DO WE NEED TRIGGER WARNINGS?

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Pondering the question of whether culture needs to protect us with ‘trigger warnings.’

Not long ago, during social media scrolling I came across an author talking about a topic popular right now which is the subject of trigger warnings. The question to ask now is, do we need trigger warnings? It’s an interesting question and one I think about, and am pretty confident in the knowledge that my reaction is perhaps one most readers don’t agree with.

This isn’t a new topic and though it’s not always a “straight line” discussion, I’ve seen it make the rounds for a while now. For the author I saw sharing her thoughts, she quite fairly has two perspectives. She looks at this question from the perspective of an author and a reader. One means the potential spoliation of something a storyteller tries to reveal as a secret and the second is appreciated as every reader has certain things we’d rather not read about.

I have a different perspective though it’s limited to that as a consumer of pop culture and a reader.

DO WE NEED TRIGGER WARNINGS? Chatting about the popular topic that is trigger warnings. What do you think of them? #TriggerWarnings #Books #Book #Reader #Reading #Readers Share on X

Living in the world and being a part of society is many things. We’re going to be annoyed by things, people with different opinions may frustrate us or we’ll see something that emotionally wrecks us because of something we have to live through. This and more is all true. Two things at once can be true. And another truth is, the world, social media and certainly not authors, owe it to us to protect our feelings.

LIST | DO WE REALLY HATE IT HERE?

I’ve read books that annoy me. I also think that in a general sense too many novels put things into the text that is unnecessary which then means the book demeans itself and isn’t all it could be.

I’ve had lots of change in my life, and in the past two, I’ve had lots of change in myself. This means I’ve worked on becoming confident in what I think and my opinions on everything in culture. One of these things is something like trigger warnings.

I’m in the place of believing they’re unnecessary.

I’m sympathetic to someone reading a book that makes them sad or uncomfortable. This is going to happen. This is something we’ll have to navigate. But protecting us isn’t the job of a storyteller or social media. I don’t want a storyteller or a stranger on the Internet to think that way; to think about the protection of feelings. That’s the job of people in our lives or even us who have to learn what we can handle and what we cannot and learn how to be able to judge that, as best we can.

If we continue to put limitations on art and storytelling, pretty soon they’ll be no freedom and no ability to truly tell a story that’s good; a story that will make us think and wonder and wish and feel.

We’re going to encounter things that will “trigger” us, yes. But putting that burden on people telling that story, well, that is a kind of unpleasant reality that is its own kind of trigger.

What are your thoughts on this topic? Do we need trigger warnings? What is your perspective on this subject? Sound off below with all of your thoughts.

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