Ask Lemmy

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

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.

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.

They are harmless, so don't see why not. I rather them to censorship. I remember mainstream media was heavily editing/censoring the footage of the killing of Charlie Kirk, and even posting the "far away" shot onto the same platforms that had close up, raw, uncensored footage. I heard it debated by them if a content warning and uncensored footage would be more beneficial.

I think the high quality footage itself of it actually made people more sympathetic/outraged about it, just seeing a man die that way

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

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

Seeing unexpected gore has ruined my day before. It's not that hard to give a warning.

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

If you get a little anxious when you read a trigger warning that is your issue to deal with.

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:

I mean, I might just prefer:

[warning: rape, gore]

or whatever awfulness is present.

I feel content. Warnings are beneficial.

I only want to know gore/nsfl. otherwise im on the internet and i know what community im on.

I don't think I've ever been dissuaded by one, but I'm glad they are there for the people who appreciate them.

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.

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.

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 certainly want to know if a thing contains gore or viscera before seeing it so I can not see it. And as such can understand how other warnings would be helpful, too.

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 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 like them, and they aren't controversial. Content warnings have been around since tv stations invented the PG rating

I saw a post once that had a content warning for music. Just. Music.

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.

Nope. Not at all.

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.

I think they're worthless mollycoddling & signs of a stunted mind.

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.

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 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.

All content is upsetting to someone.

Many commenters would self-censor, at best, toward a "common man" kind of shock tolerance. This doesn't help those people who need trigger warnings for way more.

I can't see how to resolve that vast gulf.

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.