Vid warnings: not as easy as it sounds

[arduinna]

I didn't actually intend to make a follow-up post; I didn't think one would be necessary. But I think it is. I mention several people by name in this, because I can't see any other way to have a conversation about concrete things. I hope no one takes this personally; my intent is to look at a trend that caught me very much by surprise, and that I don't think anyone else has noticed, and that I think has real bearing on the current conversation.

So, after making my last post, I started catching up on other posts a little, and came across laurashapiro's announcement that she's going to be warning for common PTSD triggers and common triggers for migraine or epilepsy. She included a list of the vids she's showing at Vividcon this year in various shows, with warnings attached, so people can be prepared when they see them.

I generally skip warnings, because I don't want to know what's in vids before I see them. But I spent hours yesterday watching vids specifically with that trigger list in mind, and when I came across Laura's post I wanted to see if it matched my general experience with those vid discs.

It didn't, at all, and in fact was so different I sat there blinking, because her warnings also didn't match my memory of her vids. So I re-watched them.

I think she got these warnings very wrong in the context of the current discussion. In fact, I'm honestly boggled at how how much my interpretation differed from Laura's. So I went looking to see if it was just her I disagreed wtih.

It's not. My take is different in the vast majority of the cases I found.

Laura linked me to the list of vidder-provided warning posts being gathered by were_duck, so I went through every vid I could. Everyone on this list says they're using that same list of PTSD and physical triggers to provide their warnings.

I'm only going over individual vidders' warnings; I can't speak to how accurate the VJs who are providing warnings for their entire shows are. Also, I'm only including vids I could find online (one of the vidders on were_duck's list had no listed vids online that I could find, so that person isn't included here).


avendya chose to put in a specific warning:

Show: Nearly New
Title: Blood Makes Noise
Warning: violence -- there is a short clip of a young woman being choked by an older man. The source is Merlin (2008), and there is no outside source used.

If she had just left it at "explicit violence", she would have been fine. But she specifically says here that there is only one instance of violence in this vid, and I counted at least seven other scenes that contained explicit violence.



chagrined has one vid going to VVC, and went with this:

Specific trigger and content details:
Show: Sexuality vidshow
Vid: Tarantulove
Fandom: Secretary
Trigger Warnings (taken from this list): Dubious consent

I think that's okay? There's an additional spoiler-protected content note that explains some context that covers a scene in the vid I think could potentially cause a problem for someone coming at it from a trigger place, but I assume people with triggers read all the description they can get, so that's covered.



china_shop went with these:

VIDSHOW: Newbies Rock
VID TITLE: Everybody Wants to Be a Cat
FANDOM: White Collar
WARNINGS: Guns fired toward camera (including muzzle flash, but not sound).

Guns are only fired at one point, but are aimed with intent at several other points. There's also someone having their arms being jerked behind them, and being put into handcuffs. I don't know if any of that would fall under a violence/assault trigger, but it seems like it could, to me. My personal opinion is that "explicit violence" would be a better warning on this vid than singling out one instance and ignoring other borderline instances.


VIDSHOW: Newbies Rock
VID TITLE: Southside
FANDOM: Incredibly True Adventure of 2 Girls In Love
WARNINGS: None.

Agreed; I didn't see anything in this one.



damned_colonial went with this:

Show: Nearly New
Vid: There Still Remains the Cocaine Bottle
Fandom: Sherlock Holmes (2009)
Warnings: None

I would have warned this as: Audio change, bright flashing, quick microcuts, explicit violence.



laurashapiro went with these:

VIDSHOW: Race and Representation in Vidding
VID TITLE: Sawatte Kawatte (Touch! Change!)
FANDOM: Heroes
WARNINGS: No warnings apply.

I would add: Audio change, bright flashes, explicit violence.


VIDSHOW: Sexuality
VID TITLE: Hurricane
FANDOM: Farscape, Battlestar Galactica
WARNINGS: Child abuse (non-sexual), briefly depicted

I would add: Bright flashes, explicit violence, sexual violence.


VIDSHOW: We're Here, We're Queer
VID TITLE: Queen Bitch
FANDOM: Hedwig and the Angry Inch
WARNINGS: No warnings apply.


I would add: Audio change, strobing lights, bright flashes, explicit violence.



mresundance went with these:

VIDSHOW: Nearly New
VID TITLE: Almost Cut My Hair
FANDOM: Chaplin (1993 film)
WARNINGS: No warnings apply.

I would add: Strobing lights, bright flashing


VIDSHOW: Nearly New
VID TITLE: Runs in the Family
FANDOM: True Blood
WARNINGS: Extreme sexuality, violence and gore. Use of movement and quick editing could be triggery for migraines and epilepsy.

That seems pretty comprehensive.



such_heights went with these:

Butterflies and Hurricanes
fandom: Torchwood
vidshow: Identity
notes: no warnings

I would add: Audio change, explicit violence, bright flashing (I might warn for strobing lights as well, but that's pretty borderline)

Of Monsters and Heroes and Men
fandom: Gladiator
vidshow: Nearly New
notes: character death

I would add: Explicit violence

Many Hands
fandom: multi
vidshow: Sexuality
notes: no warnings

There are a couple of borderline things that I might warn for just in case, but okay.



thuviaptarth went with these

VIDSHOW: Identity
VID TITLE: Names
FANDOM: The Vampire Diaries
NOTES: None of these warnings apply.

Seems okay.

VIDSHOW: Nearly New
VID TITLE: Etheric Messages
FANDOM: Fringe
NOTES: Contains brief and inexplicit images of nonconsensual medical experimentation and a car crash, as well as (nonviolent) nonconsensual experimentation on children. A man getting shot. Some gruesome imagery. I would rate the level of violence/grue at PG or PG-13 if I had to use US movie ratings. Possible concerns for photosensitivity: Flickering lights (think of slow strobing like a police car's flasher rather than quick strobing like a disco ball), a flash of lightning, and a brief section of quick high contrast cuts of about 3-6 frames each.

Seems comprehensive.



I truly believe that every one of these vidders meant sincerely to offer helpful warnings to people with PTSD and physical triggers, but IMO, in many cases they failed. And this was a situation where they were under no deadline pressure; no submission-form panic; no frustration from having just exported their vid for the sixth time and the audio still isn't working, goddammit. They had time, and space to think, and wrote these warnings in an environment where the idea of warnings on vids was a primary discussion topic.

The warnings that came out of that environment should have been as close to perfect as it's possible to get, and instead, the majority were misleading at best. They inadvertently set their viewers up to be more vulnerable, not less.

And this is part of the reason why I think a blanket "we don't provide warnings" statement for the entire con is so valuable. Every vid is a risk, even vids whose creators think are perfectly safe.

Well over 200 vids air at the convention; last year, more than 100 vids premiered at the con, as totally unknown quantities.

It's obviously very difficult for even the most diligently pro-warnings vidders to accurately label their vids with trigger warnings. People who think this is a simple, one-minute task are demonstrably wrong.

For my part, I don't want warnings on vids; vidding has traditionally been a no-warnings zone, and Vividcon in particular has always been a place where everyone has been explicitly informed that they may see vids that disturb or distress them. It is okay to have spaces that privilege risk-taking over risk-prevention, so long as everyone involved is aware that's the case.

I think a big part of the current problem is that people expect Vividcon to be all things to all people, which no con or community could possibly be.


Maybe what's needed really is a second convention, run by people whose focus is on warnings-based risk-aversion, or at least risk-alleviation, to cater to a crowd that's uncomfortable in the Vividcon environment, with a specific infrastructure in place to help cope with the difficulty of accurately warning for triggers appropriately. I think there's enough passion and dedication being shown to make that possible; maybe some of those passionate folks could be the beginnings of a concom, working in concert to create the sort of con environment they envision, and from the look of the response the idea is getting, this would be a hugely popular con.

That would be fantastic, if you ask me - more vid cons, aimed at different vid audiences! \o/ Vividcon for fans who don't want warnings; the other con for fans who do. Any vidder submitting to either con would know what was expected, and could choose to submit to the con that best suited them (or to both, if they were fine with both methods of distribution).


(edited to cut for length, with apologies!) (eta2: to fix the cut to where it was actually supposed to be *facepalm*

Comments

[impertinence]

I'm not sure I agree with the logical progression you're presenting here. It's true that sometimes people are mistaken regarding warnings, but I don't think the possibility that warnings could be wrong/insufficient is enough to preclude having them at all. Particularly since it hasn't yet been tried. If people went to VVC expecting warnings and came back saying that actually, not a single warning had helped - then I think it might be time to reevaluate whether or not warnings could be useful. But to be blunt, I don't think one person who doesn't normally utilize warnings saying that warnings are clearly useless is a good measuring stick for the potential success/failure of a warnings policy.

Also:

It is okay to have spaces that privilege risk-taking over risk-prevention, so long as everyone involved is aware that's the case.

I think a big part of the current problem is that people expect Vividcon to be all things to all people, which no con or community could possibly be.

I disagree with the generalizations you're making here. Requesting a change in policy so that basic accommodations are made for people with triggers is not trying to force Vividcon "to be all things for all people" - and various suggestions have been made that would enable people who wanted warnings to be able to access them, and people who didn't want them to be able to ignore them. I doubt you're doing it deliberately, but in this post you're setting up a false dichotomy that then justifies not warning for anything. I think it's particularly harmful considering that a warnings system hasn't even been tried yet.

[morgandawn]

My takeaway was something very different: not that we shouldn't attempt warnings. But if we do attempt, we're going to have to be (a) more specific as to what we warn for, (b) make certain we're using the same starting point/definitions and (c) possibly get a second pair of eyes to help with our blind spots.

the other take away is that, given how hard it is to accurately capture and then communicate what is in your vid, that perhaps we should be a bit more patient with each other. Even the MPAA cannot get it right. Nor the record companies when it comes to labeling content.

[impertinence]

I'm honestly not sure how to interpret this:

And this is part of the reason why I think a blanket "we don't provide warnings" statement for the entire con is so valuable. Every vid is a risk, even vids whose creators think are perfectly safe.

if not, "We tried and it was difficult enough that I don't think it's worth it". (which isn't to say that she might not mean it another way, just that that's how I read it). I agree that cooperation and a lot of trial and error will be necessary to come up with a workable system, absolutely. But pointing out how hard warnings are and then saying you don't support them and think it's fine for VVC not to have them doesn't sound like "hey, this is harder than we thought, let's try to come up with other solutions", you know?

[bell]

I have to agree that

And this is part of the reason why I think a blanket "we don't provide warnings" statement for the entire con is so valuable. Every vid is a risk, even vids whose creators think are perfectly safe.

makes it sound as if warnings shouldn't be even attempted. I do support, however, the idea of morgandawn's interpretation:

if we do attempt [warnings], we're going to have to be (a) more specific as to what we warn for, (b) make certain we're using the same starting point/definitions and (c) possibly get a second pair of eyes to help with our blind spots.

I think those are good goals/things to do. Indeed no warning system will ever be perfect, but it is good to try, as I believe that more information will help people make the choices for what is best for them. The warnings may sometimes fail in that the person is not prepared for the actual content, but I think perhaps a note to that effect will help them also consider whether they're willing to take that risk. I do think that some system of warning will be more helpful than a blanket statement of "we don't provide warnings."

I think another thing to keep in mind is that not all people are triggered by the same things. Even if the vast majority of the vids come with a warning, they won't warn for the same thing-- so a person triggered by rape might still decide to watch vids labeled as containing violence/blinking lights/etc.

[impertinence]

I agree. Any policy instituted is going to have its problems, but I don't think this is an all or nothing kind of situation.

And yes to your last point. "Violence" is a trigger that this post points out will be very difficult to effectively warn for (though I'd argue that it's not impossible). However, if trigger warnings for sexualized violence/rape situations became standard, then that single type of warning would serve to make the space a lot more accessible for me and people I know. It's a distinction that I guess a lot of people without triggers haven't really thought over yet.

[(Anonymous)]

I read the post as a warning of its own - a warning that the warnings can't be relied on.

And I think that's important to have. My understanding of triggers is that the word refers to things that could lead to serious, painful emotional trauma in some people. People with triggers aren't saying 'there are some things I don't like to see', they're saying 'there are some things I CANNOT see'.

Inaccurate or incomplete warnings could give these people a false sense of security. They might otherwise not take the risk of watching a vid, but if they see the warning and see that their trigger is not included, they would feel safe, and they could be wrong. With consequences as serious as they apparently are for some people, this could be a very serious mistake.

I'd say it's better to not warn at all than to warn incompletely. It seems like waiting for a situation where vulnerable "people went to VVC expecting warnings and came back saying that actually, not a single warning had helped," is taking an unacceptable risk with the emotional health of these test case individuals.

[impertinence]

The thing is, people with triggers need special accommodation in the form of warnings - but we're not generally a particularly uninformed group, you know? I've yet to run into a person who thinks warnings are infallible. Personally, I understand that any warnings system isn't perfect, and a newly instituted one is risky to engage with, as a person with triggers. But the fact that it may not be perfect does not, I think, preclude attempting to institute it to begin with.