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If You Need a Content Warning, Maybe It’s Time For You To Quit Reading

This nonsense has gotten totally out of hand

Paul Combs
4 min readJul 26, 2021
Photo by Ryan Snaadt on Unsplash

Content warning: This rant contains language some will find offensive and ideas others will disagree with. Get the fuck over it.

Normally I do my ranting on Sunday mornings; as I’ve written before, for whatever reason this seems to be when I am at my angriest, so it works out well. Yesterday I was, for whatever reason, not angry, so I posted my seven favorite articles from this month instead. I looked forward to a rant-free zone for the next week.

The universe, or at least the internet, had other ideas.

Scrolling through my Monday morning feed, a combination of Medium writers and non-Medium websites, I came across a post from Book Riot titled “What Are the Fastest Selling Books in US Publishing History.” Being a writer, book lover, and former bookseller this is right in my wheelhouse. So imagine my surprise when the article led off with one of those now-ubiquitous content warnings.

Look, on one level I get it. I have friends who write fiction many would consider “disturbing,” and they will occasionally put a content warning at the start of a story. Given that these stories almost always fall into the horror genre, I would think disturbing was implied…

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Paul Combs
Paul Combs

Written by Paul Combs

Writer, bookseller, would-be roadie for the E Street Band. My ultimate goal is to make books as popular in Texas as high school football...it may take a while.

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