4 ms·

I've heard this "spoiler" point before, but it fails to understand why people don't like trigger warnings in the first place. Triggers are an excuse to avoid h

I've heard this "spoiler" point before, but it fails to understand why people don't like trigger warnings in the first place. Triggers are an excuse to avoid hearing, thinking or discussing uncomfortable ideas. Spoiler warnings are for people who want to savor the experience on their own time. Two preemptive warnings to bail out of a conversation, but for almost opposite reasons. In this post Enlightenment era, the sharing and discussion of ideas is sacrosanct. Giving someone an Out rubs people the wrong way by violating such a fundamental principle. Discomfort is not an excuse. So it's exactly the frivolity of TV that made society embrace the spoiler warning. But not without some "this is really stupid" consternation. Given some "everything else being equal" reasoning, and the fact anyone taking the warning will watch the show and be ready to talk about later, spoiler warnings became a thing.

SAI_Peregrinus 11y ago
It's easy to define a spoiler: Any description of an event in a fictional work which would be difficult to predict and that has significant consequences. It's very difficult to determine what trigger warnings should be used in a general case. Should pictures of dogs (especially German shepherds) carry a trigger warning because dogs are often used as attack animals by police and militaries, and can cause traumatic experiences in someone attacked by them? What about birds? I have an acquaintance who is deathly afraid of birds. How about warnings for people with ideophobia (the fear of ideas)? Or all the other things on http://phobialist.com/ http://phobialist.com/ or any other such list. Who decides what list of triggers is legitimate?