Writing Blog Number 2

20240805 Trigger Warnings

Trigger Warnings

This is not an explanation of trigger warnings, but a personal thought on them and why I no longer will be supplying them on my work.

So, first, what is a trigger warning? A trigger warning is a simple statement telling a potential reader/ viewer that an element of a story could well upset them.

The problem is, trigger warnings have become the norm, and now writers are expected to supply them, even if they spoil the ending or the surprise of a tale. Normalising them is pandering to people’s perceptions of their own trauma. In my experience, those who are “triggered” are self-diagnosed.

Self-diagnosis is useless diagnosis. People who say they are ADHD without being formally diagnosed (or “on the spectrum” or “have PTSD” or whatever) are weaponising their own personal thoughts and preying on the sympathy of others to get an advantage. Go see a therapist; if they agree, then you have a formal diagnosis; if they disagree, then you’re making shit up.

So, let’s look at the science. A study published in Psychology Today gave the following issues with trigger warnings:
* Trigger warnings can produce a “nocebo” effect. This is where the expectation of something bad can heighten negativity. They have more anxiety before reading, and then increased anxiety afterwards, which is greater than if they had come across it organically. They are also more likely to look for passages that could “trigger” them.
* A greater risk is that trigger warnings justify trauma, and therefore may increase the tendency of a trauma survivor to see that event as central to their identity. This has led to increased PTSD-like symptoms and limits opportunities for personal healing.
* There is an effective means of combatting any mental issue which is confronting it. It is how a lot of fears/ phobias are alleviated – therapy whereby they face their fear. But someone who avoids a work because of trigger warnings is not becoming stronger or inured to the trauma-casuing issue, and this can also worsen anxiety.

For a more nuanced discussion of this, see this article from Psychological Science  . My science degree was in physics; psychology was only a minor (and a minor in my teaching degree as well).

There is another issue which I have noticed, and that is only certain things can be classified as triggers. Violence in all its forms and sexual content are it. Well, I have a friend who finds discussion of religion upsetting; maybe we need a trigger warning that the writer thinks God is real. I know someone else who has such huge arachnophobia that he cannot even talk about spiders; so he should have a trigger warning if spiders are mentioned. A lady at the pub lost her husband in a drowing accident; should we include trigger warnings about the sea or even water?

Where does it stop? Trauma comes in many forms and is caused by many things. Trigger warnings just make it seem like everyone needs to be traumatised by these issues. Trigger warnings are a means for the whole world living in fear. Normalising this behaviour is creating an anxious and insular society. We are encouraging victim culture.

Yes, people have a right to deal with their own victimhood in their own way, whatever works for them; no, people do not have a right to inflict their mental issues upon everyone else.

I also personally believe they are a subtle form of censorship. Remember the ‘Tipper Stickers’ that record companies were forced to put on CDs and albums in the 1990s, because Tipper Gore thought music made people violent (because she is a moron). Instead of looking at the fact the media glorifies gun violence in the USA, she decided music was to blame. Censorship. Oh, and then video games were blamed, like movies in the 1900s, talking movies in the 1920s, TV in the 1940s, comic books in the 1940s, the movie Hays code in the 1940s, rock music in the 1950s, the Gay & Lesbian Mardi Gras in the 1990s… Censorship by any other name is still censorship.

Well, it soon turned out that the ‘Tipper stickers’ had the reverse effect – although some parents (especially those of a psycho-religious colour) banned their kids from the music, the sales of those with the ‘Tipper Sticker’ increased, so much so that artists aimed to get one. And the kids banned from the music by deluded and naïve parents got the music (tape trading for the win!) anyway to see what everyone was talking about.

So, do I believe nothing should be censored? No.

Work involving the glorification of certain illegal activities, I think, should be censored. But that is personal, because those things do exist. Some stuff I think should be banned is even on WdC. But the USA has a first amendment, which is why out-and-out censorship should be illegal in the US, and which is why Tipper Stickers, rating codes and Trigger Warnings are their subtle way of telling people what they should and should not read.
Trigger Warnings do very little positive, and have more negatives than they are worth.

In. My. Opinion.