Last week we talked about content warnings and some of the rating systems in American media. This week, it’s about the darker cousin, trigger warnings.
Compared to content warnings, some things you really want to avoid. Need to avoid, I’d say. And here comes the difference between content warnings and trigger warnings.
Content warnings can be broad or specific. “Violence” vs “beheading”. Both warn a reader what to expect, because some people just don’t want to see that.
Trigger warnings can be broad, but are usually far more specific. A trigger is something that, well, triggers you; it doesn’t have to be a panic attack or anxiety attack or flashback, though it can be. It doesn’t result from PTSD, though it can. There is a lot of discourse, especially in online spheres, about how it’s overreacting and for special snowflakes—it’s not. It is a warning against something that may cause undue harm or stress to someone; it is a head’s up on something, usually heavy or dark, to expect.
As referenced in the initial horror post, I hate stickers. Really, I hate them! I will pick out veggies at the supermarket without them if I can. I physically gag if I have to put on a sticker name tag or admission pass. I make my roommate peel off any packaging that I can’t stand. It makes me shudder, sometimes gag, and is generally a deeply unpleasant experience for me.
But a) IT IS NOT A TRIGGER. It is unpleasant and I like to avoid it, yes. More happily, b) since it is a physical thing, I generally don’t have to go out of my way to avoid it online or in media. (Except for those tiktoks of people putting stickers on their pets. Oh my GOD please stop.)
It’s also an uncommon thing. Stickers are very common merch in fandom spaces and I’ve received them as gifts, in zine bundles, from artist alleys, and more. Most people love them! Many people love them so much they can never decide where to permanently place them so they just keep sheets of unused stickers in their stationary drawer. No judgment. You’re valid. But since they’re so liked, I’m in a very tiny minority in not liking them.
And I can live with that. I can live with not liking stickers and occasionally running into them in a grossly textured way.
Triggers, on the other hand, are things you can’t live with. Something that triggers you will ruin your day, at least, if not your week or set you back in other ways. There are any number of ways to react to something like that. I am not going to get into the psychology of them, but they are serious business, and different from merely disliking something.
The first and only time I ever watched The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo, I was unprepared. It was on TV and I was on my laptop, so it wasn’t taking my full attention. I’d heard generally good things about the movies and the books. I knew it was dark.
But there is a very graphic rape scene. And I froze there on the couch, like a rabbit in headlights, fighting the urge to vomit. I mean froze. My heart rate is picking up remembering it; it was a visceral fear reaction, disgust, horror, and the need to if not avoid, then stop. I didn’t cry or scream. The other people in the room did not notice and I did not say anything. I didn’t even leave the room.
In the movie, there is a very good plot reason for it. I’d argue that most things can be incorporated into a plot.
But did I want to watch that? No. Did I need to watch that? No, though it would have been awkward and difficult to know the exact timing of what scene to avoid as it was on TV, not a laptop, and I did not have prior warning.
So here comes the final, glorious part of this post: Does The Dog Die?
We’ve all seen dog movies. And we all know that 90% of dog movies end tragically, usually with the dog dying, but sometimes the plucky kid. I remember crying at Marley & Me as a younger writerling.
The website began with that very question—a warning as to whether or not the dog died. There are happy dog movies, after all, and we all like to watch happy dogs. So let’s aim for those and avoid the sad dog movies, unless we’re in the specific mood for them.
The website has expanded in the years since it began. It now covers everything I personally could think of warning for—dog death, cat death, horse death, other animal death, needles, sexual assault, child death, hanging, clowns, jump scares, and more. It has both movies and television series. There is a simple checkbox, Yes or No, on whether it contains something.
It is crowdsourced, too, so sometimes there will be comments about what, exactly it is. For TV series, it usually has episode numbers. When I was watching The House on Haunted Hill, it very kindly told me to avoid wide parts of episode 2 due to kitten death. I don’t know if it constitutes as a full trigger, but I absolutely cannot do cat death, and for some reason horror has a lot of those.
I check that website every single time I find a horror movie I want to watch. Horror is rife with a lot of heavy topics and things to be warned for. But even other genres can catch you off guard with unexpected, upsetting things. My younger cousin often asked others if they’d seen The Bridge to Terabitha. “Have you seen The Bridge to Terabitha? The girl dies at the end.” You’d think it was the full title, the way she said it. I remember reading the book and being shocked at that, too.
Sometimes, when I use Does The Dog Die, I run into spoilers. For many things I watch or read, I’m alright with a certain level of spoiler, but that’s me, personally. And I’m better with content spoilers than plot spoilers, anyway. But I’m always happy to avoid things that would upset me, whether mildly or majorly. Sometimes I’m not in the mood to be upset. Sometimes I want to watch that movie so bad I can go into it, prepared.
There is a post to be made on warnings vs spoilers, but that is for next time. For this time, I hope everyone checks out Does The Dog Die, and examine what they enjoy and want to avoid in the media they ingest.
