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I keep going over the warnings issue, because there have been a lot of great points made in this and past debates about its value. I think it is definitely a good discussion to have, and avoiding harm is definitely something we should all strive for. And I want to say before I continue this that I absolutely respect a lot of what's been said and am taking it on board.
So, I'm trying to work out what my own policy should be for my vids and it settles on a blanket 'choose not to warn'. Which, it isn't functionally different than what I already do, but I gotta say in terms of some (not all) of the rhetoric used in these debates it sure doesn't feel value neutral. It is so easy, I'm told. Takes five minutes! Don't you want to take five minutes and do something easy to stop hurting people? The bit where it is 'okay' to use CNTW is often sorta...tacked on as 'if you must'.
Well, no, I don't want to hurt people but it is neither easy or simple for me. And that undercurrent to the debate, it really does make me feel like something is wrong with me that it isn't. That in saying 'choose not to warn' I'm deliberately and actively telling people (some of whom I care about deeply and/or respect a lot on a personal level, not just a theoretical audience level), well I don't care if you can't watch my vids because I just can't be bothered.
Except I do. I just want there to be vids to watch in the first place, and the anxiety involved in anticipating what could cause problems feeds right into the way my brain hooks on to negatively obsessive thought patterns. The number one thing that can (and has in the past) utterly shut down my creative process all together. Something I honestly didn't even realize was going to be an issue with regards to me and warnings until I tried to hash out a personal policy for my own vids. In part because I'd internalized 'It is so EASY. So SIMPLE.'
And it should be, right? Most of what I make and probably will make in the future is safe as kittens (sometimes literally). Except when it isn't, and suddenly we're taking a left turn in Eunice's brain to war zones and dead pets and suicide and nightmares, and where did that axe to the head come from? I need my happy kitten glitter balloons, but I also have shit I need to work out, y'all. And, okay, so just leave the kittens unlabeled and presumed safe and CNTW the stuff that isn't so much. Except, in things I have learned this last two weeks, even the kittens can't be presumed safe because what if I cut too fast or include too many flashing lights or don't realize just how much that camera shakes? Yeah. And even if I could work past the anxiety to warn properly, what if I get it wrong? I sincerely can't even deal with that. Blanket choose not to warn on everything is pretty much my only option that I can both accurately convey that even though it is mostly kittens, sometimes there be bears here...and continue to create. I don't have any issue at all in answering direct questions about 'hey, does that vid have this kind of bear?' on a one to one basis because that is nice and concrete and specific, all things my brain loves. Anticipating same before hand? Wide open to the kind of 'but what if, and then what if, and then what if' that will freeze me so fast you could display me as a statue.
If I'm gonna vid at all, that just isn't a place I can go in my head while I'm doing it (and yes, even though the evaluation supposedly happens after, if I know it is coming I very much will be thinking about it during). Maybe that means I shouldn't be making vids at all, or at least not releasing them, that I am too selfish about my process. I don't know. But if CNTW really is value neutral, then it needs to stop being the thing that gets added on as an afterthought in these discussions with a dismissive 'oh, but no one cares if you CNTW' right after you've just said warning is an easy way to not hurt people. It isn't what's being asked for that kinda makes me want to crawl under the couch and cry once I tried to apply it, it is how it is sometimes framed.
So, yeah. Um. Shit. I'm gonna post this now.
So, I'm trying to work out what my own policy should be for my vids and it settles on a blanket 'choose not to warn'. Which, it isn't functionally different than what I already do, but I gotta say in terms of some (not all) of the rhetoric used in these debates it sure doesn't feel value neutral. It is so easy, I'm told. Takes five minutes! Don't you want to take five minutes and do something easy to stop hurting people? The bit where it is 'okay' to use CNTW is often sorta...tacked on as 'if you must'.
Well, no, I don't want to hurt people but it is neither easy or simple for me. And that undercurrent to the debate, it really does make me feel like something is wrong with me that it isn't. That in saying 'choose not to warn' I'm deliberately and actively telling people (some of whom I care about deeply and/or respect a lot on a personal level, not just a theoretical audience level), well I don't care if you can't watch my vids because I just can't be bothered.
Except I do. I just want there to be vids to watch in the first place, and the anxiety involved in anticipating what could cause problems feeds right into the way my brain hooks on to negatively obsessive thought patterns. The number one thing that can (and has in the past) utterly shut down my creative process all together. Something I honestly didn't even realize was going to be an issue with regards to me and warnings until I tried to hash out a personal policy for my own vids. In part because I'd internalized 'It is so EASY. So SIMPLE.'
And it should be, right? Most of what I make and probably will make in the future is safe as kittens (sometimes literally). Except when it isn't, and suddenly we're taking a left turn in Eunice's brain to war zones and dead pets and suicide and nightmares, and where did that axe to the head come from? I need my happy kitten glitter balloons, but I also have shit I need to work out, y'all. And, okay, so just leave the kittens unlabeled and presumed safe and CNTW the stuff that isn't so much. Except, in things I have learned this last two weeks, even the kittens can't be presumed safe because what if I cut too fast or include too many flashing lights or don't realize just how much that camera shakes? Yeah. And even if I could work past the anxiety to warn properly, what if I get it wrong? I sincerely can't even deal with that. Blanket choose not to warn on everything is pretty much my only option that I can both accurately convey that even though it is mostly kittens, sometimes there be bears here...and continue to create. I don't have any issue at all in answering direct questions about 'hey, does that vid have this kind of bear?' on a one to one basis because that is nice and concrete and specific, all things my brain loves. Anticipating same before hand? Wide open to the kind of 'but what if, and then what if, and then what if' that will freeze me so fast you could display me as a statue.
If I'm gonna vid at all, that just isn't a place I can go in my head while I'm doing it (and yes, even though the evaluation supposedly happens after, if I know it is coming I very much will be thinking about it during). Maybe that means I shouldn't be making vids at all, or at least not releasing them, that I am too selfish about my process. I don't know. But if CNTW really is value neutral, then it needs to stop being the thing that gets added on as an afterthought in these discussions with a dismissive 'oh, but no one cares if you CNTW' right after you've just said warning is an easy way to not hurt people. It isn't what's being asked for that kinda makes me want to crawl under the couch and cry once I tried to apply it, it is how it is sometimes framed.
So, yeah. Um. Shit. I'm gonna post this now.
From:
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But, just for the record, I don't think that CNTW makes anyone any kind of bad person, and I often smile and nod when I see it used - because I know the person who wrote it is providing as much information as they are comfortable providing or specifying, and have taken the time to figure that out, and that to me IS really different than not saying anything at all.
From:
no subject
I do think a lot of it is crossed wires, and language in general being kinda tricky. And also in this round there is a bit of assumption that things implied or shorthanded based on the previous warnings debate with fic will be understood, or understood to mean the same thing with regards to vids. Which leads to a bit of, I dunno, impatience? Like, didn't we go over this already when for a lot of people, we didn't and I think that leads to a certain amount of defensiveness as well.
Vidding is a different medium with different aspects to it (as evidenced by the physical triggers for flashy lights and such), and a related but different culture with a different history on these issues. And though there is crossover, there are many vidders who aren't particularly involved with fic or the meta discussions surrounding it, and why should they be? I don't expect people whose primary fannish involvement is fic to know the details of the Nummy Treat schism or the nuances of the issues involved, or how they might apply to fic, ya know?
Which is an entirely different tangent, and now I am rambling.