on warning at Vividcon
So, like many people on all sides of this issue, I've been frustrated by the recent discussion on warnings at Vividcon. Part of it for me is because I look at the list of things people want specific trigger warnings for, and I think about Premieres, and all I can think is: "warn for ALL the vids?"
I keep seeing what seem to me to be assumptions that of course many (or at least several) vids will be marked "no warnings apply," while some vids will have specific warnings and some will have "choose not to warn," and the end result will be that people with triggers will be able to enjoy a large portion of the show. And that just doesn't match my memory of what Premieres is like.
So I popped in my VVC 2009 DVDs today, and got out a notebook. I put columns for everything asked for in
thuviaptarth's post on the subject, which seems to be the baseline people are now talking about.
This is the relevant part of her post, with the specific triggers she wants people to warn for:
Common physical triggers for migraine or epilepsy
No warnings apply
I checked off each PTSD and physical trigger for each vid as I watched the Premieres show, so I could get a feel for what sort of things actually show up, and just how safe the show could be if properly warned for.
There were 38 vids in the Premieres show, including the intro vid. (This is purely a collation of numbers; I'm not naming any vids.)
Vids with PTSD triggers
Vids with physical triggers
Vids with no triggers
The breakdown
146 total trigger warnings on 38 total vids
So here are the caveats:
This is my personal take these vids. I don't have any of those triggers, so some things probably slipped right past me, particularly things like fast cuts (I honestly don't know how fast "quick flashing microcuts" need to be to count, here, and cutting in general gets faster every year).
Someone else going through and doing this will come up with different numbers, because different people judge things differently.
"Shaky cam" is under-represented in my numbers, I believe, because there was very little actual source shaky cam like someone running, and I was going with that as my baseline as that seems to be what's being asked for in the above list.
But there were several vids where it looked like the vidder shook the footage in an effect that I wasn't sure should count, so I didn't. There were also several vids where the vidder accidentally exported the file with the wrong field order, so some or all of the vid was jerky. So while technically I think I reported an accurate number of source-shaky-cam, or vidder-shaky-cam if it looked sufficiently like that type of shaky cam, assume anywhere from 5-10 more vids that include jerky footage that could be similarly triggery.
For "strobe lighting", I may have counted things other people wouldn't, as it's my understanding that the sort of strobes that affect people can vary wildly (color, intensity, speed, etc.), and I wanted to cover as wide a field as possible. For what it's worth, in most vids, any strobey light is of very short duration, a few seconds at most.
"Abrupt changes in sound volume" was really dicey, because the sound volume changes throughout Premieres; each vid has its own volume, and there's silence between each vid on the DVD, but during the con the audience applauds at varying intensity and for varying durations. If a given vid has a lower gain than the surrounding vids, the VJ generally tries to increase it once the vid starts so as to even things out, but that means that there's an abrupt change within that vid even if the song itself stays relatively even.
Anyone attending with audio-change issues should be aware that really, the sound levels go up and down all night, and there's almost always a brief silence before a vid starts; sometimes a song fades up slowly, but it's equally likely to come in very abruptly, very loudly.
For the sake of this, I went with what a vidder would be able to warn for, and assumed the switch from silence to sound at the opening to a vid didn't count, even if the credits were over silence so the audience would also be silent; nor the switch from sound to silence at the end of a vid, likewise even if it included credits that the audience would be quiet for. If those things count, basically every single vid is affected.
This vidshow felt like a standard VVC Premieres vidshow to me -- not overly bright or flashy (in fact a little less flashy than some years), not overly violent (again, less violent than some years).
The weighting also feels accurate/standard to me according to past Vividcons.
On the PTSD side, there's generally a lot of violence, but fighting and such is much more common than rape or noncon, andI don't think I've ever heard a gunshot in a vid (doesn't mean there hasn't been one, but usually the audio is a musical source) (ETA per this comment ETA 2 per this thread) gunshots are vanishingly rare, with possibly only one two vids in eight years having one.
On the physical trigger side, vids are made with lots of flashing/flickering lights and fast cuts (faster every year), and lots of vidders want a song that has audio "motion" to it, which often means changing audio levels. I'm really not surprised that only 2 vids out of all 38 had no physical triggers, given the nature of vids.
I was going to wrap up with a comment about my own take on all of this, and my take on warnings on vids, but I think I'll leave it at this. I think this is information that a lot of people are lacking, and that might help. So here it is.
Anon and openID commenting are on, but I reserve the right to turn off anon commenting if needed.
I keep seeing what seem to me to be assumptions that of course many (or at least several) vids will be marked "no warnings apply," while some vids will have specific warnings and some will have "choose not to warn," and the end result will be that people with triggers will be able to enjoy a large portion of the show. And that just doesn't match my memory of what Premieres is like.
So I popped in my VVC 2009 DVDs today, and got out a notebook. I put columns for everything asked for in
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
This is the relevant part of her post, with the specific triggers she wants people to warn for:
- Choose not to warn
- Common PTSD triggers
- Explicit violence (assault, self-harm, suicide, gore, explicit medical procedures)
- Sexual violence (rape, sexual assault, noncon, dubcon)
- Sounds of gunshots
- Explicit violence (assault, self-harm, suicide, gore, explicit medical procedures)
- Bright flash
- Strobe lighting
- Quick flashing microcuts
- First-person "shaky" cam
- Abrupt changes in sound volume
I checked off each PTSD and physical trigger for each vid as I watched the Premieres show, so I could get a feel for what sort of things actually show up, and just how safe the show could be if properly warned for.
There were 38 vids in the Premieres show, including the intro vid. (This is purely a collation of numbers; I'm not naming any vids.)
Vids with PTSD triggers
- Explicit violence: 30 vids
- Sexual violence: 4 vids
- Sounds of gunshot: 0
Vids with physical triggers
- Bright flash: 32 vids
- Strobe lighting: 27 vids
- Quick flashing microcuts: 20 vids
- First-person "shaky" cam: 5 vids (but see caveat below)
- Abrupt changes in sound volume: 28 vids
Vids with no triggers
- No warnings apply: 1 vid.
The breakdown
- 1 vid had no triggers at all that I could see or hear
- 37 vids had triggers, of which:
- 30 vids had PTSD triggers, of which:
- 1 vid had only PTSD triggers
- 1 vid had only PTSD triggers
- 36 vids had physical triggers, of which:
- 7 vids had only physical triggers
- 7 vids had only physical triggers
- 29 vids had both PTSD and physical triggers
- 30 vids had PTSD triggers, of which:
So here are the caveats:
This is my personal take these vids. I don't have any of those triggers, so some things probably slipped right past me, particularly things like fast cuts (I honestly don't know how fast "quick flashing microcuts" need to be to count, here, and cutting in general gets faster every year).
Someone else going through and doing this will come up with different numbers, because different people judge things differently.
"Shaky cam" is under-represented in my numbers, I believe, because there was very little actual source shaky cam like someone running, and I was going with that as my baseline as that seems to be what's being asked for in the above list.
But there were several vids where it looked like the vidder shook the footage in an effect that I wasn't sure should count, so I didn't. There were also several vids where the vidder accidentally exported the file with the wrong field order, so some or all of the vid was jerky. So while technically I think I reported an accurate number of source-shaky-cam, or vidder-shaky-cam if it looked sufficiently like that type of shaky cam, assume anywhere from 5-10 more vids that include jerky footage that could be similarly triggery.
For "strobe lighting", I may have counted things other people wouldn't, as it's my understanding that the sort of strobes that affect people can vary wildly (color, intensity, speed, etc.), and I wanted to cover as wide a field as possible. For what it's worth, in most vids, any strobey light is of very short duration, a few seconds at most.
"Abrupt changes in sound volume" was really dicey, because the sound volume changes throughout Premieres; each vid has its own volume, and there's silence between each vid on the DVD, but during the con the audience applauds at varying intensity and for varying durations. If a given vid has a lower gain than the surrounding vids, the VJ generally tries to increase it once the vid starts so as to even things out, but that means that there's an abrupt change within that vid even if the song itself stays relatively even.
Anyone attending with audio-change issues should be aware that really, the sound levels go up and down all night, and there's almost always a brief silence before a vid starts; sometimes a song fades up slowly, but it's equally likely to come in very abruptly, very loudly.
For the sake of this, I went with what a vidder would be able to warn for, and assumed the switch from silence to sound at the opening to a vid didn't count, even if the credits were over silence so the audience would also be silent; nor the switch from sound to silence at the end of a vid, likewise even if it included credits that the audience would be quiet for. If those things count, basically every single vid is affected.
This vidshow felt like a standard VVC Premieres vidshow to me -- not overly bright or flashy (in fact a little less flashy than some years), not overly violent (again, less violent than some years).
The weighting also feels accurate/standard to me according to past Vividcons.
On the PTSD side, there's generally a lot of violence, but fighting and such is much more common than rape or noncon, and
On the physical trigger side, vids are made with lots of flashing/flickering lights and fast cuts (faster every year), and lots of vidders want a song that has audio "motion" to it, which often means changing audio levels. I'm really not surprised that only 2 vids out of all 38 had no physical triggers, given the nature of vids.
I was going to wrap up with a comment about my own take on all of this, and my take on warnings on vids, but I think I'll leave it at this. I think this is information that a lot of people are lacking, and that might help. So here it is.
Anon and openID commenting are on, but I reserve the right to turn off anon commenting if needed.
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Flying Home.
But it's very rare, I can't think of another.
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Btw, here we go again over on
So, yep, no warnings = insensitive asshole.
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Arduinna, this is a very interesting post, thank you.
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It saddens me that it does happen, because I am *completely* in love with 'Choose not to warn' myself, and it has freed me from all warnings-related anxiety (which I used to have a lot of, because I worried I would never do it well enough). I wish people - of all sides and all tripes - would embrace it. :/
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Man, I do, too.
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Oh, well, people have said nasty and stupid things on both sides.
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It's been really disconcerting to grasp just how many fans feel that anyone with a differing/contrary opinion or beliefs is a bad person/stupid/insensitive/selfish, or flat-out doesn't know what they're talking about.
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I just. It is possible to think clearly and carefully about an issue, and come to a considered, rational, reasonable opinion that is different from someone else's.
*hands*
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Link.
I mean, when the argument seems to be set at if you don't warn you are directly responsible for someone's mental health, that's not a subtle way to say everyone who doesn't warn are bad people.
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I stand by the comment where I said this is a lose-lose situation for vidders: you either warn or you're vilified. And that's not a real choice unless you enjoy seeing your name cursed all over fandom.
Via the network
The post you're linking to is not in response to or about people who use "Choose not to warn" (which is, itself, a warning); it's in response to the proposal in
(See the thread
So that, as I understand it, if a vidder didn't want any warnings on their vids, a VJ using one of their vids in a show would not be able to make a note saying "There is sexual violence in this show."
That's not about an individual's right to use "Choose not to warn"; that's about a whole lot of other things, including giving vidders the right to gag other people.
Re: Via the network
Specifically, this referred to the VJ, which I noted my objections of here. Short version: VJs as volunteers are extensions of the concomm and shouldn't, but private individuals can.
My specific objection starts with this phrase:
It's becoming more prevalent to characterize anyone who isn't into warnings negatively--not as a difference of opinion, not even as just thoughtless, but in a way that casts them as bad people and the act of not warning in itself is an act of harm. The argument is being set that if you do not like warnings/do not want warnings/whatever == egotistical, mean, bad, viddres who do not warn are slurred, or in teh case of one entry Integriteee as Arteeests is used pejoratively. I can get more examples if necessary if I can run them down; that's how I ended up reading an accessibility discussion that spoke disparagingly of non-breastfeeders in the middle for no particular reason.
I say this as someone who argued for warnings in the last debate, who loves warnings, and changed my entire policy on warnings as a result of those discussions, it's one thing to disagree strenuously, but it's another when the argument becomes good people versus bad people. It's like that thread about breastfeeding; choice isn't a dirty word.
Re: Via the network
Yes. Thank you. This is exactly what I'm finding incredibly disturbing and distressing. So many discussions have devolved into being only tangentially about the actual issues, and way more about individuals taking the opportunity to finger-point, judge, shame, and vilify anyone who doesn't share their viewpoint.
Re: Via the network
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From my memory, the number of vids with "extreme" violence is fairly low.
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I guess the level of violence one considers noteworthy varies a lot. I still remember my o_O reaction when I read a US comic book once (no mature or adult label), which had a half panel with someone sitting on a pile of naked tortured female corpses which prudishly had the nipples edited out, which frankly I found the most disturbing in the whole image, that there were these naked dead women and all had fake looking breasts.
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... I am o_O at that comic book right now, though sadly not surprised. Hello US culture, home of violent prudery. *sigh*
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thank you for exploring this.
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*Several things directed not at OP but because increasingly an explication upon one's background and privilege is necessary in fannish debates: no, I'm neither a vidder nor an attendee, so I don't have an actual dog in this fight and have been mostly watching and reading a lot; yes, I do have emotional triggers, specifically towards gunshots and/or military violence, but no physical trigger issues.
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Arduinna, thank you for putting this together.
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Several things directed not at OP but because increasingly an explication upon one's background and privilege is necessary in fannish debates:
This trend also makes me sad. We shouldn't need to produce credentials to have an opinion, dammit.
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Some people apparently see it as a feature, not a bug.
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I definitely reserve the right to think, at the end of the day, that another person is wrong, no matter what their knowledge/experience/involvement are. But if it's someone who has those things, I'll be much more suspicious of my opinion and much more careful when I make it, and much more likely to leave a window in my mind titled 'still possible that I just don't get it'.
I don't think credentials is an appropriate word here, but honestly, in some ways it's right. My opinion is not always as good as anybody's. I'm not always well enough informed. I haven't always considered things long enough to process more facts and let it sit and fine-tune my opinions. And sometimes how it actually feels to be something/live with something/etc really is a crucial factor.
Again: that doesn't mean those who have those information/experiences are always right. But yes, it's absolutely relevant information.
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On the second point: blergh, it took an anonymous meme to make me do it, but I'm officially at the point of fuck that noise and I don't care who hears me.
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(My twin sister has epilepsy btw.)
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Like me, for example: I get severe headaches from blue-spectrum lights, so while there are a wide range of vids I can watch and enjoy I would think twice about watching a vid if it had a warning for strobe lighting.
And if I'm tired already, watching shaky cam makes me nauseous. It depends on what I've been doing that day, physically and socially. If I were already feeling worn out and the vid had a warning for shaky cam I'd probably choose to come back and watch it another day.
As for the label "chooses not to warn" sometimes I'd take the chance and watch anyway, but sometimes I wouldn't. It varies depending on how I'm feeling and whether I think I have the spoons to handle it.
So yeah, I take part in vidding (as an enthusiastic audience) because I love it as a form of expression, even though sometimes I have to be careful.
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So now I'm wondering about my premieres vid for this year. Football tackle: explicit violence, definitely, but does it count as assault? In the context of the source, it doesn't; it's part of the game. In the context of the vid and the vidshow, I find that I no longer have any idea.
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The next logical step (and one I am *not* advocating no sireee, not me) is create a fan board that reviews fanworks to come up with warnings standards which they then apply. Only way to get reliable and consistent results.
Or we can keep doing what we're doing which is discussing & pondering and basically muddling about with the hope that our best efforts are going to be allowed to be good enough.
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Like, flashing lights can be the same as a rolling drumbeat in the audio, ratcheting up the intensity of the vid. And someone grabbing someone by the wrist and hauling them around is a great piece of energetic, angry circular motion to come out of the bridge, as you heighten the emotional intensity going into the final verse - it's not *assault*, it's motion and emotion. Except it's assault, too. So.
In the context of the vid and the vidshow, I find that I no longer have any idea.
Yeah. Going through last year's show, I had a few problems with vids where it was clear to me from the context of a show that I recognized that a clip was meant to do one thing, but where I could see that without the context... maybe not so much.
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Now that I think on it: have there been cases of people who've been triggered--not disturbed or hurt, but actually triggered, in a PTSD or physical sort of way? Or has this discussion been theoretical so far?
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And fwiw, if we are remembering the same crying woman -- I am fairly certain she had seen Ian's vid before the con. Not to say that no one was triggered or she wasn't triggered, just I don't know any way that person could have been protected from the vids since she had to watch almost all of them.
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Yeah, we are remembering the same person and yes, she did have to see all of them at the time. I have no idea how to have handled that situation, but people were asking 'has anyone every been triggered?' and I can look at that episode and from her reaction say 'probably yes.'
Actually, I am kind of caught up in this whole 'okay, if we have have accepted that for some valid reasons, not every viewer is gonna want to watch every vid in a show, how do we make it practical for people to not watch in the premiere vid show?' Since one of the big things at VVC is for watchers to not disturb the viewings of others, are we gonna have to put everyone who thinks they might have an issue with a vid in the overflow room? What's the logistics of that?
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Well, if we're talking about specifically watching, avoiding visual stimuli rather than auditory, we give people a chance to shut their eyes. People have been doing that for years. Obviously that doesn't address questions of sound, but it's easy not to watch any vid in any show, so long as the viewer has enough warning to close her/his eyes before being triggered.
ETA: It's been pointed out to me that just "shut your eyes" is an insensitive response, and I want to apologize and clarify; I really did mean "so long as the viewer has enough warning to close her/his eyes." If someone is triggered by certain kinds of imagery, and knows that the third vid in X show will contain that imagery, then I believe they do have enough warning to close their eyes after the second vid ends and avoid seeing that imagery and that vid, without needing to leave the room. As I said, this does not work if the trigger is sound rather than imagery or if the viewer doesn't have enough warning.
Or am I missing something? Is there some way in which knowing ahead of time that the third vid contains a triggery image would not be enough warning, or that closing one's eyes would not be enough to avoid the imagery? Seriously and not at all sarcastically, if there's something I'm not getting, I'd like to learn it.
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I'm guessing strobe lighting because I had chosen a filter that had a slight light flicker.
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I had you down for many things, as it happens! *g* Explicit violence, bright flash, strobe, quick cuts, shaky cam, and audio changes.
I just rewatched to check for some specifics, and the shaky cam is right in the opening bit; the strobe lighting is all over the place because of that filter; the bright flash is a little borderline, but there are a few spots where I thought that in a darkened room they could possibly be a problem; the violence is the fighting; and the audio change is partly where the volume rises and rises (I thought it was probably fast enough to count, but I have no idea) but also where it abruptly dropped off back down to quiet. The quick cuts I missed this time around because I forgot to pay specific attention to them, but I suspect the light-flickery effect added to it.