I dig the art, but I want to take a sledgehammer to the knees of these whiners and show them what a real problem is. Ignore the text and it's pretty neat, though.

Congratulations dude, I knew you were hoping to be selected as a judge for the Suffering Olympics, but I had no idea you'd been picked! I really admire the way you guys can evaluate other people's misery on so little information and make sure that nobody gets away with a feeling that's not been properly authenticated. It's a hell of a thing to have on a resume.

Oh, nothing bad ever happened to me. And if an interesting looking picture helped, it couldn't have been that big a problem.

If you need a trigger warning for big lizards, though, your life has been pretty well hosed.

Some of them sound like pretty real problems.

"Trigger warning" is a shorter way of saying "I don't want to be treated like an adult and am not competent to make decisions for myself".

It's also a way of saying that I find some images and ideas mentally, physically and emotionally overwhelming and would like the opportunity to at least gird my loins (or choose to avoid altogether), but don't want to stop other people who may not have this issue from seeing this stuff.

I, for example, suffer from psychosis. Earlier this month when I was dealing with very strong suicidal ideation and compulsion it was not good for me to think about suicide at all. When I'm in that space to be reminded of it as a possibility often sends me into a slide which leads to hospitalisation (or not at all, depending on how it goes). That's not a good enough reason for me to demand that people stop talking about suicide, but it is enough for people who understand it a little bit to give me a warning so I can take a breath.

I get that you don't think these people have real issues. I face this idea that it's all made up and I should just 'get over it', so it's not just you. But just because you don't have a problem with something doesn't mean that others do. I assume you would allow some pathetic whinger with a broken foot to use crutches? Or would that only be the case if you yourself had had a broken foot?

There is a spectrum where you have Vlad the Impaler sipping wine amidst the shrieks of human beings being tortured to death. A tick or two away you have me, generally accepted to be an awful human being. At the far end of that spectrum, you have the users of trigger warnings, who want to tape Styrofoam® to all the sharp corners of the world and force everyone to wear retard* helmets. Horrible, traumatizing stuff happens to people all of the time**. Some people get through it, if they can. Some people remain broken. It's not a judgment on them. But I can't think of anything more entitled than expecting the world to change just because something awful happened to you. There's the kind of narcissism that has the gods turning you into a flower because you looked at your reflection in a pool for too long, and then there's the kind that has an event horizon.

Trigger warnings may be a crutch, but they also treat the sprain by amputating the leg.

*just call me Mr. Sensitivity.

**I used to get panic attacks when I saw nooses. They still make me uncomfortable, and I'm not overly fond of neckties, either. But I don't expect Westerns or businessman to have to announce themselves with a siren.

The thing about trigger warnings, though, is that they don't take the edges off, they just warn people that they are there. If people were insisting on censorship of everything that might cause offensive, you might be on to something, but the whole point of a trigger warning is to allow stuff that might otherwise be censored by letting the minority of people who are sensitive to it to look away, while everybody else can enjoy it.

I also think that there are very few of the trigger warning vigilantes you seem so worried about. I've seen bloggers ask people commenting on posts they've made about rape and violence issues to use a little 'tw' or hide graphic stuff under a fold for the consideration of abuse survivors. I don't think that's unreasonable, it's their blog and they could just delete those comments. Most often trigger warnings are used as a courtesy to others. I haven't encountered anyone demanding them (I run a porn tumblr that mixes trans and non-trans cocks all in together, people have certainly let me know how they feel about that).

Courtesy is fine when it's a matter of holding a door open for someone carrying nine bags of groceries. When it turns into a three-hour ritual to serve a cup of tea, though, it becomes a useless appendix that can usually be ignored, but may decide to rupture and kill you.College students protesting an underwear-clad statue? Sure, harmless. But also embarrassingly infantile.

Trigger warning: purple elephants

I hope they aren't actually a trigger for anyone, because it's going to be hard not to think about them for the next thirty seconds or so.

Well, there was a trigger warning, and he failed to deliver. I fixed it.

I have no idea what your point is.

Some people don't like a statue and now you have appendicitis? Do you need a trigger warning for times when your view of the world isn't going to automatically be accepted as the default setting?

Look, I know it's a bummer when people who experience things differently than you do insist that they're allowed to do that. And then other people get in on it and start treating these people like their experiences and opinions are worth something. It must be frustrating when you know that your reaction to things is the only valid one to see it being treated as equal to all these other, lesser, reactions.

Trigger warnings are real.

The people using them on Tumblr are making mountains out of a molehill. They really have no business being online if they are that sensitive. This hand holding nonsense is ridiculous.

Well, yeah. One you get outside the porn part, Tumblr is full of emotionally overwrought teenagers. Freaking out over things like this is part of figuring out what's important and what's not, and I wouldn't want to deny them the opportunity to do that with a community of peers, but I wouldn't look to Tumblr to make judgments about the wider world.

Conversely, just because there are sites where people with legitimate issues might have a genuine need for trigger warnings doesn't mean the term hadn't been mangled beyond all recognition by whiny teenagers in the wider world.

Oh, absolutely. But that's part of being a teenager, I think. Better they work this shit through with minor problems blown all out of proportion than have to deal with the other way around.

How dare you imply the made-up problem I think makes me interesting is just part of being a normal teenager! I'm SPECIAL, you cyber-bullying monster!

Shenanigans. No teenager writes that well.

So what you're saying is you hate me because I'm an otherkin? That's basically a hate crime, you know.

A note about the artist: She has had to make multiple posts stating that she refuses to put trigger warnings on images of herself just because she is on the slim side.

Ha! On a related note, the Man vs. Food guy lost a show after using the hash tag #thinspiration in reference to his wanting to keep the 70lbs he lost off. Some geniuses thought it meant he was pro-ana, then he was a douche to them on Twitter, now he's unemployed. The thought of the Food Network caviing to pressure from anorexics delights, though.

You're damned if you do and damned if you don't.

Fuck off, sunshine.

Fair enough.

Dude, what?

I thought it was a fair question, delivered with equal amounts of tact and sensitivity*. But if it crosses a line, I'm glad to rescind it.

*ie, none.

What I meant was I have no idea what you're talking about up there. You were kind of veering off into insanity there.

Let me try and unpack that. Trigger warnings are proposed to be a courtesy, or etiquette. Etiquette can be a perfunctory activity that people do to oil the gears of human interaction (holding door/groceries) and thus has utility, or a baroque convoluted activity that may have had a purpose once, but now doesn't particularly (Japanese tea ritual, also a description of the human appendix). From there, I jump metaphors to claim that trigger warnings are more like the latter, which we can generally ignore until something goes wrong. Then I give an example of something ludicrous that people are claiming to be triggering, and suggest that grownups probably have better things to do by calling it infantile. This is a reference back to my earlier contention that people who use trigger warnings don't want to be treated like adults.

Finally, I point out that, if a person is set off by the mention of certain subjects, the trigger warning itself is a trigger, which defeats the point. Frankly, I could have just copy-pasted the Louis CK bit on how saying "the n-word" is the same thing as using the actual racist epithet. But that wouldn't have been any fun.

Obviously, I shouldn't be mixing metaphors in the wee hours. And if the post still doesn't make sense, it could be latent schizophrenia kicking in, I dunno. I have to say though, I like your pithiness. "Veering into insanity" sums up any discussion or use of trigger warnings, in my anything but humble opinion.

I get it now. Thanks.

Like most things in life, it's a spectrum. A blooger saying "warning: this post has a serious discussion of an incident of rape" is a nice heads up, particularly if the blog doesn't usually involve such topics. Then that idea, giving people notice of common emotional triggers, gets filtered through the mass stupidity and self-centeredness of the internet, and people want their own specific anxieties catered to. Add in plenty of hyperbole (also a darling of the internet) and the end result is "trigger warning: abuse, kissing, potatoes, and the color green".

Triggers are a pretty specific psychological phenomenon. They are not the same as being reminded of things one does not like. When the term becomes too general it stifles regular conversation because the phrase carries with it, in common usage, the idea that we should respect the severe psychological responses to otherwise ordinary exchanges, and should modify our behavior accordingly. In the case of a severe response, this seems justified. In lesser cases it seems like a word used to make people stop talking about something you don't want them to talk about.

It's disconcerting that the phrasing of "triggered" is jumping past its intended usage. "Triggered" is becoming the new "codependent," in that it's a word that's getting overused and used to mean something other than the original meaning, and therefore starts to mean nothing.

I have the kneejerk reaction that GordonGuano has, based solely on the issue you mention of widespread social misuse of the term.

But I do try to employ at least a tiny amount of brainpower to realizing this, and not just make blanket statements about "everyone using it is mentally defective and immature and by the way I am not judging anyone and clearly don't understand the basic concept of logic".

So I admit to ignorance as to its appropriate usage, and therefore have a slightly less offensive response to seeing "trigger warning" showing up everywhere.

But don't get me started on the "anyone who is 'friend zoned' is a would-be-rapist", "everyone who says 'not all men' is a giant douche", and "check your privilege" fads going around now.

Guys believe into that too much. Thanks, Joey (FRIENDS)

'Not all men' is already implied. So it's redundant.

"Check your privilege" is something that an MRA would be offended about. Too much redundancy errors.

I find this expressing yourself without being an asshole thing very interesting and would like to subscribe to your newsletter.

You seem like a guy who wants to make a change. Well I have the perfect opportunity for you. I have this online seminar (patent pending) available upon request. I could make wonders with you.

That will be $75.

Unrelated to my pissing and moaning about trigger warnings: I really dig the Jack Palance band's cover of "Girlfriend In A Coma". It's the best version I've heard since Mojo Nixon's.

\m/