as small as a world and as large as alone, hiereia: situation: you do not know if a gif is...

8:29pm July 28, 2012

situation: you do not know if a gif is abrupt or strobing enough to possibly trigger a seizure in someone. your options (and the consequences of them) are as follows:

tag it

just ignore it and figure it’s all fine

the consequences of option 1:

someone may potentially miss a nice gif. oh well, it’s not that big of a deal

the consequences of option 2:

YOU COULD GIVE SOMEONE A GODDAMN SEIZURE

it is always, always better to err on the side of caution with this, folks. it really is a lot nicer to be a little overcautious rather than not cautious enough.

And this is why I tag all animated GIFs with epilepsy warning and seizure warning.

Especially because I’ve found even when the GIF itself isn’t flashing, often in the course of loading onto my screen it will do weird flashy things.

So I’ve always figured missing a GIF is way way way better than having a seizure.

Especially given I’m epileptic myself and know that even a mild seizure can fuck you up all week, and a severe one can kill you.

And since I have severe migraines (think I have migraines every single day ever) that can be triggered by the same flashy stuff that triggers seizures for some people. And for some people a migraine is a rare but horrible event. Which is bad enough.

For me, they’re something that I constantly have to modify my entire environment around, to keep the severity level under 5 or 6 on a 1-to-10 scale, every single day. And if they become too intense, they can interact with other conditions I have, to do little things like induce severe dehydration. Or make me too weak to get to the bathroom. Or give me weeks of being nauseated every time I see any light st all, despite very little pain.

And if I have one bad enough one, I can get stuck in a loop where I have more and more. Which can leave me with weeks and weeks of not getting really important stuff done because whenever someone is here to help me do it, I’m curled up in a ball under a pile of blankets. Despite having learned to more or less function through migraines that would put a lot of people in that state.

And seizures can put people into that exact same sort of position. (Not to mention seizures can trigger migraines and migraines can trigger seizures.) And both seizures and migraines can lead to the loss of abilities a person normally has, in a huge range of areas, both before, during, and after, for long periods of time. Your flashy GIF may leave someone unable to talk, understand speech, move in certain ways, think straight, or plenty of other things. Which in addition to screwing up your day, can lead to inability to do your job, which if it happens too often can lead to losing your job, and I shouldn’t have to tell you what that means in this economy.

So putting epilepsy warning on things that flash, and anything you’re not sure about, is essential. And not just for people with epilepsy. People with any condition that’s sensitive to flashing light benefit from this. And the consequences of not doing so can range from completely fucking up someone’s day, to death. There’s a reason that knowingly exposing epileptic people to flashing lights has been prosecuted in some places as assault with a deadly weapon. So don’t.

And don’t tell us to just stay off the Internet then. I’m unable to speak, and I live pretty much my entire life in bed right now due to various physical conditions. (I get up to go to the bathroom, and even that’s often pushing it. When I go out, it’s in a wheelchair that tilts me back. And that’s mostly to medical appointments.) The Internet is literally my entire social life, I can’t just call people on the phone or something. I’m not asking anyone to feel sorry for me, just don’t suggest that the Internet is just a luxury I should do without.

It’s not very hard, especially for a nondisabled person, to tag with seizure warning, epilepsy warning, or both. And if it is too hard for you? Just don’t post the animated GIF in question, until it’s easy for you to tag it again. That’s even easier than tagging it. And if you’re not sure, tag it. That’s what I do, and I haven’t heard any complaints.

Notes: