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lunabee34I started reading Neil Gaiman’s Trigger Warnings, and I think he has some insightful things to say about trigger warnings and our understanding of and expectations for literature.
I don’t think his discussion of trigger warnings in the introduction to the short story collection applies to fanfiction, though.
I would never suggest a monolithic fandom umbrella under which we all shelter, no one set of standards or rules or social mores that govern fandom at large. I think fandom is more like a school of jellyfish—each jellyfish one central body (canon) from which thousands of tendrils drift in a variety of currents, moving in different ways and to different places and sometimes overlapping. So while I would never posit a One True Fandom Experience, I do think that many fannish spaces have a thing or two in common, one of which is a sense of community.
Community has always been one of the most important aspects of fandom to me. As such, when a large portion of my fannish community indicated that trigger warnings are important, using them became a practice that I adopted.
As a reader of fanfic, I don’t require any trigger warnings, and often I actively don’t want to be spoiled for triggers like major character death. I think one of the central issues that divides people in the trigger warnings debate is that some people consider triggers warnings to be spoilers and would rather approach the text without knowing anything that might happen. I think the Choose Not to Warn option on AO3 is a good compromise for those writers and readers and is one I’ve used as a writer when, for example, not realizing someone is actually dead is a major plot point. For the most part, though, I use the major trigger warnings rather than choosing not to warn and am always open to suggestions that I add them.
(Let’s not forget, too, that trigger warnings in tags also function as a way for people who consider those situations features rather than bugs to easily find stories that include them.)
I think trigger warnings are important in fandom because fandom for me isn’t just about reading fanfic and then never talking to anyone about it or the source material it’s based on. For many fans, fandom is about sharing a love of a canon through conversation and art and icons and vids and fics and squee and critique. For me, the connections I’ve made with other people are more important than my unholy love for Elizabeth Weir. I want the people who interact with me and read my fic to feel reasonably comfortable doing so (which is why I was so mortified a few weeks ago when I recommended thatchina_shop watch an episode of Penny Dreadful with some pretty gruesome content without warning for it).
(This post is not a slag against people who don’t want to use trigger warnings. I think there’s a legitimate point to be made about not spoiling the story. I personally think making those warnings available to those who need them while hiding them from everyone else as I’ve seen some people do in header notes to fic or stating upfront that you choose not to warn is a good compromise.)
Gaiman’s introduction is primarily about trigger warnings for traditionally published literature, which I would argue isn’t characterized by the same sense of community as fandom. Most of us will never engage in a meaningful way (as equals) with the authors of our favorite books, for example. Sure, there’s book clubs and class discussions and conversations around the water cooler and book readings, but none of those approaches the level of community I’ve experienced in fandom. After all, a published author loses no friends nor hurts the feelings of a person she knows if she neglects to warn for character death or rape in her novel. She might get hate mail or bashed in a review, but as much as that kind of criticism comes with its own set of problems, it’s not the same as conflict with a friend.
Gaiman asks whether literature should be a safe space, and I think the answer is no. He talks about having read books when he was young that he wasn’t ready for, books that scared him and disturbed him, and yet he wouldn’t erase the experience of reading them. I feel the same way about those books that frightened me as a child--Wait Til Helen Comes, The Scarlet Boy, so much Stephen King. Or those books I was too young to read with any nuance—old school romances that would influence my sexual fantasy life in ways that went largely unexamined for years until I was old enough to think in a critical way about the prevalence of forced seduction in those novels.
One of the things he mentions in the introduction is some college courses now coming with trigger warnings, and I was reminded that I did that for one of my classes several years ago. It was a composition class focused on the Vietnam War. Our campus was doing a Big Read using Tim O’Brien’s The Things They Carried, so I taught that plus Sorrows of War and protest music and a couple of films about the war. I knew that I might have some high school students in the class, so the warning was primarily to protect me from parents who didn’t want their kids exposed to a flash of boobs in Hamburger Hill. The warning basically stated that we’d be watching films with violence, strong language, and brief nudity, and if that was a problem for anyone, she should drop the course. I’ve never warned for the content of literature in a course before although, to be fair, I don’t think I often teach literature that inspires the need for warnings.
I’m really looking forward to this collection. I think Gaiman’s real strength is as a short story writer, so I anticipate a good read.
I don’t think his discussion of trigger warnings in the introduction to the short story collection applies to fanfiction, though.
I would never suggest a monolithic fandom umbrella under which we all shelter, no one set of standards or rules or social mores that govern fandom at large. I think fandom is more like a school of jellyfish—each jellyfish one central body (canon) from which thousands of tendrils drift in a variety of currents, moving in different ways and to different places and sometimes overlapping. So while I would never posit a One True Fandom Experience, I do think that many fannish spaces have a thing or two in common, one of which is a sense of community.
Community has always been one of the most important aspects of fandom to me. As such, when a large portion of my fannish community indicated that trigger warnings are important, using them became a practice that I adopted.
As a reader of fanfic, I don’t require any trigger warnings, and often I actively don’t want to be spoiled for triggers like major character death. I think one of the central issues that divides people in the trigger warnings debate is that some people consider triggers warnings to be spoilers and would rather approach the text without knowing anything that might happen. I think the Choose Not to Warn option on AO3 is a good compromise for those writers and readers and is one I’ve used as a writer when, for example, not realizing someone is actually dead is a major plot point. For the most part, though, I use the major trigger warnings rather than choosing not to warn and am always open to suggestions that I add them.
(Let’s not forget, too, that trigger warnings in tags also function as a way for people who consider those situations features rather than bugs to easily find stories that include them.)
I think trigger warnings are important in fandom because fandom for me isn’t just about reading fanfic and then never talking to anyone about it or the source material it’s based on. For many fans, fandom is about sharing a love of a canon through conversation and art and icons and vids and fics and squee and critique. For me, the connections I’ve made with other people are more important than my unholy love for Elizabeth Weir. I want the people who interact with me and read my fic to feel reasonably comfortable doing so (which is why I was so mortified a few weeks ago when I recommended that
china_shop watch an episode of Penny Dreadful with some pretty gruesome content without warning for it).(This post is not a slag against people who don’t want to use trigger warnings. I think there’s a legitimate point to be made about not spoiling the story. I personally think making those warnings available to those who need them while hiding them from everyone else as I’ve seen some people do in header notes to fic or stating upfront that you choose not to warn is a good compromise.)
Gaiman’s introduction is primarily about trigger warnings for traditionally published literature, which I would argue isn’t characterized by the same sense of community as fandom. Most of us will never engage in a meaningful way (as equals) with the authors of our favorite books, for example. Sure, there’s book clubs and class discussions and conversations around the water cooler and book readings, but none of those approaches the level of community I’ve experienced in fandom. After all, a published author loses no friends nor hurts the feelings of a person she knows if she neglects to warn for character death or rape in her novel. She might get hate mail or bashed in a review, but as much as that kind of criticism comes with its own set of problems, it’s not the same as conflict with a friend.
Gaiman asks whether literature should be a safe space, and I think the answer is no. He talks about having read books when he was young that he wasn’t ready for, books that scared him and disturbed him, and yet he wouldn’t erase the experience of reading them. I feel the same way about those books that frightened me as a child--Wait Til Helen Comes, The Scarlet Boy, so much Stephen King. Or those books I was too young to read with any nuance—old school romances that would influence my sexual fantasy life in ways that went largely unexamined for years until I was old enough to think in a critical way about the prevalence of forced seduction in those novels.
One of the things he mentions in the introduction is some college courses now coming with trigger warnings, and I was reminded that I did that for one of my classes several years ago. It was a composition class focused on the Vietnam War. Our campus was doing a Big Read using Tim O’Brien’s The Things They Carried, so I taught that plus Sorrows of War and protest music and a couple of films about the war. I knew that I might have some high school students in the class, so the warning was primarily to protect me from parents who didn’t want their kids exposed to a flash of boobs in Hamburger Hill. The warning basically stated that we’d be watching films with violence, strong language, and brief nudity, and if that was a problem for anyone, she should drop the course. I’ve never warned for the content of literature in a course before although, to be fair, I don’t think I often teach literature that inspires the need for warnings.
I’m really looking forward to this collection. I think Gaiman’s real strength is as a short story writer, so I anticipate a good read.
