What is triggering content?

We talk a lot about how antis don’t seem to understand that the things that make them upset are comforting to some people, and the things that are comforting to them are upsetting and traumatic to some people.

We also talk about how it’s okay to block anyone for any reason.

Yesterday we had to block someone who was a frequent poster in one of our favorite fandom tags.

This person was not doing ANYTHING wrong by posting their content. It was all correctly tagged and 100% legal, and allowed by tumblr’s TOS.

But their posts were extremely triggering to Toko, to the point where he was getting extremely upset any time we’d see their content in the tag, which was frequently.

What were they posting?

Posts about loving, happy, normal nuclear families. Posts about pregnancy, and babies, and being excited to be a mother. Posts about being the mother of small children.

Totally normal, twee, cutesy, heteronormative comfortable family and romantic posts.

And they had Toko on the verge of a breakdown due to his own trauma. Seeing that particular kind of content, over and over again, specifically for certain characters was extremely triggering for him. Made him feel nauseous, anxious, upset, and genuinely unsafe.

So we blocked that person.

They were not doing anything wrong.

You NEVER know what kind of content is going to be upsetting or triggering for someone. What is extremely wholesome content to you might be extremely repellent and upsetting, and triggering to another person.

Just because you are uncomfortable with one type of content doesn’t mean someone else is.

One person might be triggered by violent, sexual, aggressive or strange content, and another person, like us, like Toko, might find that same content comforting and safe.

Another person might be triggered by what you think is wholesome.

Please think about that before you try to tell people what kind of content they are or aren’t allowed to post according to you.