Fuck Trigger Warnings at the Beginning of Books!
While perusing bookstores, I am always ready to find the next book to challenge or make me remember why I’m a reader. To be offended is to remember what my limits are, but I look to be offended, too. What makes a book revolutionary is the surprise, and not telling every single plot point on the back cover. That makes me cringe, but at least that’s a short description of the book. Trigger warnings that started on college campuses to give readers a chance to not read disturbing or controversial works of art, like Toni Morrison’s Beloved or Herman Mellville’s Moby Dick, is why we have trigger warnings from major publishers. It’s really weird. And I will elaborate.
The college campus used to represent freedom of expression, and being able to voice your opinions however strange or unwanted they may be. The reason is that if you read disturbing or even controversial works of art, you become a better person.
Trigger warnings that give away crucial themes or plot points after the title page is why I can’t pretend to buy modern fiction books anymore. The reasons are numerous, but ultimately a “think of the children” vibe is given.
In the bookstore, I found a decent looking horror novel. I’m not going to blast the author, or the book, but the author’s innocuous note read: “Heads up about this book: You’re going to find marriage troubles, parental trauma, child endangerment, talk/images of infanticide, postpartum depression, suicidal ideation, bodily harm, ableism (internalized and externalized), anti-semitism (internalized and externalized), claustrophobia, some gaslighting, And a whole lotta bug stuff. There’s a character who’s a racist, sexist piece of shit.”
The idea that you need to tell some unsuspecting reader, in a horror novel, about what you will find within the book is an act of literary cowardice, and the enemy of suspense, terror, and fear, is a trigger warning. Art used to be offensive and not offer any trigger warnings, because it was profitable to offend. It was profitable to be controversial, but the enemy of free speech and creativity is a trigger warning, such as provided.
The decision to buy a book like this, and not shitting on this author, the outcome is that this isn’t unfamiliar, it’s barbarically boring and nobody should buy. Art isn’t beautiful, but it’s also ugly. And trigger warnings are as useless as the warning at the beginning of a South Park episode. It almost doesn’t mean anything to a South Park viewer, or a real reader maybe, but it’s insulting to every person’s intelligence to be warned like a child.
Art allows people to become part of the story, to read, and be surprised. It might be just my freedom of speech loving ass, but apparently the Library of America, thinks it’s a good idea, too. But in Trigger Warnings and Intellectual Freedom, Pat Peters, “trigger warnings — like labeling library materials — can lead to oversimplification of ideas or content. A warning about a graphic rape scene or suicide might brand an assigned text as being about that single issue, when the reality is that the piece is about much broader, more complex subject matter but contains difficult material (Morris, p. 374).”[1]
What makes trigger warnings more disgusting is pretending that the world wants to be coddled. It fucking doesn’t. Nobody does. If you do, you’re a child. You have no identity. You need therapy. Not a horror or fiction book. If you can’t handle Art, don’t read, watch movies, or play video games. If you need a trigger warning for everything, you probably need to follow street signs for a reason.
[1] https://www.oif.ala.org/trigger-warnings-intellectual-freedom/. Found 2.06.2024
Louis Bruno is the author of more than 21 books, including, The Michael Project, The Michael Project: Book 2: The Lost Children of Eve, Thy Kingdom Come, The Disintegrating Bloodline Part 2: Chaos, The Data Chase, The Disintegrating Bloodline part 3: Solvè, The Disintegrating Bloodline (and the original text re-released in 2019), Apocalypse Soldier, The Data Chase, Selection: The First Book of the Life and Death Saga, and Blinking Eyes: The Second Book of the Life and Death Saga, Hierarchy of Dwindling Sheep, The City of Sand, The God of Curiosity, To the Moon and Back, The Villain Lives and The Villain Lives: The Divided Pinpoint, Come Home, Young One, City of Sand: Book 1: The Holy Terror, and The Voices Are Alive, and The City of Sand: Book 2: Jerusalem Ignited. He has a Bachelor of Arts in English from University of Phoenix. His books can be found on Amazon, Barnes and Noble, Lulu. He can be found on Gab, https://gab.com/thereallouistbruno, Minds https://www.minds.com/lbruno8063/. Instagram @lbrruno8063 and @louisbrunoofficialbook. Twitter: https://twitter.com/LouisBr88881650. He has written for the Intellectual Conservative and Ephemere. His newest books, The City of Sand: Book 3: America the Free, is out now.