I understand the idea of shielding people from content that would be upsetting, but my own experience is, that I feel a little anxious as soon as I read Trigger Warning […].
How is your experience with it? Are you happy with it, or do you thing there are better ways to address dark topics?
I think of them like food content warnings for non-lethal allergies, like lactose intolerance. It’s a kindness to have a warning that helps people avoid shitting their pants. However, we all need to recognize that it is just that, a kindness. There is an inherent risk when someone says ‘hey, taste this.’ If you have a high sensitivity, you have a responsibility for self-care through self-denial. If you were uncertain if a food contained something to which you had an extreme sensitivity, you’d say ‘no, thank you.’ Same holds true for the whole world of media. You can hope for kindness, and put in the effort give it to others where you will, but don’t trust that it will always be given to you because it is an extra effort.
Had a friend with an extreme peanut allergy, and she couldn’t even enter places that MIGHT have them. Chinese restaurants, steakhouses (back then every steakhouse had buckets of em and people would discard shells on the floor) baseball games, it’s not always about going so far as eating it, sometimes just having the particles in the air is enough. Imagine it like scrolling reddit back in the day for memes and coming across r/spacedicks.