Trigger warning: the word “trigger” will be used repeatedly throughout this article.
Perhaps that joke is distasteful. Who knows anymore? The internet has been obsessed with a particular word that seems to have taken a completely new meaning or even lost all meaning altogether. Beginning with the simple tendency to put a “trigger warning” on stories that involve extremely offensive topics such as sexual assault or intense racism, the word “trigger” began to be used more and more loosely.
Let’s look at what a trigger is, exactly — or what it’s supposed to be. The term comes from psychology, i.e. a trauma trigger. Officially, a trauma trigger is something that can send someone into an intense panic attack based upon previously traumatic experiences.
This is a concept that was used by Tumblr, at first, with pure intentions. It was used on posts to warn the reader that something potentially upsetting may occur within the post, understanding that a sizeable group of Tumblr’s userbase may face issues with trauma triggers. However, as time went on, it was used for more and more menial things — for example, pictures of people’s faces being tagged with “trigger warning: scopophobia,” which is the fear of being seen. However, scopophobia takes place generally in social situations. As trigger warnings such as this one begin to appear, the word begins to lose meaning.
People without aquaphobia began to tell others to tag pictures with water for the less than 2 percent of people with aquaphobia (2 percent being a very high assumption). The word became something to throw around with the definition of “something that might make someone uncomfortable.”
As the culture of triggers arose, slowly defeating something meant for the purpose of good, the even stronger counter-culture began to fight back.
Places like Reddit and 4chan, along with the counter-culture on Tumblr, made fun of trigger warnings. It became more and more of a big deal, to the point where “TRIGGERED” became a meme whenever someone mentioned something even remotely relating to social justice. People began to assume that liberals all had triggers and made fun of them for these reasons.
Now, the word is settling into a medium between the two. It now means something along the lines of “something that makes someone very upset,” whether that feeling be anger or stress or offense or something else. h3h3productions uses the word in this fashion in its video “Everyone Needs to Stop Getting TRIGGERED,” a very interesting and worthwhile video about (perhaps ironically) how the right and the left have become very extreme and offended by anyone and anything that disagrees with them or even simply does not directly state agreement.
So, is this a problem?
Well, in a way. If people treat every trigger like a joke, then yes. There are people with PTSD, whether it be from war, abuse or any other traumatic experience, and yes, they can be thrown into intense and often painful panic attacks due to trauma triggers. Completely ignoring these things is unhealthy for a functioning society. Do we need “safe spaces” everywhere? No, of course not. But it’s also unfair to say that “safe spaces” don’t exist in the real world, a common argument of the counter-culture. That’s simply a lie. There’s a reason therapists, counselors and other safe spaces such as these exist — and yes, they are in real life.
However, do we need to censor everything to fit everyone’s taste? Well, no. Easy, right?
Not exactly.
People tend to take extreme opinions. “Keep your extreme opinions away from me so I can share my own extreme opinions with only people who agree with me” has become a common attitude. Perhaps it’s not a new attitude — perhaps it’s just easier to see now with the increasing ease of communication. That being said, people don’t tend to be “happy” with a “happy medium.” So, in the end, I suppose it isn’t so happy after all.
Marco Omta is a sophomore studying music production. How do you feel about trigger warnings? Email Marco at mo183714@ohio.edu.
