Mad Murphy – Trigger Warnings

I’ll sum it up with one phrase: If you require trigger warnings for everything, then I’m surprised you haven’t graduated out of diapers yet. If you haven’t seen these yahoos that expect the rest of us to warn them of everything we do, then consider yourself lucky. I’m going to be using Tumblr for most of my references here, but it happens pretty much anywhere there is social blogging or posting. YouTube is another big hive for trigger-fiends, as is DeviantArt.

The core issue is this: you post something, someone finds it questionable and offensive, and rather than just walking away from it, like a mature individual, they feel it is necessary to climb up on a soapbox and inform EVERYONE else that this content has offended them and that it may offend you too. Now, that notion, in itself, is actually quite noble. They found something offensive, someone else may find it offensive, so a simple warning to others is warranted. If that’s all it was, I would be fine with it, but… just like every other social justice warrior on the internet, this dead horse must be beaten.

So, we are bombarded with warnings, shouting matches, name calling, and sooner or later, EVERYTHING needs a trigger warning, and the notion of simply informing the general public of content that has been offensive to some, is now a ridiculous notion exercised by self-centered egotistical tattletales. THIS IS WHY WE CAN NEVER HAVE NICE THINGS!

Case in point: As you may or may not know, I am part of the creepypasta community, and the general idea of creepypasta is to narrate or write short horror stories. Well what does this mean? Horror? Well let’s look up the dictionary definition. Dictionary.com defines horror as an overwhelming and painful feeling caused by something frightfully shocking, terrifying, or revolting; a shuddering fear. Simple enough. I’m pretty sure everyone knows what a horror story is supposed to do, it is supposed to scare you with something that is… drumroll please… scary! Novel concept, right?

RELEASE THE TRIGGER FIENDS!

I have actually seen this conversation happen and it still shocks me to this day. Several trigger fiends approached a very well-known creepypasta narrator and demanded that he apply triggers to all of his work, citing that he work was, get this, shocking, terrifying and revolting. The endings to some of his works were scary and that they should be warned if the ending will be scary.

SOMEONE HOLD MY BEER, IMMABOUT TO SMACK A BITCH!

Why on god’s green earth would you warn your audience, who generally love to be scared, that you could possibly be scared by listening to this material. Doesn’t that violate some fundamental law of physics? How can you scare someone who knows that they are going to be scared?

Hey Billy? What? In 5 minutes I’m going to scare the shit outta you! Ok! Boo! Damn, that was scary!

NO IT FUCKIN’ WASN’T! The point of horror is to catch you off guard, that you don;t know what’s going to happen. That’s how horror works, you idiot. Your brain cannot get scared if it knows what’s going to happen. Basically, when you demand trigger warnings on horror, you are telling the rest of us that you don’t like to be scared. STOP FUCKIN LISTENING OR READING HORROR THEN! How is this THAT difficult.

Why do we live in a world where if one person doesn’t like something, EVERYONE has to change how they do it, or stop doing it all together. Why can’t that one person simply stop doing it and leave the rest of us alone to do what WE want to do? Once again, the 1% is trying to control the other 99, and it’s time to say NO.

I see trigger warnings as just another exercise of people that cannot handle reality, or the hand life has dealt them, so it is now our problem to make sure that everyone is comfortable, everyone is included, and everyone is safe. Fuck that shit. While you’re at it, why not just suck out all the fun of life, huh?

What your trigger-fields do not realize is that is what makes life fun, not knowing what’s going to happen. Do you honestly believe that if you knew everything that was going to happen, you would finally be happy with your life? I think it would be quite the opposite and that suicide rates would skyrocket! Seriously, if you knew EVERYTHING that was going to happen in your life, and you saw that at the end of it, you were going to end up a big nothing, have a middle-class job, have a couple of kids that learned to despise and resent you, go through a divorce or two, develop heart disease and die alone in a hospital bed… SHIT… why fuckin’ bother? Why even try to enjoy life if I knew the outcome was going to be a steaming pile of nothing?

I’ve made it very clear that there are certain stories I will NOT read within the creepypasta genre, and not all of them are labelled. Example: The Dating Game, the story involves a man and a woman who haphazardly meet through a dating service and have a relationship together. The man uncovers the woman’s past which doesn’t end well for him. The story’s been around for a while now, so if you haven’t read it by now, you best get your ass in gear. There is a point in the story where actions are taken against a small child… THAT, is where I draw the line. The main reason I have issues with that is because I am a father and I love me son very much. Everytime I read something like that, my brain automatically puts my son’s face on that child in the story that is being tortured, eaten, poisoned or murdered, and I hate it. So what do I do… I STOP READING THE STORY! That’s it… Occam’s Razor: The simplest solution is usually the best course of action. Read Story, read something that turned me off, stop reading story, get up, have a beer, relish the fact that I’m not going to ruin the experience for anyone else.

Sure there may be someone else out there that could be offended by the events that transpire in the story, but that’s not responsibility to ruin the entire story for everyone. I’m not even going to tag it #child-poisoning. If the author wanted to do that, they would have done that. But it’s my experience that tells me, I can’t truly be scared if I know what’s going to happen in the story.

Now, I’m only using creepypasta as an example, there has been countless trigger happy fuck-ups for every community out there, and we as a society just need to grab the nearest roll of duct tape and shut these people up. They are essentially taking the life out of life, and THAT… is offensive to me.

Here’s what I’m suggesting: If something offends you, state your case in a matter of fact way, it offended YOU not everyone else, you do NOT speak for everyone else, and you never will. When you have demonstrated your right to state your opinion… simply walk away, your work here is done, Buck Rogers, fare thee well. The main reason people hate trigger warnings is that they are so beaten into the ground. You’ve made your point, Chuck. You can stop now. When you continuous harp on the same issue over and over and over and over and over…

SEVERAL HOURS LATER

…and over and over and over, then you simply discredit yourself by repeating yourself. If you have a convincing enough argument, you only need to make your point once. The fact that you need to go into broken record mode simply tells the rest of us that you are completely useless if not for your loud voice and immature demeanor.

Here’s an even better suggestion: if something offends you, turn the other direction, and walk away. 99% of the time your opinion is not needed, wanted or even asked for. To impose your opinions on others without invitation is selfish, and you have your internet taken away from you, you bad person, you!

There are exceptions to the rule, of course, like anything. But I still think that triggers should be kept at an absolute minimum, simply for the sake of granting everyone that unexpected jolt they need in their drab, uneventful lives. Now you know where I got my slogan from!