Last week, I discussed horror, which is a very YMMV genre. It is also fraught with a lot of things that people just don’t like. There are various terms for that, but today we’ll be discussing the differences between trigger warnings and content warnings, as well as extolling the virtues of Does The Dog Die next week.
Most people have heard of both trigger warnings and content warnings, but I’d wager that the average consumer conflates them in most cases. There is a lot of pearl-clutching and content policing that comes with them, but I’m not here to get on a soapbox today.
The MPAA ratings system is probably the easiest example that most (American) people are familiar with—it is what rates movies G, PG, PG-13, R, NC-17, or NR. It also features vague categories of content warnings—language, violence, nudity, gore, and so on. These are broad categories, but still give a pretty good idea of some vague things to expect, especially for a parent whose eleven-year-old is begging to see an R-rated slasher film.
(TV and video games also have rating systems. For those crying “real life doesn’t have trigger warnings!!”, it actually does in a lot of its media. Even news stories have warnings.)
So American media has a lot of categories of content warnings, even with nifty age suggestions built in to many. But they’re also vague, both to simplify categorizing things, and presumably to prevent spoilers. For bureaucracy’s sake, it’s mostly the former, but I’m sure creators are thankful for the latter.
“Violence” in a movie, video game, or book can mean a lot of things. Some someone’s head get bashed in with a hammer, or does a kid skin a knee? Is there “blood” relating to childbirth, a hospital blood bank, or a slasher bathing in it?
It’s a common joke that PG-13 ratings can get you one F bomb, but American media warns for other usages of “language”, despite that cable television differs from other channels differs from video games differs from movies differs from imports differs from—you get the gist. (Watch an older Disney movie sometime. You could make a drinking game out of every time The Hunchback of Notre Dame says hell or damn. There’s an entire song about it.)
Content warnings can be more specific, however—it’s just not as standardized. Archive Of Our Own (ao3) has a robust tagging system, as well as a separate warning system. Its warning system includes broad categories (underage, rape/non-con, major character death, graphic violence), and its tagging system is used for far more specific things. There is a tag for everything under the sun, and it is used for characters, genres, plot points, as well as warnings.
And it is also entirely up to the creator’s discretion on how to use it. Readers can filter by tag, whether to include or exclude it, and more. They can avoid content they don’t wish to see and seek out that which they do. It’s a wonderful system and completely dependent on users.
Would that work in a standardized system? Perhaps, if trimmed down. There have been calls for a system like that to be adapted into mainstream publishing. Traditional publishing doesn’t have a rating or warning system like most other forms of media, after all.
“But spoilers!” you cry. And I understand that, I do. Using the above ao3 tagging system, I have avoided mentioning major plot points, though they may be upsetting, because they are major plot points. Some things ought to be experienced blind.
But that was for my general overview of the story. The description, tags, and warnings that is available to anyone glancing over it. So that I kept vague; within the story, accessible to anyone interested enough to click, I had a list of more specific warnings.
And I’ve been on the other side. I avoid some stories that have things I don’t like, and seek out others that do. That’s a natural part of being a reader; ao3 just makes it easy to do with its system.
That’s it for general content warnings. It’s in the phrase itself—warnings for content. Easy to understand. But there are layers to this, including what’s up next week: trigger warnings.
