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

[saraht]

I don't think that's an apposite comparison for a number of reasons, but the most succinct is this: the "distinctive character" to which I'm referring to is not based on the idea of "no disabled people allowed," as it was at those schools. (If that was the idea, the con is doing a particularly bad job of implementing it, as very seriously disabled people have successfully attended the con every year.) I don't speak for the concom in any way, but I'm 100% sure if they could wave a magic wand and arrange to have everyone's accessibility needs met without seriously changing what I perceive to be one of the main purposes of the con (presenting vids in an atmosphere of maximum creative and critical freedom, and in an optimum format for viewing) or exhausting the con's resources, they absolutely would. No question.

You're right that comparisons are risky and can be more illuminating than helpful, but let me offer another one: due to a propensity to vasovagal syncope in hot weather, it's not feasible for me to go on any sort of trekking adventure in the tropical parts of the world, where part of the fun and the challenge is taking the risk of battling a demanding physical environment with minimal support. I don't therefore consider that kind of experience unjustly exclusionary or criticize other people for doing it. I think about how incredibly fucking annoying it is that my body has decided that maintaining proper blood supply to my head is something it can give up on if it doesn't feel like it. Making a space for people to voluntarily engage in a risky activity is not *inherently* bad just because it's not suitable for everyone.