The conversation around trigger warnings and their use has been heavily scrutinized as of late. Many argue that the existence of trigger warnings has contributed to a hyper-sensitive, “weaker” generation of people; the kinds of people who can’t even go to the movies without needing someone to tell them what will happen. However, having trigger warnings displayed and publicly known actually helps to enhance people’s experiences in media and culture.
Until very recently, I refused to watch horror movies. I had a severe fear of blood, coupled with general anxiety around the horror genre, and wouldn’t watch anything that could be classified as “horror.” The suspense in these movies wound my anxiety up, becoming so extreme that when the actual kills occurred on screen I would be stressed to the point of tears. This was a struggle, because I had friends who loved picking horror movies for movie night and some of the movie trailers actually looked really fun and interesting. That’s when I discovered two things that wound up converting me into a horror movie fan: doesthedogdie.com and the Dead Meat YouTube channel.
The website doesthedogdie.com was designed to be a one-stop-shop for seeing if a piece of media had your particular trigger in it. Originally a way for people to see if a dog died in media, hence the name, it has grown to be a safe haven for those who want to enjoy media without their triggers or feel better equipped to face those triggers. After typing in the name of whatever you’re curious about, an itemized list appears with present triggers, the frequency of those triggers in the piece, and a brief description of what occurs. This was incredibly helpful for me in exploring the horror genre. By looking through the triggers of certain movies, I was able to discern what levels of violence, blood, etc. there would be in a movie and make my decision based on what I knew I could handle. I didn’t mind spoilers, because it meant that I could enjoy the movie I was watching and know when potentially triggering events would occur.
The YouTube channel Dead Meat, particularly the Kill Count series, also played a role in my learning to love horror movies. Hosted by James A. Janisse, the channel summarizes horror movies and breaks them down into how they’re made, along with presenting censored versions of the kills with relevant timestamps. This channel was a huge part of my discovery that I loved horror movies, because I learned about how the special effects and prosthetics in the movie were created. This overall made watching the movie itself less scary to me. The timestamps that James A. Janisse puts in his videos are also beneficial, because if I was still wary of something in a movie after learning about how it was made, I could skip that specific part in the movie. There is the disclaimer that watching the Kill Count shouldn’t be a substitute for actually watching the movie and I agree, but it is a good way to learn about how horror movies are made and give you a framework for when triggering events might occur onscreen.
I learned to love the horror genre through trigger warnings and research, and I think both are so incredibly important. Trigger warnings aren’t harmful, they are beneficial and protective for a person’s mental health. No one wants to go out expecting a fun movie night only to walk out in tears from a trigger in the movie that could’ve been avoided. By using trigger warnings, people can protect themselves and still enjoy their night out.