How To Use Trigger Warnings -

Patrick Paglen discusses when trigger warnings are and are not appropriate.

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Someone showed me a publication of Emmanuel Kant’s Critiques that came with a content warning. I had a lot of reactions to this, most of them somewhere in the ranges of sarcasm and indignation. I’ve also listened to a teacher friend of mine complaining about students arguing with them about their work because the readings were “triggering” or traumatic and offensive. I’m a stalwart defender of content warnings, but these experiences lead me to conclude that some best practices in adopting or expecting content warnings are in order.

Specifically, we need practices that honor rather than misappropriate serious medical concerns.

Content warnings come in various types. They could be general and simple, like “danger: foul language ahead,” or more common and specific. “NSFW” is an abbreviation for Not Suitable For Work, meaning “don’t look at this in a professional environment.” Ratings systems, like the standard ones for movies and video games, allows us to gauge what we find age-appropriate. Finally, “trigger warnings” are an effort to warn viewers or readers that the content contains explicit material depicting or exploring situations commonly known to be related to various stress-induced disorders, such as Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder, and such material can “trigger” an involuntary flashback, panic-attack, or stress-reaction. Graphic depictions of violence is the most common trigger, whether it be domestic, military, sexual, or racial.

I want to emphasize that triggers ought to be associated very specifically with stress and trauma related disorders, and the involuntary reactions associated with them are just that: involuntary, and significantly negatively impact the individual’s daily functioning, not just putting one in a bad and anxious mood. The individual might burst out in violence, scream, run directionless, or freeze up, all regardless of their social situation or environment, and risk danger to themselves or others without meaning to. If you have experienced something like this, please seek professional therapeutic help. Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder and similar maladies can be managed and treated, and tools are available to help with flashbacks and their aftermath.

Having a stress disorder does not mean total loss of agency. It means taking into account some unique personal needs while enjoying the same things everyone else does, and opting out of certain things based on what you feel you can handle at the moment. This means taking full and active responsibility for your choices and actively seeking information to make the best choice. You want to see a move playing in the theater but it’s rated “R,” so you read some synopses and reviews, then make a call whether you can handle it in a theater, at home or in other personally safe space… or choose to see another movie. Speak to the professor before signing up for the anthropology class studying the military operation that you happened to be a part of. Let them know of your interest and why, but let them know of the particulars of your condition and how you manage it; they can either accommodate you, and let you know what’s in store so you can decide if it might be better to take another course. It is very important that, if you have episodes, you know what sets them off, and to what intensity. Some people can read very descriptive depictions of the types of violence they witnessed or experienced and be fine, but are triggered by unrelated phenomena. This phenomenon could be so unique that no amount of trigger or content warning will help. No lecturer, video blogger, author, or performer could possibly predict that someone might be triggered by something innocuous like blue-colored drapes.

The only times you can be rightly be upset with a content provider or distributor is if the content includes commonly known triggering subjects, but the book descriptions, movie trailers, syllabus, and general themes advertise something far different, giving no indication that there’s troubling content within. This kind of thing does happen, and can rightly upset anyone regardless of any stress disorder.

Now if you are a content provider or distributor, your courtesy need not be limited to vague rating systems. If the title or description of the work does not already heavily imply troubling content, nor is backed up by a rating system or an age-gate, then make a short, explicit warning beforehand. If the content is online, use content warnings liberally! The internet is a place where anyone in the world can stumble upon the work you published without even looking for it, and could not possibly be prepared for your material if you did not give a reasonable warning. They might decide they want to view your material, but not at the present time or space they initially found it. If the material is in a limited access environment such as a classroom or workshop, you can have a discussion in the beginning of class or in the syllabus about the expectations of how to read the materials. Remember that whatever the media or setting, strong emotional reactions not related to stress disorders are still relevant. A video internet viewer who has no medical condition but still doesn’t enjoy explicit content must be given enough information to opt out of viewing. With this in mind, an artist or presenter, especially through internet or television, would be wise to give a general “content warning” with some indication of what to expect, rather than the more specific “”Trigger Warning.” “NSFW” though, is an elegant shorthand.

If you do not have a medical condition, but are sensitive to certain subjects, consider your environment. On the internet, you have quite a bit of power to opt out of entertainment you don’t like, even those that offer no warnings. If you are in the library researching for your idle curiosity, there is infinitely more opportunity to filter content than the internet without explicit content warnings. And if you are in a class or workshop, you are not expected to enjoy or agree with the content you are studying; you are expected to study it. Demanding abridgment of a syllabus because you’re uncomfortable with your emotional reaction to it is not legitimate, and insults those who navigate their studies while managing the risks their medical condition imposes on them. If you find issues with the content of your studies, then address the concern in political and educational terms: is this content necessary or constructive to your course’s purpose, and does its troubling aspects outweigh what you can learn by examining it?

These questions, though, are for an entirely different discussion.