By the way it's like. Really fucked how society's thoughts on epilepsy is just "get over it." Seizures can cause permanent brain damage. Seizures can kill people. Seizures hurt like hell. Allow me to reiterate that seizures can kill people. And you're just gonna casually put flashing lights, a common trigger for seizures in your advertisement, in your animation meme, in your edit, on your billboards, without even thinking about putting a simple disclaimer? That's unbelievable. Your little anime edit could deadass cost a life and you're not gonna put a warning because it's "inconvenient" or "people like that shouldn't be on the internet" (ableist) (the problem exists outside the internet also). Or you'll give insufficient ones like putting it in the captions or only giving like one second before the flashing lights appear, meaning that the trigger's already in motion before anyone who needs the warning can read it and save themselves from literal physical danger.
We need to start commenting under other people's posts about how to properly warn for flashing lights and eyestrain. We need to be emailing and calling companies about their possibly triggering advertisements that could induce seizures. We need to stop tolerating ableism and start speaking up for the more vulnerable.
Also, stop putting epilepsy warnings. That's like saying "warning: schizophrenia" on a post including unreality or "warning: dyslexia" on a post with a typing quirk. First off, the disability mentioned isn't the only group of people that this could trigger. Second, it doesn't truly get the message across and instead makes it worse for those with the disability-- scrolling through the epilepsy tag on Tumblr should get you to view the content of other epileptic people, but no, you just get a bunch of flashing lights and eyestrain, even though you could instead tag for, oh I dunno, flashing lights and eyestrain.
Anyways this Disability Pride, and for every month that comes after, think about epileptic people and others who are triggered by flashing lights/eyestrain. Happy pride to those who experience seizures too frequently due to the unaccommodating and ableist societies we live in!
THIS! It has been making me angry for a while now
I do not have epilepsy nor do I have seizures but I am visually impaired and am sensitive to bright colors and flashing lights (I get clusters of ice pick headaches and sometimes flash blindness) and I get edits a lot on platforms. The amount of times I have to click off or hold my head because I wasn't fast enough to pause is just sad. And it irritates me more when someone will comment "hey this needs a flash warning!" and people reply "lol just stay off the internet, no one has to cater to you"
Like EVERYONE can be affected by bright, flashing lights!!!! It is literally not healthy to subject your eyes to that often or repeatedly in little time (and there are MANY real life instances where flashing lights aren't allowed for the safety of others (eg. figure skating))
Rebarking for my epileptic friends, you are safek you are loved.
