Triggers and such...
So today I was looking around my friends page and someone had posted this. It's a little skit from Robot Chicken about how the Autobots got names like "Bumblebee" and "Jazz." I found the punch line kind of creepy, though I don't know if others would be triggered by it, too. Consider this a warning. (Description and link are in the next two paragraphs.)
For those who don't want to watch it, punch line is that Optimus Prime named himself that because his dad abused him and treated him like he was never good enough, so he wants an "I'm awesome" name now.
http://video.adultswim.com/robot-chicken/earthly-names.html
And the thing is? I could barely watch it.
Not because I think no one should find it funny, or anything like that, but because one of my buttons (triggers? I worry about that word being overused, but maybe that's the right word) is anything having to do with children getting hurt, especially when played for laughs. I don't know whether that's because I was myself abused as a kid and it's a trigger, or whether it just hits my compassion funny but it just makes me feel weird and gross whenever I see it. (Any time I see people laughingly say "I need an adult!" I either see red or want to vomit. It's Just Not Funny to me.)
I can read, and write, creepy stuff involving violence, rape fantasy (including stuff that's lurid and horrible, not swoony and romance novel-y), death, mind games... but when it's bad things happening to kids? Usually... can't deal at all. Even when it's minor and short like this is.
But the thing is... I'm also not one of those people who thinks that because something is Serious Business to me, it has to be for other people. I think there's a lot of that on the 'Net, where hey, it's understandable that this triggers Fred or Veronica, so Susan and Ted are somehow disallowed from finding it funny. And I'm... not a fan of that any more, really. Because everyone's different, including everyone who's survived horror. There are probably people reading this entry who've survived things that more exactly match what happened to OP in the clip who find it hilarious, maybe even healing to laugh at it, where I feel like I've been slimed.
Which I think is my main point here. Trigger warnings, and courtesy, and "Hey you might not want to put that out there without letting people know it might bug 'em" are all a good thing, I think -- they're a matter of politeness. But I think we can get unrealistic, on the one hand expecting everyone to have the same hot buttons or on the other expecting everyone to label everything, when they don't. (This wasn't. I stumbled right on into it. I knew it was Robot Chicken so I knew it would be... irreverent, but I didn't know how.)
I don't know. I guess my point is that I think it's both important to be courteous to other Netizens but also to remember that no one can pad every corner for you, too.
*wanders off looking for mind bleach*
For those who don't want to watch it, punch line is that Optimus Prime named himself that because his dad abused him and treated him like he was never good enough, so he wants an "I'm awesome" name now.
http://video.adultswim.com/robot-chicken/earthly-names.html
And the thing is? I could barely watch it.
Not because I think no one should find it funny, or anything like that, but because one of my buttons (triggers? I worry about that word being overused, but maybe that's the right word) is anything having to do with children getting hurt, especially when played for laughs. I don't know whether that's because I was myself abused as a kid and it's a trigger, or whether it just hits my compassion funny but it just makes me feel weird and gross whenever I see it. (Any time I see people laughingly say "I need an adult!" I either see red or want to vomit. It's Just Not Funny to me.)
I can read, and write, creepy stuff involving violence, rape fantasy (including stuff that's lurid and horrible, not swoony and romance novel-y), death, mind games... but when it's bad things happening to kids? Usually... can't deal at all. Even when it's minor and short like this is.
But the thing is... I'm also not one of those people who thinks that because something is Serious Business to me, it has to be for other people. I think there's a lot of that on the 'Net, where hey, it's understandable that this triggers Fred or Veronica, so Susan and Ted are somehow disallowed from finding it funny. And I'm... not a fan of that any more, really. Because everyone's different, including everyone who's survived horror. There are probably people reading this entry who've survived things that more exactly match what happened to OP in the clip who find it hilarious, maybe even healing to laugh at it, where I feel like I've been slimed.
Which I think is my main point here. Trigger warnings, and courtesy, and "Hey you might not want to put that out there without letting people know it might bug 'em" are all a good thing, I think -- they're a matter of politeness. But I think we can get unrealistic, on the one hand expecting everyone to have the same hot buttons or on the other expecting everyone to label everything, when they don't. (This wasn't. I stumbled right on into it. I knew it was Robot Chicken so I knew it would be... irreverent, but I didn't know how.)
I don't know. I guess my point is that I think it's both important to be courteous to other Netizens but also to remember that no one can pad every corner for you, too.
*wanders off looking for mind bleach*