tuckova

I am tired of "trigger warning" and "spoiler alert". I understand that they're meant to function as a courtesy and I generally applaud all such efforts, but I think they're massively overused AND this week I saw some people reprimanded for NOT using them, and I think we have officially landed on ridiculous. Let me explain.

A trigger warning is a warning that a text you are about to read may create upsetting feelings, particularly if you have experienced something similar to the upsetting thing that the text is about. For example, a trigger warning on a text about rape helps people know that the text might upset them, especially if they were raped.  And while I get the courtesy that is intended by that warning, I also feel like: guess what? Women get raped so often, so brutally, and so casually that what is remarkable is not when it makes the news (trigger warning! woman raped!) but that it still makes the news at all. Trigger warning! Patriarchy! News at 11! Understand that I don't think that the sort of violence that we put these warning tags on is acceptable; it's just that I think we live in a world where this is endemic and my concern is more the idea that some people require a warning and the rest of us are okay, or that the text is more upsetting than the event it describes. Everyone should find it horrible; it IS horrible. You know who didn't get a trigger warning? The people in the story. More importantly, the implication that victims of violence and terror are somehow going to be protected from the knowledge of a fact they lived through by a little red flag at the beginning is ridiculous. If you do not want to live in a world where the news is upsetting to you, then try avoiding the news and links to news stories, or you might try channeling that horror into working to change things, instead of getting angry at people who have failed to warn you.

A spoiler alert is a warning that you are about to read key plot points from a work of fiction that will change the way you interpret it. If you are a person who consumes fiction purely for the what of the plot, I guess I can see how you might want to avoid knowing what will happen ahead of time, but… who does that? Do we not usually enjoy fiction for the how, the who, and the why? One of the highest grossing films of all time was set on the Titanic (spoiler alert! it sinks!). I GET that it is a pleasurable jolt when there is a plot twist you hadn't expected, or after the shock of seeing a main character killed off unexpectedly, but since the way we communicate now guarantees that there are fewer such surprises (like interviews with actors who are leaving a show being broadcast before their character disappears), most good artists have compensated by making how you get to those plot twists more interesting. If you are unwilling to live in a world where the plot points of television shows and popular novels may be revealed to you before you see them yourself, and this will ruin the pleasure of the show for you, then you need to either get off the internet or consume better media. I'll be over here re-reading the Chronicles of Prydain and re-watching The Princess Bride.