It takes a lot more effort than those four written letters. If you dissociate the word from the effort, I’m afraid you might be causing more harm. Or at least cheapening what you want to be a noble thing.[/rant]

51

Coming a bit late to this conversation, and possibly what I want to say is redundant since many of the points are already made. However, this whole topic seemed quite poignant today, as I was writing a section of my WIP that I realized almost certainly DOES require a trigger warning.

In my day job I do a lot of therapeutic work with people who have been traumatized in some way, and I see the power of triggers to cause significant mental distress, and yes, ‘harm’ on a daily basis. My own background has also caused me from time to time in the past, to experience the extremely unpleasant and at times disabling effect of being triggered.

IMO it isn’t simply a question of distinguishing between content warnings for things with the potential to offend, and trigger warnings for things that ‘might’ cause someone a problem. After all there are many things that might trigger someone, some of them apparently innocuous to the general public. The whole point about PTSD is that the triggers are often apparently insignificant things, and the person suffering may not even realize what it is that has triggered a panic attack. It would in any case be impractical to list every possible trigger. Rather it is about warning about depictions of things that probably WILL trigger a significant number of people, simply because in our world these are the highly traumatic events most commonly experienced - listed below in spoiler tags.

Rape and attempted rape
Child abuse of all sorts
Domestic abuse and violence
Torture

There may be others, but IMO these are the ones most likely to cause serious distress to a significant number of people.

I don’t see this as restrictive. In fact for me it allows me the freedom to explore themes in a way that might not be possible or acceptable otherwise. My current WIP has a protagonist who experiences a lot of flashbacks from being triggered, and finding ways to use the tools available (in this case Twine) to depict that experience is both challenging and strangely cathartic.

Perhaps content of this sort (along with well-constructed, appropriate, and if necessary, suitably hidden trigger warnings) could open up the possibility of interactive fiction that is not just entertaining or informative, but is potentially therapeutic as well.

52

I think you have the answer. Nobody can possibly predict every single trigger, so it’s ludicrous to have to list things like “routine childhood teasing” or “Giant bees as characters.”

I’d add to your list:

abuse/death/murder of animals
incest themes
traumatic death - specifically disturbing, violent, or tonally unexpected (MARLEY AND ME, MY GIRL)

53

Is there a reason you’re hiding these lists inside spoiler tags? Surely anyone who needs to use trigger warnings to avoid those of categories of material will be reading the category names when they do so.

54

I guess it is the equivalent of hiding trigger warnings behind a link in a game. The way I would do it personally its to have a ‘Content Advisory’ link with a general description behind it, along the lines of:

Please be advised that this game contains adult and traumatic themes that some people may find disturbing. Specifically:

With the ‘Specifically’ being a second link to just such a list.

I agree most people won’t be triggered simply by reading the categories, but some more sensitive people might not wish to proceed beyond the general description. It takes just a few minutes to set up. It’s a small investment in your players/readers of time and care.

55

Late to this discussion. I generally prefer content warnings, as this neatly sidesteps the “what counts as a trigger” discussion and accommodates a lot of things. For instance, my WIP contains sexual content. Not in a gratuitous way, but unavoidably, and not in a happy happy fun fun way either. There are plenty of reasons one might not want to get into sexual content. Perhaps you are the parent of a 13-year-old who’s looking for something to play with your kid. Perhaps you’re at work and don’t want your boss to peek at your screen at what is likely to be an inopportune moment. Perhaps your tastes lie more toward fun puzzlefests that don’t get too heavy. Or perhaps, for whatever reason, you find sexual content upsetting. In any of these scenarios, you would probably appreciate a warning.

Personally, structure-wise, I’m a fan of the introductory menu. And the extension even works now.

56

An article at The Atlantic covering this and related issues: theatlantic.com/magazine/arc … nd/399356/

57

I do believe that it’s natural, when fighting for a cause, to spill over to the extreme on the other side, otherwise the cause is doomed to fail. So this is maybe a natural thing, and these exaggerations will blow over in time.

In the here and now, though, this sort of thing does rather provide easy arguments for people to argue against it and its related issues (like bona-fide TWs), which is a shame.

Also, I’m about to indulge on a microaggression, I think, but it’s an interesting question I would very much like to ask… is it just me, or is this very much an American thing? Or is it just that, since it’s such a big country and such a predominant one in our everyday life, it just makes itself known louder and faster than the rest?

EDIT - Case in point re exagerations:

If these things are taken seriously, how can the REAL issues ever be properly tackled? The ones about, say, “Straw Dogs” and “Irreversible” needing a TW for rape? (I don’t know if they nned it, but if there are films that, off the top of my head, would be very disturbing to anyone seriously, honestly triggered by rape, it’d be these two)

58

My guess is that it’s not just a US thing, though it may be most extreme there. It may possibly be a bit of an Anglophone thing though.

59

Hah, yes, I’d forgotten about the various similar issues in England (though I wouldn’t know about Australia, Canada, New Zealand, et al). Anglophone might be more correct, in which case it’s all England’s fault anyway.

Is this Queen Victoria’s Revenge? The Long-Awaited Sequel?

In Portugal we’re always speaking ill of everyone all the time anyway, so if anyone were to get offended they’d have a field day of it, so they don’t bother. It’s not nice, but it’s cultural and we ain’t getting rid of it, unfortunately. Most pessimistic bunch you ever saw…

Just don’t speak ill of our country. We can throw it into the dirt all day long, but if a foreigner even starts hinting that it’s not the best place on earth, it’s lynch-mob time. Hurray for hypocrisy. Again, we ain’t getting rid of that.

60

Yes, I believe the common term is “crying wolf”. If people react in an extreme way to such small issues, it becomes difficult to get attention for the more serious ones. But I am a bit cautious about taking this article at face value–like with the “My Liberal Students Terrify Me” article, which others (e.g. here, here, and here) have argued described an experience that was not representative, it seems to focus on only the most extreme examples. And it seems like, rather than drawing attention to the dangers of crying wolf, this sort of reporting could instead lead to people seeing a strawman as representative of content warnings and related issues in general.

To quote from the response to that article here:

Just my two cents.