Ξ

the mastodon culture around content warnings is extremely toxic, honestly. People can have trauma triggers around just about anything, which is totally valid, but individuals cannot anticipate everyone else's possible triggers

cws are for stuff that's usually or inherently traumatic, not like, all food ever, and the dynamic that's lead to people asking for content warnings on everything is a hypercorrective one

I have trouble seeing things like Mastodon style content warnings as indicative of leftism as a whole. While common in certain places, I still see them as part of a relatively minor subculture within/overlapping with leftism. Now, I don't use mastodon anymore and I no longer really see anything like that content warning culture outside of references to mastodon or sometimes old tumblr.

Ignore them honestly. Basic life shouldn't be content warned. Echoes of Tumblr virtue bullying honestly.

I have this same feeling honestly, honestly pften having a hard time feeling like a good leftist for having some issues anticipating what to cw because almost nothing phases me abd im really bad at having basic empathy.

I want to have basic empathy though, its hard.

But at least I get to see Nazis eat shit. That's a pretty decent consolation prize.

somewhat related: its been way too long since i last saw The Gif

i get it. i was an enthusiastic masto user for a year or two starting around 2017 but i got to a point in my life where i was quite unhappy and the emotional friction of needing to studiously CW so often there felt like too much of a lift, and it put me off posting... and i drifted away.

anyway, it's been nice since to see some degree of pushback to the concept. it felt overbearing.

the last time i used masto was probably 5 years ago so i can't speak to the culture at this moment. but i think i can say it's not you, it's the culture.

Hey, same internet era! I feel you on not beloning to whatever future maybe built. For the longest time I've had people say they were unsure about me because I was too 'edgy' only for them to listen and find out it was in a socially, progressive way they were unaccustomed to. Its something I've always pegged from the general culture at the time: I'm not wanting to compare myself to George Carlin or David 'If you work in advertizing, kill yourself' Hicks, but I think a lot of us drew inspiration from how jagged we'd talk about the right back when it was called NRx and we'd be on forums arguing against them, as they advocated the bizarre unthinkable. Like bringing back slavery to establishing an american monarchy.

Its was such an environment to be in that it leaves a fingerprint, and can't say I'm surprized to the new generation that they pick-up on the rough corners. I don't think there is anything wrong with the approach 'block and move on' if people don't tag correctly, but having read and thought about what you've wrote. I worry about how if this is how they're handling things, not just at mastadon but wider, how they'll manage the coalition-building and garnering the support of allies to create effective, lasting change.

About the CWs and Mastodon, i think the overall thing that's going on is that it's becoming a default "Posts should be hidden until clicked, except for junkfood-grade posts", and the CWs are essentially becoming more of a TL;DR bit, so that you know what you're getting into if you click it, more than actual warnings about sensitive content within.

It feels more like how the tags were being used many forevers ago.

Also, a lot of people default to wanting just to scroll along and see casual distractions while something else is keeping their mind busy, not something they'll have to think about somehow.

Which isn't really the best, but blah.

But yeah, i've just been handling it as, if what i'm going to post on there is a short dumb thing that doesn't require thinking, i'll post it as-is, if not, i'll just throw a short bit as to what it's about.

Like, if this was on Mastodon, it'd probably get a CW saying "Mastodon stuff, CWs, theories as to how people operate." or something along those lines.

Nothing related to specific sensitive content within, just a "This is what it's about, click if you want." thing.

leftism isn't about making friends, it's about making societal progress. content warnings don't advance that, in my eyes.

What's hit me the most around this topic is the push I've seen from some people to CW fursuit photos with a warning for eye contact, which in furry spaces (which Masto isn't per se but one of the supposed perks of federation is that we can isolate our community) feels really awkward and ill-fitting? And really highlights IMO the move from useful CWs to a kind of hypercorrection, as it were. But then I start wondering whether I'm the bad guy for thinking that and not just going along with the flow?

I've been trying to be a good internet user and started using Masto more some months back because of everything happening around Twitter (plus killing off 3rd party apps), but I've found it to be a very joyless and almost anti-social social media experience for many reasons. It's like this nagging invisible pressure to post on eggshells which isn't the feeling I want from a casual social site. And this comment doesn't really have a point, but I saw this on my timeline and it just felt nice to see someone else has been swirling similar thoughts around this.

Yeah, I missed out on tumblr culture I'll fully admit. Maybe if I had signed up I could've been inoculated early for this shit :(

i feel like platforms should just have guidelines around what to content warning. that way the users all can agree on what to do.
at least general guidelines..

for whatever reason mastodon's cultural norms are that everything goes in the CW/subject field. there isn't really a strong culture there for "use tags for niche CWs". not sure why.

I think part of it is that people already use the subject field (this is what the underlying protocol and several fedi servers call it) as a... subject line... for long posts. if I'm writing a thousand words about cpu architectures I'll "CW" it "ash rambles about ISAs" despite the fact that I doubt there is anyone that would need that CWed, because that's the closest you can get to a readmore that will be widely respected.

ultimately i don't think it's better or worse, just different. I've seen at least one person complain about cohost's relative lack of CW culture!

in general I just CW for nsfw/gore/other common things, write subject lines for long posts, and it's fine. in four years and 60k posts i've gotten a grand total of one person who reported me (I run my own instance so I see all reports), it was vague, and I just ignored it because it was anonymous so I couldn't ask for clarification.

I just reposted this image on fedi and lost followers for it lol

Honestly, Mastodon is just worse Twitter.

yeah. on tumblr theyre the lowly anon ask but on masto theyre the Nobility