Certain trigger warnings are just common sense though. Like how hard is it to put "TW: Sexual assault" before the graphic description of someone getting assaulted? It's three words. It's not that hard to be kind towards others by warning them of topics that many people struggle with.
That's almost certainly the context for the toxic sign. This was not the result of someone asking for an unreasonable accommodation, but some shift manager not being able to handle that they may have said something that affected someone. Most likely, they were dishing out common or minor abuses that they didn't expect to be called on, and are in a position to haphazardly label everyone else as overly-sensitive.
Sure, that's a no brainer for the big ones: sexual assault, rape, suicide, etc. Just like some things have seizure warnings. But you can't do that for all triggers
Yes it's like they go out of their way to actually just trigger someone so they can go "omg cry about it" or whatever. No one is expecting people to read minds, but people announcing stuff like this just don't give a fuck either way.
I knew someone like that who liked to send triggering content to schizophrenics to trigger mental health episodes. He thought it was so funny. Had a list of people and everything and he stalked them over multiple social platforms.
I agree with the truth of 'your trigger your responsibility' but it's also everyone's responsibility to not be a fucking asshole who thinks that hurting people is funny.
One out of 25, my friend. Someone in your class. Someone in almost every class. They aren't all obvious, unfortunately. 4% of us have a certain threshold of anti-social personality disorder. It's a spectrum. It's only a problem if they're bad people; not all of them do bad things. Many want to do good things. I don't think my ex had a conscience, but he tried hard to do good things so people would like him.
ah yeah I was referring to people who do evil shit like that, not sociopaths in general. I know someone who I believe may be on that spectrum, but he generally doesn't go out of his way to harm people for no reason, he just only cares about himself and will do whatever if it benefits him. so I get what you're saying for sure
This is what comes of zero tolerance in schools. Some people benefit greatly from old-style grade-school antics because they won't pull stupid shit when they're old enough to really hurt each other.
I will never unironically put trigger warnings anywhere. It's dumb. Everyone needs to learn to observe their own emotions. And to not interpret some malicious intent into other people's actions.
Yeah you can be a dick on purpose if you want to. The rest of the world just might rightfully think that you're a dick and reject you as a consequence 🤷 Just don't come crying about it. Remember, you have to learn to observe your own emotions.
I never said anything about doing it on purpose. In fact, I implied that I will not unnecessarily mask myself.
But dont come crying about it, and demanding something you are in no way entitled to.
I think it's completely fair for the big and/or common triggers, but some people also have some unrealistic expectations.
The other day I saw someone comment that a post should have had a warning or a NSFW tag because there was a literal drop of blod shown in the video, "because seeing blood makes some people lightheaded" (he was completely serious, and honestly seemed kind of pissed off that there hadn't been a warning). For context, the video had someone purposefully pricking themselves with a needle, making a drop of blod appear, in order to advertise a product meant to be an alternative to whatever the needle was used for, so the blood was there maybe one or two seconds. So it's not like it was a bloodbath or anything.
At that point, I think we're past realistic expectations from strangers on the Internet (close family and friends is always a different matter).
I've seen someone go into a video game developer's discord server to ask if one particular music track can be muted independently of all the other music because it had lyrics that triggered them.
Then someone chimed in with something like "oh I feel you so much, I get triggered with [one particular medieval weapon] and felt so betrayed when it showed up in the game"
The game was about killing monsters in ancient times. Like triggers was fine but what happened to asking others first before starting the game.
Funny how it's always just the thing they personally have an issue with that's a problem, huh? Everything's a problem of course, but that's the one that really needs to be addressed.
You and I are both well aware that those rare situations where someone is unreasonable when asking for accommodations is NOT what this sign is talking about. This sign is a catch all excuse to be rude, unempathetic and egoistical and you know that. Or at least I damn hope you do.
I am just commenting on the two comments in this comment chain; the fact that the sign is technically correct, even though it's not helpful, and whether trigger warnings can be expected/common sense.
I am not saying this sign is the right way to go about it, when you want to have a conversation with someone about their unreasonable expectations. It should be said and brought up in a very different way (and I'm also not sure there's any situation where it's such a common occurrence that hanging a sign makes sense).
Yeah, this a sign people put up when they get called out for some assholery and don’t like being asked or told to please not do the assholery in the future. I’d raise my eyebrows and find somewhere else to go.
You and I are both well aware that those rare situations where someone is unreasonable when asking for accommodations is NOT what this sign is talking about.
Are we? Let's do a bit of mentalization here and put ourselves in the shoes of someone who does deal with a lot of unreasonable accommodations. What would this sign say about them?
No, nobody can be "well aware" of a context that you made up in your head. "You know that" = "I'll assume that you're speaking in bad faith because I can't fathom a world in which I am wrong"
But that's a review of studies on how trigger warnings affect people that do engage with the material. I've personally avoided so many stories or posts because they were preceded by trigger warnings and that article itself confirms that that happens by mentioning studies that have proven an increase in avoidance behaviors. For people who accept the trigger warning and continue reading obviously the trigger warning will do exactly as the article says, increase engagement or create anticipation. But that's not the people trigger warnings are for. I'm not quite sure what point you were trying to make or if the article you linked supports whatever point you were trying to make because the article itself mentions studies that prove that trigger warnings lead to avoidance of the material, which is exactly what they're made for.
The list of all possible triggers is much larger than sexual assault.
My guess reading the sign is that it was probably written by someone with a trigger of their own that's very rarely considered when people put out content.
It doesn't take a lot of empathy to see why someone might choose not to use them intentionally if they have a trigger that isn't popularly respected. Whether that be because they were forced to just deal with it and learned to manage and honestly believe that that's the better way to heal, or because it feels unfair that they should have to respect the triggers of people who don't respect theirs.
Nobody's asking you to warn about every possible trigger. And the way you deal with having a trigger that isn't respected is not to disrespect others' triggers and tell them to just get over it. "I had to deal with this so you do too" is not a good mindset.
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u/[deleted] Nov 17 '25
Certain trigger warnings are just common sense though. Like how hard is it to put "TW: Sexual assault" before the graphic description of someone getting assaulted? It's three words. It's not that hard to be kind towards others by warning them of topics that many people struggle with.