i wish i always didn’t feel like a jerk when telling people politely to not use “triggered” as a synonym for “annoyed” lol…..
the best metaphor i can come up with is it’s like “oh, i don’t like tomatoes on my sandwich, so i always tell them i’m allergic to tomato.” yes, it might not impact a lot of people immediately, but it means people start assuming ‘allergic’ means ‘don’t like’ instead of, well, ‘i will have serious health consequences to this’. and if you’re among people who use it as a synonym for ‘don’t like’, then it’s hard to see the harm within that bubble. but as soon as you get somebody thinking, “oh, they just don’t like tomato. i’ll just take these tomatoes off after i’ve put them on, it’ll be fine. they won’t notice.” to someone who really does mean that, yes, they are allergic, then you get… serious health consequences! and going to the emergency room! and epipens! and shit like that!
so the nonshithead thing is to use “don’t like” when you mean “don’t like” and “allergic” saved for when you really mean “allergic”.
however i can’t help feeling like an asshole every single time i tell people to please kindly not use “triggered” as “annoyed” 🙃