It's a bit hard for me to meaningfully argue on some logical, provable level that content warnings work at all. And to the best of my knowledge, studies indicate it's not at all helpful.

The reality is, I don't expect anyone to be saved by my CWs, but, I dunno, I've been thinking about this, and I think there's three main reasons why I use em. Turns out there's a response to the culture of consent/easy access reasons

https://theswaddle.com/why-usage-of-trigger-warnings-persist-despite-research-suggesting-they-might-be-counterproductive/

So, I fully admit I'm basing my reasoning off feelings here, but in my personal experience, I feel that it's the trend itself more than the individual warnings that matter.

Sometimes I'm doing badly in a way that makes me want to avoid hearing about transphobia and guns. But seeing the CWs has this effect for me, that the subject isn't *inescapable.* There's a sense of control and decision there that helps a lot.

But also, it's a distancing method, I feel. If I'm a wreck and really don't wanna hear about transphobia, and then I *see* a cw with that warning, maybe 80% of the time, I click anyway. It's a little foyer between the door and the building, so to speak.

I get this awareness of like, "okay here comes a transphobia" and it honestly feels less severe than just "oh god everywhere I look oh god"

the article also mentions how this can be ablism and ignoring people with PTSD who are harmed, but like, I've *never* seen someone say that it hurts them. Never.

I've had people ask me to *add* them, saying it hurts them to see something. So like...I'm gonna listen to em

I kind of suspect my reasoning might be flawed here. It feels a little too uh,

I don't know. It feels a little too "well the view outside MY window is different." But the basis of that argument is ignoring victims, and to follow it is to ignore victims. So like, it feels cruel to go off what I'm told is theoretically the situation vs my direct interactions

It just occurred to me that the fact that I used a CW here surely means something, but I honestly don't know what. I mean, here it functions almost as a title. It saved a lot of space, and the subject could annoy people because it's a topic that has a lot of bad faith arguers.

I dunno. I'm already rambling so I won't dissect it here

Okay, just a final thought, cause I've been asking myself: if I'm open to being convinced, what would it take to actually convince me?

And I think that would need to be research that's a lot more nuanced and displays an awareness for the different manifestations of this concept

If you say "TW Badthing
linebreaklinebreaklinebreak
badthing"

That's an incredibly different thing. Like the mental equivalent of stopping pee midstream. classy analogy