rambling thoughts- on spoilers and trigger warnings
today there have been two concepts working their way across my facebook pages and my consciousness, and i need to sort out how i feel about them:
spoilers and trigger warnings.
today i was reading an article about how a woman who criticized rape jokes in comedy was (i'm having a hard time saying this: she wasn't physically assaulted- it was in writing... so was it verbally? but doesn't that usually imply verbal as in spoken communication?) insulted and attacked on youtube. and one commenter upon the facebook link said that a trigger warning would have been nice.
what?
normally i find that trigger warnings are a good thing, since they give a person a chance to decide whether to click on a link or read any further if they have certain triggers. there's some times when i just can't read about incest or sexual abuse or anything related thereto without enjoying a panic attack, and i'm grateful for the TW tags.
rape was in the title of the article, it was in the descriptive text of the link. what was that person expecting when they clicked on the link? how could a trigger warning be issued that wouldn't in itself be triggering if simply the mere mention of rape was unacceptable?
and then of course, the spoilers. i'm sick of people whining about how others spoiled episode nine of the game of thrones for them because of all of the facebook commentary. yeah. spoilers suck, i get it. but the book has been out for over ten years, people. do you really expect people to stop being social on a social media site, and not talk about their fave tv show? yeah, okay, some of the alpha nerds were a bit dickish, but how long is everybody expected to keep quiet?
i'm all for a kinder, more polite society. but at what point can we let people be responsible for the media they consume and not tiptoe around them?
triggers are a serious business. and quite frankly, until someone goes about cleaning things up, i'm thinking that youtube should have a big trigger warning plastered at the top of every comment section. because honestly, if ever you doubted that idiocracy was an exaggeration, just try to read the neanderthal comments populating the site. but if the title of an article includes the word rape in it, why do you need a trigger warning?
this also brings up another thought: for awhile i was following rapebook and would report pages for their perpetuation of harassment culture memes. but then the person running the site started to get *really* overly sensitive (she wanted us to report an "i'd hit that like a moon on endor" gif of a costumed stormtrooper ogling a woman). at the same time i read a piece by a facebook employee who wades through the reported posts and at the same time is supposed to be monitoring things like immediate danger situations, and saying how there are times when he could have intervened in or prevented a truly heinous action if only he hadn't been bogged down with trivial complaints. lately facebook has been working on reviewing its policies on acceptable images (i think it's still banning breastfeeding shots, but at least seems to be banning shots of violence against women, for example). i'm pretty sure that that's largely as a result of groups like rapebook and some media attention . whistle-blowing worked in this case (huzzah!). but i also don't want to be associated with a group of people who are so quick to cry wolf.
yeah, i'm a humourless feminist. but i also think that we need to choose our battles carefully.
the internet and the world should be a safe space, where peeps can enjoy each others' company and conversation without feeling harassed or objectified.
but how much *molly coddling do we need to do?
*the only molly i know in real life is a smart, strong derby girl about to get a phd with a bright shock of pink hair. the idea that she needs to be coddled makes me giggle.
spoilers and trigger warnings.
today i was reading an article about how a woman who criticized rape jokes in comedy was (i'm having a hard time saying this: she wasn't physically assaulted- it was in writing... so was it verbally? but doesn't that usually imply verbal as in spoken communication?) insulted and attacked on youtube. and one commenter upon the facebook link said that a trigger warning would have been nice.
what?
normally i find that trigger warnings are a good thing, since they give a person a chance to decide whether to click on a link or read any further if they have certain triggers. there's some times when i just can't read about incest or sexual abuse or anything related thereto without enjoying a panic attack, and i'm grateful for the TW tags.
rape was in the title of the article, it was in the descriptive text of the link. what was that person expecting when they clicked on the link? how could a trigger warning be issued that wouldn't in itself be triggering if simply the mere mention of rape was unacceptable?
and then of course, the spoilers. i'm sick of people whining about how others spoiled episode nine of the game of thrones for them because of all of the facebook commentary. yeah. spoilers suck, i get it. but the book has been out for over ten years, people. do you really expect people to stop being social on a social media site, and not talk about their fave tv show? yeah, okay, some of the alpha nerds were a bit dickish, but how long is everybody expected to keep quiet?
i'm all for a kinder, more polite society. but at what point can we let people be responsible for the media they consume and not tiptoe around them?
triggers are a serious business. and quite frankly, until someone goes about cleaning things up, i'm thinking that youtube should have a big trigger warning plastered at the top of every comment section. because honestly, if ever you doubted that idiocracy was an exaggeration, just try to read the neanderthal comments populating the site. but if the title of an article includes the word rape in it, why do you need a trigger warning?
this also brings up another thought: for awhile i was following rapebook and would report pages for their perpetuation of harassment culture memes. but then the person running the site started to get *really* overly sensitive (she wanted us to report an "i'd hit that like a moon on endor" gif of a costumed stormtrooper ogling a woman). at the same time i read a piece by a facebook employee who wades through the reported posts and at the same time is supposed to be monitoring things like immediate danger situations, and saying how there are times when he could have intervened in or prevented a truly heinous action if only he hadn't been bogged down with trivial complaints. lately facebook has been working on reviewing its policies on acceptable images (i think it's still banning breastfeeding shots, but at least seems to be banning shots of violence against women, for example). i'm pretty sure that that's largely as a result of groups like rapebook and some media attention . whistle-blowing worked in this case (huzzah!). but i also don't want to be associated with a group of people who are so quick to cry wolf.
yeah, i'm a humourless feminist. but i also think that we need to choose our battles carefully.
the internet and the world should be a safe space, where peeps can enjoy each others' company and conversation without feeling harassed or objectified.
but how much *molly coddling do we need to do?
*the only molly i know in real life is a smart, strong derby girl about to get a phd with a bright shock of pink hair. the idea that she needs to be coddled makes me giggle.