Hacker News Reader

Comment by vesche | Hacker News Reader

Not even clicking on this article because I know it's about trypophobia and I'm afraid of seeing the pictures!

I had the exact same reaction but clicked it anyways. I really appreciated them not doing that. All the past articles I've read always included an image -- I can't help but feel the author/editors thought it would be funny or are being dismissive of this fear/aversion. For me it is also triggered by the sight of sick fishes when their scales are puffed up. Images of large numbers of holes triggers a strong fight or flight reaction in me.

There actually are no triggering images. I guess they want trypophobics to be able to read it.

Pretty few would take the risk, I bet. It's an interesting problem- we have "trigger warnings" and "content warnings" but not "content all-clears."

I have seen SFW used in that regard.

I'm actually surprised accessibility movements haven't standardized an HTML tag or a meta attribute that specifies that the site has certain phobia-inducing images. It would allow people with certain phobias to avoid seeing such images (e.g. images could be auto-blanked, text blurred).

Yikes, the real horror is always in the comments.

Not even joking here, I got triggered by the "mosaic newsletter" animation half way through the article and I had to close the article. That's how strong my trypophobia is. Heck, even the word "trypophobia" is a trigger for me.

Ummm, just don't click any of the links in the article though.

I wonder can't you see the picture is just a picture? In a way as when you watch a movie where people die or something you realize it's just a movie, right?

I think it's not really about the rational/analyzing part of the brain being involved here.

A lot of phobias have "involuntary" reactions, so, for me, it doesn't matter that I know the picture can't hurt me- I still get the negative reaction to it every time and no amount of rational thinking or understanding has any effect.

It's something more primal than that.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com