Right, okay, Iâve thought long and hard whether to write this:
A squick (even a strong one) is not the same as a trigger.
Emotional discomfort, even emotional discomfort that leads to low-level physical symptoms like e.g. mild nausea, is not trauma. Unfortunately, TikTok pop psych has done nothing to help people understand the difference, because the trend to perceive (even strong) emotional discomfort as equivalent to a trauma response is worrying and neither helps people with nor without PTSD. I donât wish it on anyone to actually find out the difference if they havenât yet (disclaimer, since this is unfortunately necessary these days because everything gets misconstrued: I am not talking about individual experiences, because only you can know about those. Iâm talking about wider trends in an often young audience with not enough background info to be able to tell apart sound medical/psychological info and viral BS created by âinfluencersâ for some kind of personal gain).
What people in the current fandom spat want to have tagged as âtriggersâ are overwhelmingly squicks. And weâre probably all guilty of quickly saying âthat triggered meâ, myself included (and Iâm a licensed psychotherapist, shame on me). It has become somewhat of a shorthand for âextremely annoyed or grossed outâ. But when it gets used in the context of tagging, itâs good to remember that no one owes us a tag list the length of our arm just because we donât like certain things. Even if we strongly dislike them.
And even on the occasion someone elseâs yuck or yum is an actual trigger for us, it is impossible to cover for every possible trigger, because in theory, EVERYTHING has the possibility to trigger someone somewhere.
E.g., a certain smell in a supermarket holds the rare possibility of triggering someone, but do you see disclaimers at the supermarket door that say, âMay smell of 484 different things, which are in detail [list of 484 things] and might be different tomorrow. Plus, we might have a customer today who smells of that perfume that brings up your triggering childhood memories. Or maybe we wonât, but just on the odd chance we do, we thought weâd rather cover itâ.
There might be one person with a very specific trigger that does literally nothing to the vast majority of people. Do we expect everyone on Tumblr to tag for âeyebrowsâ or âwhite T-Shirtâ because of that? How about that person just puts âeyebrowsâ or âwhite T-Shirtâ in their content filter instead?
Do we really suggest to put that type of responsibility on creators? More importantly: Who are we protecting that way? All we do is put people into bubble wrap and shift responsibility for our mental wellbeing away from ourselves to others.
We are trying to tell other people what to do for our own comfort. Thatâs controlling.
If weâre squicked out by something, there is a simple solution: we can stop looking or reading. We can use content (not tag) filters. In the worst case, we can block. We donât have to put that type of responsibility for our personal sensitivities on creators (or people who reblog, for that matter).
We can tag for certain things as a courtesy, Iâm all for it. I love being able to filter out stuff Iâm not into, and I sometimes wish people would tag better or not tag a certain way (getting ship tags for a ship youâre not into slapped on your character-metas is annoying đ¤Ł). But I donât die, neither does it cause me unbearable distress, if I see cows where I donât expect them. Scroll past or block. And if Iâm worried about mature topics like nudity or violence: Tumblr has a community label for mature themes you can (and in my view should) use if in doubt. Funnily enough, many people donât do that thoughâmaybe because they worry about reach?
Of course we should include content warnings where they are due, no one says we shouldnât. Itâs also fair if a creator doesnât wish to do that beyond general warnings (no specifics) though because they might give away, say, major plot points that way. In that case, general disclaimers like âcontains depictions of violenceâ, or whatever it might be individually, are a good idea. And if thatâs not specific enough for us despite knowing that âviolenceâ in general might also contain our personal trigger, we might need to make the decision not to read it to stay safe, but we shouldnât have a go at the writer for not tagging very specific things that might be considered spoilers.
Long story short: If we assume people are âtriggeredâ by werewolves with vulvas or non-human characters, it might be worth thinking about whether weâre just talking about squicks that very much fall into the category of âpersonal responsibilityâ. And there are plenty solutions to that at our endâwe donât need to put that on creatorsâŚ
