In this post, we want to share examples of how bloggers use trigger warnings, as well as perspectives on the use of these disclaimers. We’d like this discussion to be a starting point for your own exploration of the subject, so you can decide whether or not trigger warnings are appropriate for your own blog.
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If you read a lot on the internet, chances are you’ve seen a trigger warning on a post — a disclaimer used to warn readers that the material that follows might be potentially traumatic, objectionable, or offensive. It might look like this:
Trigger Warning: This post discusses self-harm, bulimia, and eating disorders.
Or simply:
TW: racism, sexism.
In this post, we want to share examples of how bloggers use trigger warnings, as well as perspectives on the use of these disclaimers. We’d like this discussion to be a starting point for your own exploration of the subject, so you can decide whether or not trigger warnings are appropriate for your own blog.
Examples of trigger warnings
Many writers use trigger warnings in their introductions. See The Belle Jar‘s “How to Undermine a Rape Victim 101,” Feminiam‘s “We Have All Been Touched By Evil,” and ischemgeek‘s “The Case Against Stupid.”
Blogger Aaminah Khan placed a trigger warning for child abuse within a post title itself (“[TW: child abuse] Cry of the Tiger Cub”), while author Drew Chial, in his recent post on Fred Phelps, offered this introductory note to his regular readers:
This post comes with a trigger warning. Discussing a hate group and their leader, I had to chronicle what they’ve done. For those of you who come to my blog seeking writing advice, short fiction, and memoir entries, an article on Fred Phelps might seem off topic. I’ve met the man on two occasions, and as a commentator on trolls, cyber bullies, and internet culture, I felt compelled to weigh in.
Image by Benson Kua (CC BY-SA 2.0)
The debate over trigger warnings
While 2013 was dubbed the Year of the Trigger Warning, these disclaimers have been around for some time: in earlier years of feminist blogging, trigger warnings were used to preface material to warn readers — particularly survivors of abuse, assault, and rape — of what was coming next. This heads up allows a reader to avoid the material if they so choose.
But talk of trigger warnings has been frequent lately, as students at the University of California, Santa Barbara campus requested that professors include trigger warnings in their course syllabi, while an alumna of Wellesley College wrote an open letter to the campus art museum about the installation of a statue of a sleepwalking man in his underwear.
There are interesting discussions about the use of trigger warnings, specifically within the college environment. As Jenny Jarvie writes on the New Republic:
Engaging with ideas involves risk, and slapping warnings on them only undermines the principle of intellectual exploration. We cannot anticipate every potential trigger—the world, like the Internet, is too large and unwieldy. But even if we could, why would we want to? Bending the world to accommodate our personal frailties does not help us overcome them.
Or Laurie Essig writes in the Chronicle of Higher Education:
Trigger warnings are a very dangerous form of censorship because they’re done in the name of civility. Learning is painful. It’s often ugly and traumatic.
In “I’m Triggered By Your Triggers,” Danielle Henderson, who was sexually and physically abused as a child, writes that “there’s something to be said for learning about trauma without experiencing it all over again.” As a former instructor of gender studies, she found trigger warnings in the classroom to be tricky.
Using trigger warnings on your blog
As writers and readers on the internet, many of these ideas and questions are relevant to us. Our blogs are our spaces, and our readers visit our online homes because they want to: they’re interested in what we have to say, and probably come to our blog knowing what to expect. Our readers might click over because they enjoy our work, want to engage in a discussion, be intellectually piqued, and safely explore new ideas. (Of course, this might not always be the case — we all have varied interests and browse the blogosphere for different reasons.)
No matter what you write about — from essays on race and gender, to pieces of memoir exploring an abusive childhood, to thoughts on bipolar disorder — it’s ultimately up to you to set the tone for your blog. You might not bother with trigger warnings, or you might feel strongly that, given your readership, a disclaimer for a specific post might make sense.
If you’re writing a post with sensitive material, here are things to think about as you consider your approach:
- Why am I writing this piece? Is it to confess, expose, heal, help, or enlighten?
- Am I harming anyone by publishing this piece?
- Who are my readers, and what is my relationship to them? What sort of connection do we have?
- Have I written something that makes me uncomfortable?
- Is this piece unexpected or very different in tone or topic from what I normally write?
- Have I included content, written or visual, that might not be “safe for work” or appropriate for a younger reader?
If you’re interested in reading more about trigger warnings, we encourage you to read the pieces linked above.
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The Daily Post 
Thank you for this article, Cheri!
Actually I have never thought much about trigger warnings, before… But doing it now, after reading this post, I agree with what was said, before:
“Bending the world to accommodate our personal frailties does not help us overcome them.” – like Jenny Jarvie wrote, resonates a lot with how I feel about this.
Also, people can be triggered by many and very different things. What seems like a harmless note to me might be a super button pushed for others. (Or the other way round)
Furthermore I believe, people come to my blog because they want to know what I have to say. That, at least, is the main reason why I am visiting other blogs.
I find it more important to be clear on the intention I have with my blog – and possibly stating it somewhere on the Intro- or About-page. Also, I personally opted for reminding my readers that they are self-responsible in reading and applying the content I write about, and that they have a choice to take or leave it. (On the Bee-Have and the Imprint page)
I am very confident that my readers are perfectly able to decide for themselves which of my content might be triggering for them and how to act appropriately on it.
But, of course, there are always various ways to handle things – and just because they differ from each other it does not make them right or wrong. 😉
Much love,
Steffi
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Clearly some people require some protection in some circumstances, protection that cannot always be reasonably or reliably anticipated by an author, their publishers, or their lawyers.
The solution would be software to parse a user’s browser stream to identify potentially harmful content in order to place warning tags appropriately, hiding potentially harmful content until it can be safely presented in a manner that protects the user from their triggers.
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This sounds reasonable and I agree that authors, publishers and lawyers cannot anticipate a reader’s needs – but neither can non-thinking, algorithm-ed machines. This is a decidedly complicated issue – some warnings perhaps should be placed on potentially problematic information, but how can machine or human make the stand for what information will adversely or beneficially affect the individual/s reading it?
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The heuristics are improving by leaps and bounds, we might anticipate this sort of application in only 2-3 years. Combine this with the computer display eye-glasses already out, and even things from a user’s immediate environment might be mediated, not just web content or email.
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Trigger warning .. People often tend to ignore them… But at their own expense, that’s human nature … Another human nature is exploring new blogs.
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Trigger warning should not only be used if you do have content that is not for children, its only respectful to your readers. I mean if you have sexual content you don’t want a 13 year old reading it.
When you put in your meta tags you can put in an age aware tag
Where the general is you can change that to Kids,14 years,safe for kids, Mature, Restricted, make sure your rating goes on all your pages and rate them as per page.
It seems a lot of effort but you are protecting not just your viewer but also yourself if someone levels a complaint about your content to with WP or relevant authorities. Even in the footer of each page also add a line that your blog/website does contain offensive or sexual explicit language or picture or ‘not to be viewed by anyone under age’
You should think about your content and whether your content is OK for anyone to read and will not cause offence. Its not a matter of saying “If they don’t like it they can leave” Once a person has already been offended by your website/blog its to late.
Would you like to walk into a room to find two people having sex, taking drugs, fighting, shouting racist abuse at each other or using bad language? if not then you should be thinking about warning people about your content, its common courtesy and making sure the wrong people does not read your material and will offended and will not return.
In some countries it is illegal to view certain things online from nakedness to foul language and if you have no warning you could be putting some at risk of spending jail time or worse, or even you may end up prosecuted.
Play safe and tag your content if it contains adult material, or stuff you wouldn’t want your son or daughter seeing.
Its not rocket science.
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I was stunned when I read The Lovely Bones, but I loved the book. If someone asks if I’ve ever read/liked it, I end up reciting a disclaimer: I loved the book, but I’m not sure that anyone who has been traumatized by rape, directly or indirectly, will be able to get past the opening. Same goes for The Shipping News. The opening of that book is harsh.
So, this thread begs the question, why hasn’t printed fiction/poetry adopted a similar TW standard? TV and movies have a rating system, which is much of the same thing, so why not fiction? I’m not advocating for such, just making a rhetorical comment.
I have two blogs and on a couple of posts I’ve placed disclaimers at the beginning because the posts have digressed from the general attitude of my blogs. One of my blogs features only my father’s writing and photography (a posthumous celebration of his work). Several of his pieces reflect a misogynist attitude more typical of his generation, but his pieces are otherwise witty and thoughtful, so I felt it was the appropriate thing to let the reader know up front they may find some phrases “rude and inconsiderate,” but that is not what he was aiming for.
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That’s a really interesting point. The Lovely Bones has been on my ‘to read’ list as I only had a vague idea what it was about just that it’s meant to be good. You’ve just knocked it off the list and I’m grateful that I read your post before I got as far as the beginning of the book.
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Hmmm. So a trigger warning can actually more readers / make them more curious…which is why I don’t really like such a statement.
If a blogger truly wants to warn ….reader, then the old-fashioned statement This post contains graphic content that may offend others. (Or something similar.)
Trauma is a very real serious psychological condition. I would like to respect those who are coping from it.
As for racist content: Pretty idiotic that a person has to say “trigger warning”. Over time, I would prefer children and adults learn how racism is expressed clearly in words and how damaging true racism can hurt someone ..for a long time in terms of their self-esteem. (And I haven’t even got into violent acts..).
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I am lucky because I don’t have any issue like that, but warning potential readers is a good idea.
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I’m of two minds on Trigger Warnings. They are useful for extremely personal situations such as rape, torture and other forms of human and animal cruelty, drama and crisis. It takes a great deal of bravery to write something of a horrible nature that happened either to the author or their nearest and dearest. On the flip side of the coin it feels like a nanny state imposition, something slightly unnecessary, a little bit weak. Maybe I’m more at odds with the appropriate use of Trigger Warnings and the thought that they should only be used for the most extreme circumstances. I have only come across them once or twice and only because somebody was making a big point that their article contained links to affiliates. I don’t like it when other people do the thinking for me, I’d rather have the power of choice. I have a great opposition to sensationalism in the media and the act of putting the trigger warning in support of a sensational look at something walks that road. A TW could quite easily encourage you to look on, just like a sign saying don’t press the red button encourages you to detonate that nuke.
Anything that isn’t of the unpleasant human/animal cruelty nature shouldn’t contain Trigger Warnings. With one exception maybe. When I am sitting down to lunch or dinner, I normally hate it when I see something that puts me off my meal. Crudity and revolting should have some form of trigger warning. There is a current advert in the UK on some channels that is often shown at Dinner time for fungal nail infections. It is gross! In blogging, that’s the kind of thing you want a TW for. Finally, the written word can be just as powerful as the spoken word. For those getting over dark times (or reflecting on them in a personal way), we should all be considerate of their feelings.
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I didn’t know these warning had a name, so I learned something new today. I think the only time I used one was when I posted on my private blog about my struggles with infertility and trying to get pregnant. Most of my readers are family, and a few are children, so at the beginning of that post, I stated that if the reader is uncomfortable reading about infertility and struggles with getting pregnant, they may not want to read this post.
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absolutely true http://cash-flow-hiphop.weebly.com/
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