TW for trolling, mild disagreement with the feminist blogosphere hivemind

[sabotabby]

Can anyone tell me what the point of issuing a trigger warning without a jump-cut might be?

I admit that this may be a failure to understand netiquette on my part, but it seems to me that if one's intent is to create a safe space for survivors of violence (and particularly survivors of sexual violence) and otherwise marginalized people, placing a trigger warning directly above the rest of a post makes no sense.

I'm increasingly seeing posts like this:

This blog post is about clowns
[TW for clowns]

So I saw a clown the other day. He had wandered off from the rest of the circus, and was sitting in an unmarked white van, just kind of leering at passersby. I was really freaked out. Who lets clowns leave the circus unsupervised these days, anyway?

Does putting the trigger warning there actually do anything to deter a reaction on the part of someone who, say, has clown-related PTSD? Methinks if your reaction to reading about triggers is so severe that you need a trigger warning, placing the article directly below probably isn't the greatest idea.

I can see something like this:

This post is about things that crawl and have too many legs
[TW for spiders]


sphinctourist, how is your Daddy longlegs infestation going? Have you gotten rid of them yet?

Also, internet pedants, I am aware that opiliones aren't actually spiders but I didn't have any spider-related content to post about.

That way, if someone is triggered by spiders, they can avoid the post altogether and read the one about clowns instead. But no one off LJ seems to do this. On the serious feminist blogs, all of the triggery posts are uncut.

Of course, I don't do trigger warnings at all, so maybe I'm missing something here. Anyone care to enlighten me?

Comments

[northbard.livejournal.com]

If it's not specifically written for LJ, is it even possible to do a cut most of the time without a collapse? Site specific or java-based formatting doesn't generally get pulled for feeds.

[northbard.livejournal.com]

also eek a troll.

[sabotabby]

You can do jump-cuts on Blogspot. I'm not talking about feeds either.

I'm mostly talking about this sort of post. Goes double for the comments, where no one manages a line space in between the trigger warning and the potentially triggery content.

[troubleinchina.livejournal.com]

I think the theory is that you can just back out of something immediately.

Strangely, people give more respect on these sites for spoiler-warnings than they do for trigger warnings. It's weird, considering.

[sabotabby]

This is also something I find unnerving. I mean, the worst thing that happens if you get spoiled is that your suspense is somewhat diminished. The worst thing that happens if you get triggered is an attack of PTSD.

[troubleinchina.livejournal.com]

But then everyone can say they're really really sorry and that will make it all better!

Honestly, I feel like there's this weird idea that "trigger warnings" are a politeness thing and that "being triggered" is "being upset". But I also have a lot of FEELINGS and OPINIONS about this.

[radiumhead.livejournal.com]

I loved that one comment about the clown being unsupervised.

I didnt realize it was illegal to be a clown, now.

[sabotabby]

It fucking should be. They're terrifying.

[kynn.livejournal.com]

oshit you should have warned me about the fucking clowns sabo

[sabotabby]

Sorry kynn! P.S. There are also some under your bed.

[ironed_orchid]

Most blogging systems do allow for something like a cut, and you can set up feeds to only show some content, so it is doable.

But yeah, the front page of Shakesville is all "trigger warning" ... "trigger" withing a line or two, and that really does seem to defeat the purpose.

[sabotabby]

It seems weird to not have the ability to do a cut. I know WordPress is more difficult than LJ or Blogspot, but it is possible there as well.

As for feeds, I would think that someone who had serious trigger issues could either a) figure it out, or b) not add that particular blog to his or her feed, and just read it from the front page. Bloggers shouldn't be held responsible for how something appears on a feed, but if one is committed to doing trigger warnings, one can at least control one's own blog.

[ironed_orchid]

I've done it in Wordpress, I think they use something like [more->]

I went and looked at the Shakesville front page, and nearly every post has a trigger warning of some sort followed by text about the trigger subject. Maybe their idea of warning is to help people linking to the post figure out what warnings to include, rather than actually warning people who are already reading.

[troubleinchina.livejournal.com]

Wordpress, at least the current version, is really easy. Tumblr is a hassle like no one's business. Fucking Tumblr.

[corwin77.livejournal.com]

I kind of want to go make a post now that is even worse. Like.

Zombies are coming

I like zombies, they eat brains.

Trigger Warning: the preceding article had zombies!

[sabotabby]

All you need is a picture of a zombie. Eating brains.

[corwin77.livejournal.com]

Well heck, where am I gonna find a zombie picture?

Obviousman is obvious.

[fengi.livejournal.com]

TRIGGER WARNING!



AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!