I started noticing the “trigger warning” phenomenon in 2009. The weird thing is, these warnings usually precede mundane subject matter. A healthy, sane individual isn’t going to be traumatized by a photo of forest fires, or a solider. (On a related note, there’s been a few instances of American students being suspended for bringing photos of their solider fathers to school, for violating their school’s “no tolerance” weapons policies).

I’m highly-empathetic and easily driven to tears (I cried so hard during the Transformers movie, I had to step out of the threatre…) yet I find the expectations of “trigger warnings”, even for graphic subjects (like photos of war torn countries or starving children), to be, well, rude. Its a sensitive individual’s own responsibility to avoid the subject matter that traumatizes them. The news isn’t pretty, it almost certainly will hurt people’s feels – but that doesn’t mean it shouldn’t be reported.