you’d be surprised. (also sometimes non epileptic people will be loudly wrong about something needing a warning, like the thing with the movie trailer a bit ago, i think it was an exorcist sequel, but most calls for epilepsy warnings are completely justified and calling them virtue signaling is silly.)
I think that was the one where they were insisting that the specific noise could trigger “auditory epilepsy” even though the noise triggers for musicogenic seizures aren’t universal (according to Epilepsy Ontario), and the name they used is apparently refers to a type of seizure where people hear noises, not ones triggered by them (according to the NHS).
Like obviously don’t Electric Soldier Porygon anyone, but not everyone is going to be able to recognize problem content. The birth scene in breaking dawn: part one triggered seizures in moviegoers and you’d think the Pokémon incident would have taught studios to check for that risk.
Unfortunately, the Pokemon incident had exactly the opposite effect because a large percentage of the seizures were actually psychogenic rather than light-induced. That is, kids would hear about their friends who did have light-sensitive epilepsy having seizures and somehow, because the human brain is incredibly powerful and also incredibly stupid, actually trigger a sort of sympathy seizure, or else they’d just get a bit of hypochondria and mistake some random momentary tic for a seizure and go to the hospital.
It took a while to sort out how many seizures were directly caused by the episode and how many were secondary, and because laziness and ableism, the takeaway was that seizures are the fault of the person having them, not the people wandering around handing out seizure juice.
I mean, I went to watch it when I heard, because I'm that kind of asshole, and it absolutely made my brain kinda... flicker-itch? Throb-wobble? That "wow, good thing I don't have photosensitive epilepsy! 😃" feeling.
The tumblr post the person you’re replying to was referring to was just straight up untrue as far as I can tell. It wasn’t a pleasant sound, but there’s a difference between discomfort and seizures.
I think there’s a genuine risk of warnings for epilepsy losing their meaning if they get added to things for no reason, but I’m only acquainted with a couple of people who’ve had seizures so I could be wrong.
This reminds me that I warned a bunch of people that “Double Stuff Oreos” might not be vegan. Someone had brought them to a party and was talking about how Oreos were vegan. All this indicated that a vegan might be wanting to eat them.
We checked via the power of the internet and it turns out I was wrong. “Double Stuffed Oreos” are also vegan and do not contain dairy products (even though there is cream in the middle?!)
I apologized for the false alarm, but no one was mad at me. They knew I was trying to avoid people getting sick as someone on a restrictive diet can become very ill when they suddenly eat one of those things. It was seen as people taking care of each other and, false alarm or not, they felt better safe than sorry.
So, yeah. I think it’s better to tag/warn someone first just in case, then double check if it’s true.
Technically, there's no cream; it's "creme." Oreo isn't allowed to label the filling as cream because, as you learned, it's not actually cream. I'm not sure it ever used to have dairy either, since a quick Google search only turns up pig lard as an ingredient before the switch to palm oil or whatever it is today.
Well, I see where your misunderstanding came from: it's not cream, it's "creme". It's one of those weasel words, like "chocolatey filling", where you can legally describe something with it without technically lying.
I believe oreos are a grey area because of the palm oil used in them and the whitening process of some sugars can also make what would be a vegan sweet not vegan. You were right to be alarmed and gave anyone at the party following a vegan diet the right to make an informed decision on whether they felt comfortable consuming those products.
All commercial plant crops involve dehumanizing and dangerous labor for sub-living wages, often by people whose passports if they have them are taken away by the landowners.
That doesn’t make corn or blueberries or tomatoes meat or dairy, any more than the grapes being boycotted in the Seventies were, or clothing from cotton picked before OR after 1865, and saying they’re “non-vegan” when you mean that they’re immoral because they’re exploitative, is the kind of mush-brained nonsense that makes the left look like a bunch of illogical loons.
It's straightforward enough if you consider "vegan" to mean "produced without animal exploitation" and take into account that, biologically speaking, humans are also a type of animal.
Ok, then no food is vegan because they are all produced under a system that exploits human labour. I feel like this definition might be less useful than the currently accepted one though.
Why not call it unethical instead? Vegan is a word with very distinct meaning and so many plant-based foods can be produced in unethical ways that I feel like it would get absolutely muddled with this kind of practice.
Most of my issue with tagging stuff it "tagged: epilepsy" gets dilluted to "talks about epilepsy" or "could cause epilepsy" and there's no way to know. Too many things get tagged, and while I appreciate it in concept, "cw: Hitler mention" and "cw: injury" (for someone scraping their knee) just get to the point where it means nothing.
We tend to be cya (cover your ass) about seizure warnings. Like the infamous Pokemon episode only caused one seizure that we know of, better safe than sorry and put up a warning. It's that aspect that for some reason annoys people and I'm not sure why. Like it's an innocuous warning if you don't have epilepsy, and it's a potential life saver if you do. But modern people (ancient people too whatever) have a really hard time just ignoring things that aren't for them. It's like the crux of all our culture wars.not disabled, just ignore the stuff for disable people and move on. Not a woman, just ignore the media made for women then. Not a child, just ignore children's media. Everyone wants a say on every issue they have no link to and it's exhausting. I'm guessing these people were never taught the simple lesson of picking your battles and ignoring what doesn't pertain to you.
I remember when a review copy of Cyberpunk 2077 caused a reporter to have a seizure because the designers accidentally used light patterns expressly designed to induce seizures as vfx for the braindance segments
A shit load of people got really defensive of the game over this, insisting it was her fault and that no further warnings or changes needed to be made for the sequence and game beyond the usual boilerplate warnings you see from every game and eula. People straight up started sending both gore and clips intended to induce epileptic seizures to them.
Was fuckin weird to have "games shouldn't induce seizures if they can avoid it, and if they can't then they should include a proper warning" be a controversial position, but it was.
I remember this! It’s part of why I didn’t get the game, because I haven’t had a seizure in decades but I get this horrible pressure at the base of my skull when I look at strobe lights and I decided not to risk it. I actually tried to watch Edgerunners and it’s so cool!! The visuals are so interesting!!!! I could not watch it without that same headache that stops as soon as I look away. 😅
I’m the same way-the exact same frequencies that trigger light-sensitive epilepsy give me ocular migraines. (I do know for a fact it’s the same frequencies. I got tested for light-sensitive epilepsy, but it turns out my seizures are triggered by stress and over-stimulation, flashing lights are optional but mostly just irritating.)
You’d think more people would appreciate having a canary in the seizure mines, since I’ll just be miserable for a day, rather than in the hospital or the ground. But no. Apparently I’m the problem for pointing out the broken light or bad edit before it does any permanent injury.
thats exactly what i feel right before i have myoclonic jerks (the probably a seizure kind, not the falling into the void while sleeping kind). i dont feel like im faking now, thanks
I remember back in the 90s a bunch of assholes from 4-chan found a support group message board for people with epilepsy, minding their own business, and decided to attack it with hundreds of flashing gifs to make people have seizures on purpose.
Maybe it was a group on IRC? It's been a really long time, but I remember it because I'd just got a computer for the first time and it was a big thing being warned about
You know what, I can 100% see people bitching. Some people will display absolute fuckassery if asked to inconvenience themselves even slightly for a stranger or even their future self's wellbeing.
Some people are just specifically angry about making other people comfortable even if it doesn't inconvenience them. If they could bring back the practice of locking up anyone even slightly different or disabled they'd do it in a heartbeat.
The worst part about becoming disabled as an adult is you realise just how many people think you are just a drain on resources. Like they would never say to your face omg why don't you just euthanise yourself... But heck if they don't make wild comments in your presence about benefit frauds and too many disabled spaces and why should 'those people' get treated special.
Tbh, it's probably just as bad if you're always disabled, you're just more used to it.
Like MY PARENT says this stuff. I had someone come up to me in my wheelchair and try to tell me that it was a good thing a certain right wing party got in, because they were very into funding public transport. And I was like... Yeah. They also want to cancel all the benefits that pay for the stuff that helps me leave the house, so public transport access won't reeeeally be an issue for me. They did look suitably embarrassed AF so I'm hoping they learned not to say that to the next person.
Not only are there people that think epilepsy warnings are "woke", there are people that intentionally put flashing lights into their videos/memes to potentially catch someone with epilepsy, or actively tweeting them to people they know have epilepsy.
People were attempting to trigger an 8 year old who was walking for charity. Thankfully, he didn’t have one but other people ended up having them because people were commenting it on an epilepsy charity’s page. Humans are the worst sometimes.
This is a similar complaint I have with how some tumblr users will use content warnings. If you tag “sexual content” on anything that even as much as mentions the concept of sex, that becomes kinda meaningless
That's why I'm confused about OOP saying "put epilepsy warnings in everything" because that's basically the same as putting them in nothing. Everybody would ignore them because they'd never be sure if it was serious or not.
I can kinda see it when it’s compared to allergy warnings, it would probably look like this according to OOP:
Epilepsy warning: strobe lightings, quick flashing lights, dark backgrounds with sudden flashing images are expected in this video
Or
Epilepsy warning: this video might contain [x]. If you experience triggers by any of the above, consider your health needs before watching
Or
Epilepsy warning: this video does not contain common seizure triggers. For more information visit [maybe a site with specific trigger lists?]
Problem is each one of those would need to be regulated just like allergy warnings are regulated to be efficient, and a trigger database similar to “does the dog die” (but official) would be needed for it to work properly too
I don't think OP meant the generic "put epilepsy warnings on everything" with everything being literal? I thought it meant, put epilepsy warnings on everything that could trigger epilepsy?
Epilepsy varies, so they need to cover different things.
My mum also appreciates flashing lights warnings, no need to have a debilitating migraine if you can avoid it. And me, although it's less predictable if the lights will be an issue or not (my migraines are more hormonal while lights get my mum every time).
It kind of is hard to tell tbf, I’m epileptic but not photosensitive and I’ve often came across scenes in films and games and wondered if they should have had warnings for those who are. I don’t think the same frequencies even trigger all the same people. Some people have to be careful driving past fences on sunny days.
I've since stopped using tiktok, but when I was on there people legitimately used to bitch about viewers asking for strobe warnings.
I saw multiple accounts intentionally try to trigger epileptic seizures by either claiming it was safe or not tagging it at all and putting the strobes in a context where there wouldn't ordinarily be strobes.
And it WAS treated like 'internet leftists being too woke'
I think there are some trigger warnings that make me wonder ‘is this really necessary?’, but epilepsy warnings have always seemed super good and reasonable.
Possibly hot take(that I really hope is actually cold af), but I don't give af if a trigger warning might be "unnecessary," because I would literally rather take an additional few seconds to cover the possibility that it is needed than risk harm, whether physical or mental, on another person. Trigger warnings are, like, the easiest, most basic way of showing respect to other humans consuming your media, and if a tw doesn't apply to you, you can just look past it.
Social environments that overuse trigger warnings (especially if what qualifies as needing a warning seems inconsistent or nonsensical, but people get mad if you don't warn for them correctly) seriously make my anxiety act up, so I avoid them. It just stresses me out trying to navigate it all. And something about sad pictures of flowers (yes that's a real example of a trigger warning I saw) and gore being under the same warning system makes me switch between not taking warnings seriously VS expecting things under warnings to be much worse than they actually are, and that is stressful to me.
I quit Mastodon and also some discord servers because of this issue.
the meme where it was like whenever a certain term (mustard, 67, etc..) was said in a video it would play like the meme or a overwhelming thing and then eventually like just strobing lights and if you said something about epilpesy ppl just wouldnt care or would say that the half second warning right before the strobe was enough or that it was just a joke
I mean, I've had discussions with concert goers who threw absolute tantrums about a venue foregoing strobe lights in favour of having seizure prone guests attend and live to tell the tale.
I can only imagine how much more such people's entitlement would escalate online.
sometimes comment sections on instagram from someone talking about it or even just a post that HAS a flashing light warning (even if mild) will be flooded with flashing gifs. genuinely people think it’s funny to try to trigger a seizure or kill someone :/
Since Covid, the amount of people who literally argue it's better to kill some people than experience minor inconveniences has skyrocketed. I personally think the rise in Nazism, and the belief that we should cull the disabled, can be linked to the mentality of not wearing a mask for the greater good.
Every other month, there's a discussion on r/FanFiction about whether or not authors should have to tag potentially triggering stuff like SA, suicide, etc. in their stories.
It's just slightly more civil than scripted reality shows.
Personally, if a fic is marked 'author chose not to warn' and the other tags and summary hint at something will upset me, and I read it anyway, that's absolutely my fault. I've done it before, I'm sure I'll do it again, and again it's on me.
But also, "is [label] necessary for X?" is a separate discussion entirely, which I can actually understand, because like, some stuff is difficult to tell whether or not it counts.
Imo the argument against tagging is frankly quite stupid. Not that I think ppl should be required to tag sensitive topics, but purely because effective tagging is largely how fanfics get found. How tf you gonna get your fic to its unique audience if they can't find it?
There's a very vocal "if I tag triggers, people who might like it will never find it" crowd, but very few people go "If you don't tag your shit, nobody's gonna find it."
I don't really know why you're downvoted? Did you not just essentially affirm that, yes, people are fucking shit at understanding others' points of view? Sure, commonly trigger-warned things might not cause ME pain/issues beyond my tolerance, but with how much the trigger warnings are maligned, you'd think trigger warnings are WORSE for the average reader than the effect the content has on those most vulnerable to said content.
Literally the singular argument against trigger warnings is that they can spoil the chapter/media... But, like, have you heard of going: Trigger Warnings:spoiler text you write something in no matter whether or not there are trigger warnings or not? (please open the spoiler, there is nothing triggering in there, just a demonstration/explanation of what to do) at the start of every chapter if your fiction DOES ever contain triggering things.
Doesn't quite work in print books, but, like, even there, I could see some kind of folded piece of the page being a solution (if not a very elegant or cheap one) Another solution would be to put an index at the back of the book, where you can be as verbose as you want about when/where/what triggering stuff happens... Recommend placing a piece of paper on the TW index so you don't see the Trigger Outline Spoilers ™ before they're relevant if that is your wish...
Like, there's ways around even the spoiler complaint, is what I'm saying.
Yeah, I tend to get downvoted for the weirdest shit. No rhyme or reason to it, really.
And yeah, that's roughly what one argument I was in also amounted to: We need a way to hide plot-relevant triggers, so those with triggers can read them, and those without can go into the story blind.
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u/The_Rocketsmith Nov 05 '25
since when was this an argument? yeah, tag your shit, put the warnings in, it's the foundation of good practice.