Lovely People aka 'the bunny comic'

[Maglor]

Jitter, trypophobia actually have a pretty solid reason. It's just a genetic memory of our specie, warning us about bees. Back in a days bees were a huge problem, and so everything that looks like a bee hive still looks dangerous to a lot of us.

[Róisín]

They are indeed two different topics, but often the people who pull the kind of stunt I was talking about present their objection as being hurt/offended/even physically distressed by being confronted with what I would think of as basic scientific facts. But I do understand what you mean, and I do understand the difference between that type, whom I regard as acting in bad faith to get their way, and for example the people who have survived horrors and don’t want to look at the things they survived again if they have a choice in the matter.

[Sc0ut]

Jitter, trypophobia actually have a pretty solid reason. It's just a genetic memory of our specie, warning us about bees. Back in a days bees were a huge problem, and so everything that looks like a bee hive still looks dangerous to a lot of us.

Funny enough, for me honeycombs are some of the few organic clusters of holes that don't trigger my trypophobia - precisely because they're so geometrical that they almost look manmade, and the holes not being circular also helps. Though maybe having positive associations and familiarity with bees from childhood also influences it (my grandpa used to keep bees for a while and he let me get very involved in it). Some wasp nests do mildly trigger it however, probably because they are not built on frames like honeycombs and are more irregular. There are however many other natural things that are not bee-related at all that give me a much worse reaction.

[JoB]

I wonder if Hiveworks have any rules about their authors using their webcomics to proselitise, or whether they're thinking of adding one now.

I'd be surprised if Hiveworks' terms and conditions would allow them to outright tell authors to do something or not, short of the limits of U.S. legalese, of course.
I'm willing to bet that they have a couple words or two about how to (rather not) alienate the readership-slash-future-merch-buyers, nonetheless ...

[Vulpes]

They are indeed two different topics, but often the people who pull the kind of stunt I was talking about present their objection as being hurt/offended/even physically distressed by being confronted with what I would think of as basic scientific facts. But I do understand what you mean, and I do understand the difference between that type, whom I regard as acting in bad faith to get their way, and for example the people who have survived horrors and don’t want to look at the things they survived again if they have a choice in the matter.

@Sc0ut, I think Róisín has explained the problem way better than I've managed. These are two different things, but they get conflated, to the detriment of all. PyroDesu also points out the availability of accomodations services, who will, for free, help students navigate legitimate barriers. When a student comes to me with their sheet from the accomodations office, I work with them, no questions asked. But it's always in the context of helping the student meet the standard of the curriculum, not lowering the bar. The problems crop up outside this process.

[thorny]

Aren't the complaints about evolution in biology classes most often coming from a group of people who tend to sneer at content warnings in other contexts?

[Róisín]

That has been my experience, thorny.

[thorny]

Thinking further about that --

The people who don't want evolution taught in the particular courses they (or their children) are taking don't just want to avoid it for themselves. Their problem with it isn't that they know X happens but that (possibly, though not necessarily, because X has happened/frequently happens to them) they don't want to read/hear about it, either unexpectedly or in some cases not at all. The people objecting to teaching evolution generally seem to think that evolution doesn't happen; that it's Wrong and Should Not Be Taught At All.

That might throw some light on indignant reactions to people wanting content warning for proselytizing. They may not be perceiving 'you've got your religion and that's fine but I don't want you imposing it on me.' They may be reading/hearing 'your religion is Wrong and Should Not Be Taught At All.' Because that's what they mean when they object to reading/hearing something; so they can't imagine that others may mean something else by it.

Note the occasional person who came into this thread and, before I quit reading it and maybe after, the Discus thread saying 'but all religions teach that they've got The Only Right Way and think that everyone else should convert to it.' That isn't anywhere remotely near true -- but if that's the only framework somebody's got in their mind, that's the assumption they make.



(A further thought: Some other objections, of course, are to content that people think isn't true; objections to spreading clearly false conspiracy theories, for instance, and/or easily debunked 'news' items; or to, for instance, teaching that enslaved people were generally content or even better off being enslaved. But I don't think that's what's generally being discussed right now in terms of 'trigger/content warnings'.)

[Tarnagh]

I'm afraid I don't really see the connection to the discussion about content warnings, though - we're now outside the realm of "involuntary physical reactions to certain types of content" and in the realm of moral objections to the course material. I think conflating the two only helps to muddy the discussion - and this is in fact one of the tactics used by people who discredit the need for content warnings. They are imo two very different topics that should be treated separately.

They are indeed two different topics, but often the people who pull the kind of stunt I was talking about present their objection as being hurt/offended/even physically distressed by being confronted with what I would think of as basic scientific facts. But I do understand what you mean, and I do understand the difference between that type, whom I regard as acting in bad faith to get their way, and for example the people who have survived horrors and don’t want to look at the things they survived again if they have a choice in the matter.

I see these as being two sides of the same coin (for lack of a better descriptor).

The same people who refuse to put content warnings on things like LP are (generally speaking) the same sort who have no problem trying to force their censure (because of their beliefs) on everyone else. Scientific facts are a "trigger" for them and they've got no problem trying (and sometimes succeeding) in silencing those voices not just for themselves but for everyone else around them. It absolutely IS a stunt, one designed to exert their own influence to "prove" that their willful ignorance is just as viable an option as science. This is one side of the coin, these attempts to silence sound logic and scientific progress, weaponizing the legitimate tools of "trigger" or "content" warnings.

The flip side of that coin is the fact that they consider their faith MORE viable than science, and anyone who would be hurt or "triggered" by something like LP and the commentary afterward are the people who need to hear the message the most, from the point of view of the faithful. "Does this message hurt you? GOOD! You wouldn't be so hurt if you'd submit yourself to the Lord and accept his teachings!"

[thorny]

the unfortunately not uncommon idea that Trigger Warnings Means Thing Bad

Coming back after a bit of re-reading to note that Haiz was ahead of me on this.

[esedege]

I don't get why there's so much fuss about content warnings being seen almost an" admission of guilt" nowadays, as Haiz and thorny already said, when that horribly vague 'Viewer discretion is advised' warning has been around since the 90s. And I say that even when I am kinda neutral when it comes to content warnings because on one hand they can be pretty useful, but on the other they can spoil the story if you're not triggered by them. I don't want to come across as disrespectful to those who need them, so I'd like to present you with two examples to better illustrate what I'm saying, hiding the reasons why there is/there is not a content warning behind each mini-spoiler.

I like to read the webcomic Lore Olympus. It's a modern take on the Persephone & Hades relationship. It sometimes uses a foreword, a succinct warning in a 'be careful, hic sunt dracones' kind of way that goes straight to the point.

Spoiler: show

It can be dark, and sometimes it deals with heavy stuff (raping among others).

The other example is the anime Made in Abyss, based on a manga of the same name I didn't know existed. So there I was, watching what seemed to be a lovely girl that lives in a Ghibli-ish world, who goes on an adventure trying to decipher what's going on at the bottom of said abyss, accompanied by her friend, a cute robot boy.

Spoiler: show

And as soon as they go deeper, it all goes south, gore-fest style. It's a stark contrast, and can be frankly uncomfortable to watch.

So I think the author of Lore Olympus is in the right by putting those content warnings when needed even though the story flowed there naturally, and I think Made in Abyss would lose its impact by having one.

You could think that Made in Abyss and Lovely People are similar in a way, as both of them hide their true nature to shock their audiences, but at least trailers for MiA weren't misguiding (I don't watch trailers as they usually spoil the climax*), and its international certifications give straight away that something is amiss in that Arcadian world.

Spoiler: show

'In the abyss, there is nothing as impartial as death' is the first sentence of the English dub trailer, and the non narrated Japanese one, while spoiler free, shows lots and lots of red flags about the real content, including a short shot of a fly-ridden rotten corpse.

What did we get for LP beforehand? An almost throwaway mention of religion, as if a background filling/secondary theme (which even with my background I'm not against by default). People shocked and disgruntled by MiA (a friend of mine, for instance) had extra info available beforehand (certifications, trailers, spoiler-free reviews), LP had none. Even more so, LP cannot be considered in a vacuum, it is engrained in Minna's work –so much so as to be placed by her as an appendix to SSSS–, a work which had had nothing to do with LP themes till then. I've come to think LP does not need a content warning as much as it needs an honest summary, or at least that she had made extra content available that would give away its true intention even if subtly.

BTW, I am not –I AM NOT– comparing MiA and LP themes themselves, but their 'let's hide our real themes to shock' approach, trying to make sense of why LP feels so deceitful to the reader. In one case, I was blindsided because I wanted to, I chose to. And that's not LP.

———
* Edited out certain movie based on a certain book based on a certain author whom I’ve since found out is a homophobic pile of bull… droppings.

[Raaffiie]

@esedge, I was thinking about the relation between content warnings and spoilers myself. I'll put it under a spoiler though, since it's pretty off-topic from the current conversation about trigger warnings, and it might get a bit rambley.

Spoiler: show

I was thinking about how a content warning is like the benevolent counterpart to a spoiler. In the case of spoilers, it's common courtesy not to tell people that, for example, a character is going to die, because the initial emotional reaction that you have to it is a part of the intended enjoyment of the story. With content warnings on the other hand, the comment courtesy comes in telling people some part of what they can expect to avoid shock that is unintended and unpleasant. Nobody would want to be warned about every emotional reaction that they might have beforehand, as that would defeat some of the point of the story - we often read stories because we want to come across unexpected things and learn about ourselves in that way. That also includes unpleasant emotions, like fear and disgust in the case of horror stories. But then there are also some forms of shock that don't really add to the story, and are just cheap and unpleasant. There's a reason why people generally hate jumpscares.

I got to thinking about this because I recently recommended a war novel to my brother, and of course I'm very careful about not spoiling which characters are going to die. But at the same time, I can only get away with not saying anything about people dying because it's a war novel, and you know beforehand that people are going to die in pretty gruesome ways. And when I showed a clip from the movie adaptation of the same book to a friend, I did warn her that it showed people dying in a war movie. I knew she could handle it just fine, but I did show it to her out of context and I didn't want her to be caught off-guard by it. Avoiding spoilers and including content warnings may be opposite things, but they serve the same goal - ensuring that the person who you've recommended something to has an enjoyable and worthwhile experience.

It's a delicate balance, and it's made more difficult because different people have different sensibilities. I know there are some people who will actually look up some of the stuff that happens in a story because they can't take the tension as well as most do. So while for some people it's better if they don't know what's going to happen, for others it's better if they do. My mother, for example, is very sensitive to even slightly tense situations in movies, which is why she doesn't watch them often. Since I do want to watch movies with her, I generally warn her about some of the more tense moments so she can judge for herself.

Still, it's hard to suit everyone's needs, especially when you don't know who your audience is. Personally when I recommend things, I try to be vague about what happens, but still give people a basic understanding of what they can expect. I've rarely if ever seen a story where being completely blindsided was absolutely essential to the emotional reaction that it was trying to evoke. Even in stories that hide their true identities, like MiA as you said (I haven't watched it myself, by the way), I don't think there's much harm in having this sense of 'offness', and it can do a lot of good in telling people that they are in for something at least.

[thorny]

What did we get for LP beforehand? An almost throwaway mention of religion, as if a background filling/secondary theme (which even with my background I'm not against by default).

For one thing, those who first came to it didn't get even that beforehand; that description didn't go up for, IIRC, a couple of days.

And even more to the point: not only is it an almost throwaway mention, but it's entirely misleading, because its mention that one lead character is Christian strongly implies that other lead characters aren't, and therefore implies that the comic's viewpoint characters are intentionally religiously diverse. There's no way that I, at least, would have taken the description Minna put up there as meaning 'this is a comic written solely from and about a Christian viewpoint'.

ETA: and, about the spoiler/warning business: yes, that's an issue, especially if warnings aren't done well. But just as an X-rating on a movie doesn't tell you who's going to have sex with whom or exactly how, a content warning doesn't have to give details about who dies, or who converts to what, or whichever. And people reading detective stories know just from the fact that they're in that genre that at least one person very likely dies in them; which doesn't, generally, seem to ruin the suspense -- sometimes it increases it.

I'm not sure that I do uphold the author's right to hit readers over the head hard with no warning, not even a genre warning. The strong implication of 'cute bunny comic' is 'this is suitable for anyone, including little kids and the easily bruised'. An intention to bruise people seems to me to require some level of consent -- you don't invite people to a sex party by telling them it's your six year old's birthday party, even if you do really think it would be good for them to loosen up.

I do rather like the suggestion made by somebody earlier in this thread, at least for online works: 'click here if you want to get content warnings'. People who really absolutely hate spoilers can just not click.

[esedege]

For one thing, those who first came to it didn't get even that beforehand; that description didn't go up for, IIRC, a couple of days.

And even more to the point: not only is it an almost throwaway mention, but it's entirely misleading, because its mention that one lead character is Christian strongly implies that other lead characters aren't, and therefore implies that the comic's viewpoint characters are intentionally religiously diverse. There's no way that I, at least, would have taken the description Minna put up there as meaning 'this is a comic written solely from and about a Christian viewpoint'.

Even worse (as I said before, I came back after a week and found the aftermath of the LP debut, so I had guessed that description was attached to it from the start). And I agree with you that specifying a character is Christian means, by default, that the others aren't, so it carries an extra pinch of mischievousness. Then again, in my experience, when a real religion appears in a would-be fable, proselytism is just around the corner (I wouldn't have guessed it would be like that nor in a million years tho). "But maybe Minna is different, she's being kinda unique all along…"

Hi, Raaffiie, I'd like to comment on your off-topic spoiler, so here's mine.

Spoiler: show

I also warn/tell friends when I want to recommend them or show them something that handles weird/heavy/traumatic stuff. Anything but that would be akin to enjoy hurting/startling/shocking people.

It's a delicate balance, and it's made more difficult because different people have different sensibilities. I know there are some people who will actually look up some of the stuff that happens in a story because they can't take the tension as well as most do. So while for some people it's better if they don't know what's going to happen, for others it's better if they do. My mother, for example, is very sensitive to even slightly tense situations in movies, which is why she doesn't watch them often. Since I do want to watch movies with her, I generally warn her about some of the more tense moments so she can judge for herself.

My mother is also like that, but with books. Series and movies she can watch, but if she's going to read a thriller or a mystery book, she always reads the last chapter first.  :'D

Off-off-topic: Then there's Stephen King, whose idea of tension is 'He was such a lively person nobody would've guessed he'd be dead in three weeks.' Man, shut up!  :'D

Even in stories that hide their true identities, like MiA as you said (I haven't watched it myself, by the way), I don't think there's much harm in having this sense of 'offness', and it can do a lot of good in telling people that they are in for something at least.

The problem with MiA is that if a friend tells you they've just found it, you better know them well (to either let them be or warn them), because if you are unsure about their tastes, it's quite a tricky question to ask them while being spoiler-free. I mean, this cannot be anything but a walk in the park!

I do rather like the suggestion made by somebody earlier in this thread, at least for online works: 'click here if you want to get content warnings'. People who really absolutely hate spoilers can just not click.

I must have missed that suggestion, because I totally endorse it (and, in general, the whole of your post too.)

[Marvin]

Funny enough, for me honeycombs are some of the few organic clusters of holes that don't trigger my trypophobia - precisely because they're so geometrical that they almost look manmade, and the holes not being circular also helps. Though maybe having positive associations and familiarity with bees from childhood also influences it (my grandpa used to keep bees for a while and he let me get very involved in it). Some wasp nests do mildly trigger it however, probably because they are not built on frames like honeycombs and are more irregular. There are however many other natural things that are not bee-related at all that give me a much worse reaction.

Hm, I always imagined that trypophobia has more to do with parasitic diseases. I'm not trypophobic myself, but there are example images the trigger a nauseating response, and the basic thought is: "EEEEW PARASITES!"