Trigger warnings are a fascinating concept in fiction, because they attract passionate responses from people.
‘Woke’ feels like a slur these days, and even diehard social justice warriors oppose its use. They think the term kills conversations instead of fostering further discussion.
However, you cannot separate trigger warnings from woke culture. Trigger warnings are alerts that notify readers about the themes they will encounter in a piece of fiction. The goal is to protect readers from content that may bring memories of past trauma to the surface.
For example, novels describing a rape scene in disturbing detail may distress rape victims, forcing them to relieve the worst experience of their lives. Therefore, telling them that a novel features a rape scene allows them to avoid that book entirely. And if they decide to read it, the consumer will be better prepared to navigate the rape components of your story.
Trigger warnings are not restricted to entertainment. The New Yorker has a 2021 article in which Jeannie Suk Gersen notes that many Western universities have adopted trigger warnings for courses that cover sexual assault, suicide, and the like.
Universities exist to challenge the beliefs and world views of their students, and more often than not, that means exposing them to literary material they typically wouldn’t consume if they had a choice. So naturally, the notion of using trigger warnings in a classroom rubs some people the wrong way.
That said, trigger warnings are gradually falling out of fashion because many readers believe they have gone too far. Consider this example. If you saw trigger warnings for ‘War,’ ‘Suicide,’ ‘Fascism,’ and ‘Slavery’ on an online book store, which literary work would you expect those trigger warnings to apply to?
I doubt anyone guessed Lord of the Rings. Someone out there actually believes that Lord of the Rings is so sensitive and triggering that it may re- traumatize the fascism, slavery, and suicide victims among Tolkien’s readers.
That sort of overreach is the reason why the backlash against trigger warnings is growing. Their proponents have been accused of infantilizing the very people they want to help and acting like every victim of trauma is frail and fragile.
Also, studies have found that trigger warnings don’t work, at least not in the way their proponents assume. One such study, published in ‘Clinical Psychological Science’ found that trigger warnings don’t change a consumer’s reaction to contentious material.
Traumatized rape victims who are usually triggered by rape content won’t cope any better if you alert them about a sexual assault scene ahead of time. If anything, trigger warnings make the traumatized reader even more anxious because you have just told them that a potentially distressing scene is coming.
The anticipation will ruin their enjoyment. On the other hand, people who think that trigger warnings encourage traumatized individuals to avoid traumatic content (which
prevents healing in the long run) are also wrong.
Basically, trigger warnings don’t do anything. They neither help nor harm their intended targets. Therefore, we should eliminate them. Surely, readers are smart enough to know what they can and cannot handle. We don’t need authors and publishers to hold their hand.
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