I’m pretty disappointed with the way people are throwing the #hypnosis tag around. I’ve seen it on everything from psionic mind control to stories where the only “mind control” is the lust a hot guy inspires.
When I search using that tag, I’m looking for stories that at the very least involve a hypnotic trance state or hypnotic suggestions. I’ll give a pass to subliminals even if we don’t see the suggestions used. But the tag is nearly useless for finding stories like that, as things stand.
If I want a story with a real hypnotic induction scene, deepeners, etc., I’ll try #classic hypnotist, though I haven’t explored that thoroughly enough to see how that’s getting used.
How do you use the #hypnosis tag? Is it basically synonymous with mind control for you? How would you like to see it used?
And is there any chance at all that we can figure out some process for vetting removal of grossly inaccurate tags from stories?
Any user can edit the tags on a story unless the author has locked the tags (and most authors do not lock tags).
If the tags on a story are way off, instead of editing the tags I will drop a comment on the story indicating that the tags need work and giving examples.
Thanks, @amul. I don’t want to start messing with things until I get more of an idea what kinds of stories the community wants that tag to be used for.
To me, the #Hypnosis tag has to be used only when there is an induction that leads to a trance. Anything outside that I’d consider a different kind of Mind Control.
Examples of Hypnosis:
Look at this pendant swinging
Falling for a strong handshake
Focus on this picture / item / flame
Stare at the spiral
Look at the pattern of these lights
Listen to this endless, repetitive, soothing, monotonous speech
Examples of not Hypnosis:
Subliminals
Drugs
Psychic powers
Magic
Some of these can complement hypnosis, though (a drug could help induce the trance, for instance), but to me they’re their own kind of Mind Control.
What would need to happen is a tag that specifically means traditional hypnosis, however, #classichypnosis or #traditionalhypnosis wouldn’t work as tags, 'cause who would tag something with that? It’s irrational/counterintuitive for an individual author to see the hypnosis they’re writing as “classic” or “traditional” because it is only so in the context of non-traditional hypnosis written by other people.
It would be like a straight guy googling “cis-gendered heterosexual couple porn” rather than just “porn.”
Straight guys google “porn” and gay guys google “gay porn” The specific material gets the adjective.
As such, what would need to happen is a system of tags that help narrow down classical hypnosis stories, but feel like natural, rational tags to add along with tag’s like #hypnosis.
Stuff like “#pocketwatch” “#spiral” “#trance” “#pendulum” etc.
Of course this then means you can wind up with an ever-growing tree of 100’s of tags, some of which have clustered uses and crash against each other. What if 40% of the classical-hypnotist-writers use #pendulum, but not #pocketwatch, and another 40% use #pocketwatch but not #pendulum and the #pendulum taggers say “it’s better to use pendulum’ 'cause it also covers pocket watches” and the #pocketwatch taggers argues “come on, it’s literally the same thing, people know what they’re looking for when they use the #pocketwatch tag, and besides, in my stories, they are using a pocketwatch; I’m not changing it now, everyone knows what the tag means.”
Point being, a smart, well-chosen tag can make a tagging system infinitely better if it catches on, and in this case, what is needed is a tag that evokes classical hypnosis, but is not literally the tag: “#classicalhypnosis,” cause #classicalhypnosis is too self-contextualizing for a reader/author to naturally gravitate towards usage, without stopping and thinking “wait… what do they mean classical hypnosis? it’s just hypnosis.”
Okay, how about this… What kind of stories would you use the #classic hypnotist tag for? I’m assuming that tag represents a subset of the #hypnosis tag, and that using a #hypnosis tag would be redundant if it was already tagged #classic hypnotist.
Given the existence of both, what kinds of stories would you give the #hypnosis tag to, where #classic hypnotist wouldn’t apply?