WORKFORCE
campusreview.com.au
Content note:
trigger warnings within
A debate rages in the US over whether
content notes empower the disenfranchised
or just coddle students.
By Patrick Avenell
I
n an early episode of the fourth season
of Lena Dunham’s hipster HBO comedy
Girls, the auteur’s character, Hannah, is
about to read a short story composition
to her classmates in a creative writing
workshop. It’s an intimate group. Hannah is
at the head of the table; sitting around it are
the professor and 10–12 students. The other
participants in the class were given a copy of
the story earlier and were supposed to have
read it already. This will be the first time the
class hears the author read it aloud to them.
But instead of launching straight in,
Hannah provides a content note: “OK, so
I just wanted to say that I know you’ve all
read the story in the privacy of your own
homes, but hearing me read it aloud here
today may bring up some of the more
triggering aspects of the piece, so I just
want you to feel free to quietly leave the
room or express your emotional reaction in
any way that feels safe, even if that is kind of
a darker expression.”
It is a crude, self-parodying note; it’s
meant to be a humorous satire on the
encroaching creep of these types of
indicators – originally called ‘trigger
warnings’, until that cognomen started
acting as a trigger so they became ‘content
warnings, before the euphemism treadmill
stopped at ‘content note’ 8