Lmao youâre an adult, you shouldnât be using the word squick. Use trigger. Use your grown up adult words to explain how you feel instead of leaning on a cutesy uwu term that no one outside of tumblr uses. Itâs embarrassing.
Idek if this is serious or ironic honestly
#like...why use this baby word when you can just say how you feel about it
Found this in the original post tags and I just... SIGH
Hereâs the thing, anon. Squick isnât just âI donât like thisâ, itâs âI think this is gross and it makes me deeply uncomfortable but I pass no judgement on those who enjoy it, because I acknowledge that everyone is different and those same people may have the same visceral reaction some of the things I enjoyâ and was originally made popular in the kink community.
So yeah, if you want to say that every time you come across a trope or whatever you find icky then go ahead, say that every time.
Also, this term dates back to Usenet in the early nineties, so sure, go off.
This frustrates me so much because squicks and triggers are fundamentally different things and as someone with PTSD, the distinction is super useful!
Squicks are things I find personally gross but may not be gross to someone else. They donât upset me or provoke my PTSD, they simply do not pop my corn. Example: Omegaverse. I donât like it, it makes me uncomfortable and Iâm not going to read it, but if you like it, you do you.
Triggers are things which directly provoke my PTSD. This means that my triggers may seem completely normal and innocuous to someone else, because my triggers are so personal and intrinsically linked to a specific event in my life. My reactions to these triggers can include panic attacks and flashbacks to this traumatic event. Sometimes being triggered can affect me for several hours or even days.
Describing something as either a squick or a trigger allows me easily establish the difference in my potential reaction to something without having to go into painful detail about why bodily fluids might make me back button quickly but poker games might leave me a crying wreck.Â
Making this distinction, and having a specific word for something that is not your slice of pie, but also not an actual psychological trigger, is also REALLY important for making sure that the word âtriggerâ can retain its original, specific, purposeful, and collectively understood clinical meaning (both inside and outside online fannish communities).
If we encourage everyone to lump things that just make them slightly uncomfortable or simply arenât to their taste in under the word âtriggerâ, it actually dilutes the meaning of the word. It makes it harder for us all to, for the most part, collectively agree on and understand what exactly is being described when the word gets used.
And that destruction of shared precise definitions is a problem! It is really useful to have the communal language to be able to clearly and quickly delineate between âthis grosses me out, no thanksâ and âthis is going to set off a trauma episode, rattle my brain, and probably throw off the rest of my day/week as a resultâ while also maintaining your privacy, and to know that you will be understood in what you are saying. Not having it is actually detrimental to the effort of making our communities safe and navigable for people living with trauma. Which is a goal that is much more important to me, personally, than the idea of not being âcutesyâ (a word which in this case which sounds a lot like itâs being used as a euphemism for âcringeâ).
(Also, one has to wonder if people told Shakespeare he was being childish when he made up entirely new words that are still widely used in the English language today...... đ€)
My understanding is that âsquickâ was also created to avoid using more judgmental terms like âgrossâ or âdisturbingâ--like yeah, I do find X kink gross or disturbing, but thatâs my personal feeling, not an objective fact about the world, and if Iâm explaining to my friend who is super into X that Iâd prefer they leave it out of the story theyâre writing me in the fic exchange, I want to use politer language!
âSquickâ does sound silly, like onomatopoeia, but I think thatâs part of its role--itâs a word that defuses if, again, youâre saying something squicks you in front of an audience that may include its connoisseurs. When I say Iâm squicked, Iâm clearly not getting onto a high horse of dignity and moral righteousness. At the same time Iâm not being so indirect for the sake of politeness--âoh, itâs not my favorite thing, Iâm not sure it works for me, I havenât found a fic about it that clicks for meâ--that someone could misunderstand how much I do not want to see it.
And, to reiterate, it is a grown up word made by grown up nerds in the 90s so if you think it was somehow born on and limited to Tumblr I'm going to need you to actually do some fandom history research before you ever speak authoritatively again about anything fandom-related or adjacent.
I love and deeply miss the term âsquickâ and really want to see it brought back. It allows dislike for its own sake and without judgement. Itâs polite, gentle, and has an air of âyou do you.â A squick is not a trigger. Triggers are related to trauma. Youâre allowed to not like things and not have them related to anything other than just finding them unpleasant. And that aversion can be strong! Thatâs okay! I really donât like watersports. Like, gag-reflex levels of aversion, but itâs not triggering. I just really donât like it. I feel like weâve lost the right/ability to just... quietly not like things and move on with our lives. Not everything is for everyone, and you donât need a reason to not like something. Just politely and quietly excuse yourself. No need to draw attention, and if someone asks you why you just say, âNo, it squicks me out.â No judgement. No narrative necessary.Â
There is a sad trend of trying to make everything you personally dislike morally reprehensible in some way to justify your dislike of it. You're allowed to just not like something for no real reason. You do not have to justify why you dislike something, and the word "squick" is perfect for that. It say "look I really really don't like this thing, but it's ok if you do" and that is useful.
I think the biggest problem is that a lot of these kids are VERY into the whole fandom purity culture thing, so they actually DO want to make it out to be morally reprehensible, and they DON'T think it's ok that other ppl might be into it.
Cheerfully using âsquickâ since 1992, because it means a specific thing and other words do not mean that thing.
