A Rant About Spoilers

[Fasckira]

I'm trying to think of the last time I tried to avoid spoilers in a show but cant recall... was definitely teenage years or earlier if at all. Even knowing the spoilers I find I'm still capable of enjoying the show/film/book/whatever though I am mindful that others don't share this same ability so I personally avoid posting things which someone could class as a spoiler.

 

[Something Amyss]

You know, I don't really care about spoilers. I rarely watch media in a first run capacity and it's borderline inevitable that things will be "spoiled" before I get to it, especially something popular like Game of Thrones (though, ironically, nobody on my Facebook has spoiled GoT this season).

Still, I don't get why people get so indignant at being asked to follow the basic "don't be a dick" concept of the internet.

Yeah, it's social media. Part of being social is considering your impact on others.

i keep thinking about Iron Man 3. I was told there was a HUGE spoiler, and managed to avoid finding out about it until I saw the movie, 3 weeks ago. If i can avoid THAT spoiler for that long, I think it's not unreasonable to think others could manage to do the same. It's all about responsible internetting.

Or luck could be a rather huge factor, and it's unreasonable to expect everyone to repeat your exact steps.

There comes a point where avoiding spoilers becomes untenable.

Or inane.

One of the big problems is that it's hard to have a set of hard rules as to exactly when it's okay to talk about something. When it passes to cliche or ubiquity, one can safely say it's not really a spoiler anymore. Dracula spent ages as basically the manual for vampire novels, and LotR is still basically the handbook for epic fantasy. Snape and Dumbledore might be a little less known, but it's certainly made its way into common knowledge.

Spoiler: Darth Vader is Luke's father. Feel free to hate me forever.

Pfffft. Like that's true. I just watched A New Hope and Obi-Wan said that Vader murdered Anakin Skywalker. Why, Vader being his father would be one of the most ridiculous and contrived twists in film!

 

[BeeGeenie]

I really do not understand the butthurt caused by so-called spoilers. Seems like an awfully 1st world problem to me.

Essentially, they're arguing for the right to be ignorant, because "ignorance is bliss."

I foresee a day when people will go on vacation like this: "What? Hawaii's got beaches?! We can Surf?! I'm so glad I didn't read the brochure before I arrived! Next week, I'll go to Greenland! I mean, it's got the word green right in the name, so it must be a tropical paradise! Don't spoil it for me though!"

Back in MY day, people used to discuss the latest TV series around the water-cooler, and if you weren't caught up, that was just your tough luck. If you want to be part of the conversation, then you need to be conversant on the subject. If you're not, that's not my fault.
Social Media is the modern water-cooler. Expect people to discuss things and stop getting so invested in your own ignorance.

I knew "Rosebud" was the sled before I watched the movie. Suck it, spoilerphobes.

BTW, I've never watched or read anything Game of Thrones related. Go ahead and tell me characters die. I think I'll get over it.

 

[Lil_Rimmy]

I really don't like people who spoil because "That X (game, movie, comic, etc.) existed for Y amount of years! It's ok to spoil it". No, it's not.

I'm sorry, but bullshit. If people are discussing something that's been out for ages they are well within their rights to mention the key plot points, especially if it's considered a "classic". I mean, am I really supposed to avoid spoiling LOTR if someone's talking to me about it? The books have been out for sixty years, the films for ten.

Hell, technically talking about Dracula as a vampire is a spoiler for the original book. There comes a point where avoiding spoilers becomes untenable.

Wha...?
Count Drac-
HE-
YOU-

YOU ARE SUCH AN IGNORANT IDIOT WHO ONLY CARES ABOUT THEMSELVES!

OT:

Yeah, if it's been a year, you can probably spoil it. I have three rules when it comes to spoilers:

1. If talking directly to someone, ask "Have you seen [INSERT] yet?". If no, don't spoil unless request, if yes, spoil the hell outta that shit. All over their face. Spoils everywhere.

2. If posting indirectly or just kind of talking about it, don't [SPOILER WARNING] unless the topic includes more than one thing to spoil. AKA = Game Of Thrones topic = SPOIL SPOIL SPOIL. Favourite Fantasy Story topic = SPOILER SPOILER TAGS.

3. If I am browsing a site, I am currently watching a show/game I know everyone will talk about and discuss and accidentally see a spoiler? My own damn fault.

This facebook post crap is retarded. When someone posts on facebook (aka NOT instant messaging) they are not talking to you. No, not even you, you special snowflake. They are merely posting something on the net. Ergo, if you read the post (and it's fairly easy to remember which day it is) it's your own damn fault. They didn't spoil it, you spoiled it by going onto the very place where people DISCUSS it.

Seriously. The moment Game of Thrones (for example) is mentioned, why keep reading?! You can live without reading that persons very important opinion for a day before watching the show. I never, EVER understand the defence "I haven't seen it yet"... THEN DON'T READ ABOUT IT!?

 

[XDSkyFreak]

Well well ... this becomes absolutely interesting. The rules of spoiling and not spoiling. IMO it's super easy: exercise some human decency. Don't go around posting statuses with plot points of an ongoing series on social media, especialy not about things that happened recently in that series (like some dipshit who a scant few hours after the red wedding episode goes and posts this wonder "Burn baby burn! Rob gets shanked along with the wolf and his stupid momy! Eat this Stark loving fools" to which i replied with a private message containing evey single plot point and death of the next books until the end of Dragons Dance (idiot was just watching the show and didn't bother with the books). Posting plot points from a show that still runs (and A Song of Ice and Fire (proper name for GoT) is an ongoing series both as books and as a TV show) is not a nice thing to do especialy since most ppl just post about the latest episode without any indication of spoilers present for those that maybe were kept busy and couldn't watch it right away. And for those of you saying I should avoid social media until I watched the episode: you are a bunch of twats. You can't ban me from social media because something prevented me to watch the show on time and i don't want to be spoiled because you are too fucking busy to write SPOILER WARNING at the top of your post or status update or whatever the fuck. And just becausen some of you dipshits go "meh i don't care if someone spoils me, why should others feel bad about spoilers" reality bitchslap: NOT ALL PEOPLE ARE INDIFERENT TO SPOILERS!
As for old things: if you are with a bunch of friends who have all seen them discus away anything. But if you are unsure about it how about asking if everyone has seen/read the subject and if people haven't, ask them if they are ok if you spoil parts of it. And be a decent human beeing and respect that person's choice. Your freedom ends where another person's freedom begins. It's my freedom to prefer not beeing spoiled about a show. IT IS NOT YOUR FREEDOM TO CASUALY THROW SPOILERS AROUND WITHOUT ANY CARE OR CONSIDERATION FOR THOSE LIKE ME USING BULLSHIT JUSTIFICATION LIKE "SOCIAL PHENOMENON" OR "POPULAR THING". Because then you are just an incosiderate douchebag and one way or another you will pay (that idiot I spoiled? fucker yelled at me and called me retarded for ruining his enjoyment of the series ... ignoring all the comments who called him an idiot for posting that spoiler when he knew most of us couldn't have seen the episode because of clases, by the time he posted it. fucking deserved it)

 

[Happiness Assassin]

6 months. That is the longest I am giving you to get acclimatized to spoilers. That is me being generous. If you haven't seen a show or something within 6 months of it coming out, then you have no right to complain about spoilers. We cant't be expected to walk on eggshells forever to accommodate your lack of initiative in catching up. There are some exceptions, such as when dealing with adapted works, such as comic book movies or something like Game of Thrones. And I would like to point out that people who go out of their way to spoil stories for people before they even have a chance to experience them are just... the worst.

 

[Sniper Team 4]

I had Captain America: The Winter Soldier spoiled for me by the newspaper. My mom told me there was an article about Agents of SHIELD in the paper. I sat down and read the first paragraph. Which was only two sentences long. The second sentence tells you what's happened to SHIELD and what happens in The Winter Soldier. I was so ticked. This was two days after the movie was released. There was no opening paragraph saying, "Reader be warned," or anything like that. The second paragraph flat out spoils a major twist in the movie.

6 months. That is the longest I am giving you to get acclimatized to spoilers. That is me being generous. If you haven't seen a show or something within 6 months of it coming out, then you have no right to complain about spoilers. We can't be expected to walk on eggshells forever to accommodate your lack of initiative in catching up. There are some exceptions, such as when dealing with adapted works, such as comic book movies or something like Game of Thrones. And I would like to point out that people who go out of their way to spoil stories for people before they even have a chance to experience them are just... the worst.

I agree with this. The other night, after seeing The Winter Soldier, my friends and I were talking about Thor and about how a certain someone is now in control of the Kingdom. My friend looked at me and said, "Thanks for spoiling it for me."
"You haven't see Thor yet? It's even out on video now!"
"Nope."
"But we just watched Captain America! What's wrong with you?"
So yeah, after a reasonable amount of time, all bets are off. Unless a person stops me and goes, "Wait, I haven't seen it yet."

 

[zelda2fanboy]

Yeah, the concept of spoilers is kind of annoying to me. If one's enjoyment of something depends on keeping one piece of information a surprise, then it's really not interesting to me. The Sixth Sense is an example of a movie people spoil all the freaking time, but it doesn't matter because it's an otherwise effective film. It's nice to be surprised sometimes, but if something is well made, then it doesn't matter if it's a shock or not. The idea of spoilers in video games would always bug me, too. It's a 30 hour interactive experience. What difference does it make if I know one or two plot points beforehand. TV is a little different because it's in smaller episodic chunks, but again, it's not what they do, it's how they do it. Unless you convey step by step, line by line the emotional journey a work of fiction offers beforehand, while coloring it with your own personal commentary, then it's not truly something that can spoil a fresh experience.

 

[zelda2fanboy]

I'm also reminded of a time when a fellow student attempted to spoil The Phantom Menace for me before it came out because he read the teen novelization. He said in P.E. one day "Qui Gon Jinn" dies. It wasn't for months after seeing the movie that I realized what that nonsense meant and how much I completely didn't care at all.

A much better example is Breaking Bad. Try to spoil the final episode of Breaking Bad for yourself with one or two sentences. You can't without having to thoroughly describe the plot of not just the whole episode, but two or three episodes preceding it. This is why I'm not really interested in Walking Dead or Game of Thrones. All I hear about is spoiler complaints, like those have nothing else to offer but clever dramatic surprises. That seems boring to me.

 

[Suave Charlie]

A much better example is Breaking Bad. Try to spoil the final episode of Breaking Bad for yourself with one or two sentences. You can't without having to thoroughly describe the plot of not just the whole episode, but two or three episodes preceding it. This is why I'm not really interested in Walking Dead or Game of Thrones. All I hear about is spoiler complaints, like those have nothing else to offer but clever dramatic surprises. That seems boring to me.

Got to disagree, it comes down to genre and the style of whatever you're watching. Things that involve mystery or intrigue are obviously more susceptible to spoilers than dramas.
In a lot of intrigue, especially political the spoiler isn't supposed to be a shocking or a "fooled you!" moment, it's typically intended to be a twist that'll make you reexamine the preceding plot under a new light.

I'm on my first reread of GoT and knowing what I know now puts a different spin on how I interpret some things in the books, noticing/recognising the foreshadowing etc.

 

[MoreThanANoob]

I see what you're saying here. A big enough plot twist, intentionally or not, is going to get people talking, and they can't be expected not to just because someone somewhere didn't see it yet. Not only is it damn near impossible, it's a ridiculous thing to ask and it kills the buzz somewhat.

At the same time, the words SPOILER WARNING take less than 5 seconds to type and less than 2 seconds to say. For example, I have no problem spoiling the end of The Usual Suspects, wherein

Spoiler

it is revealed that "Verbal" was making up the story and names as he was going along, and may or may not be Keyser Soze.

...because it's behind a spoiler tag. A spoiler tag which took less time to type than it took to open the browser. It's not unreasonable to ask for a simple spoiler warning on posts that spoil major plot points. Especially if those major plot points happened a little over a day ago.

Being vague about the spoiler is where things start to get greyer. I mean, yeah, you're not saying what happened, but vagueness is one of the best ways to make people think about something.

"Hey, why did this person put a picture of the Winter Soldier next to a picture of this other character, unless...oh my god."

There's also something I find irritating about the whole thing. I equate it to being with a few friends, but all they can talk about is how fun that party last night was, but won't say anything that happened. If you give the slightest degree of a fuck, you're either grabbing them by the lapels shouting "Shut the fuck up I wasn't there!!", or grabbing them by the lapels shouting "Just fucking say what happened already!!"

Well, that's my take on the whole thing. Tag your spoilers, and vagueness is annoying.

 

[TheMigrantSoldier]

I don't demand silence. I just wish more sites included spoiler tags. ESPECIALLY Youtube (Damn thumbnails). Until then, people should really have the sense to, at the very least, place a spoiler warning. I never had a problem with it on Facebook so I can't comment on that.

 

[Pixelspeech]

As much as I love Persona 4 I would hate to spoil any of it for anyone because everything is interconnected since it's a mystery story. Even in the SMT user group! I can class anything and everything a spoiler as well, including the soundtrack that plays during the final boss.

And be glad you do, because one of my friends actually did fuck this one up. I didn't get to play Persona 4 until I got a Playstation 2 years later and only finished it last year. I was talking about it with him and he praised a character for being a good villain assuming I was already that far into the story. Even though there is a lot more before and after the reveal, it really hurt my experience to know he would later turn out to be behind it.

Spoilers are inexcusable, contact people personally instead.

 

[ninjaRiv]

I've had this discussion in an FB group before. It all boils down to one thing: Don't be a dick.

It's good to talk about it, but posting spoilers in status updates is just shitty. If you want to promote discussion of a subject, warn in advance! Most decent people on Facebook post something like "spoilers for GoT" then leave a huge gap, so anything further is hidden from everyone else's view. Then it's your own fault if you look.

Silence is overkill, naturally. But something like what I have mentioned seems courteous, at the very least. I don't want to have to avoid the internet for ages, just because I don't have the right channel to watch GoT (I have to wait a full year for the DVD boxset. Man, I could rant about HBO's shitty shit for ages).

I mean, it's all well and good to like spoilers and to not understand why people hate them so much, but have some fucking decency... It's not hard to include a warning. It's not hard to hide the actual spoiler. In fact, arguing about it when called out on your bullshit takes more time and effort. If you post spoilers, knowing full well that people are going to be bothered about it, you're just behaving like a prick.

EDIT: As for the whole "it's been out for ages, deal with it" thing; again, don't be a dick. Ask people if they've seen/played it before you discuss it. To be fair, though, most people don't launch into the spoiler. If someone's talking about something, it's not hard to say "hold up, I haven't seen it, yet." Or just leave. Get up and leave without any explanation. Works for everything.

 

[Littaly]

Those people who think they're being clever by being "vague" are almost worse than outright spoilers too. It's not hard for a half intelligent person to deduce enough out of the information you've oh so cleverly disguised to get a grasp of the spoiler y'know. Especially if they're familiar with the genre.

So true. I honestly don't see why they couldn't just not talk about that kind of stuff on Facebook.

It still baffles me that people refer to that one event in the second-to-last episode of Game of Thrones Season 3 the way they do thinking it's not a spoiler...

Anyway, I'm that guy that people complain about when they say people are being too sensitive to spoilers. To me, it's not okay to spoil anything. Ever. Not the last episode of Game of Thrones, not the first episode of Game of Thrones, not the ending of any show regardless of when it ended, hell, I kind of prefer for people to stay quiet about the ending of Sixth Sense if possible.

To me it's just the fact that you get so comparatively little from spoiling it, but you probably ruin a whole lot for the people you end up spoiling it for. It's not that you cannot ever talk about it, just have the courtesy to give a short heads up before you do. "Hey, major plot point for X coming up, cover your ears if you don't want to hear it", it's not hard and you avoid some major damage.

Sure, social media is a little harder to censor, but you can still have some common sense about it, at least try to have some finesse and respect that not every one watches a movie or an episode of a show the minute it comes out and tell them it's their own fault for not doing so.

 

[Vrach]

so, what is your take? is it reasonable to expect people to shut down social media because you didn't watch, or is it unreasonably arrogant? okay, obviously, i asked that in a biased way, but the question is still valid.

You asked it in a remarkably biased way. So I'll give you a taste of it for yourself:
"Is it reasonable for everyone else not to view social media because you watched something the moment it was first released?"

I've actually felt this myself, as a friend posted a hinty, but very obvious status yesterday:

Spoiler: may contain Game of Thrones spoilers from the most recent episode

translated: That's right!!! You should've suffered a bit more, but never mind!!!! (all caps)

Kinda felt it spoiled it for me as it's not hard to guess what it's referring to, but dunno yet, haven't watched it still.

I'm leaning towards the whole "fuck off with the spoilers, your messages show up right when I open a page I'm likely to view on a daily basis at the very least", but what it comes down to is that Facebook needs spoiler tags of some sort.

 

[Eamar]

I don't want to have to avoid the internet for ages, just because I don't have the right channel to watch GoT (I have to wait a full year for the DVD boxset. Man, I could rant about HBO's shitty shit for ages).

Of course, you could always read the books in the meantime. Then you'd hold all the spoiler cards

To me, it's not okay to spoil anything. Ever.

Never? Did you see my Dracula example above?

Seriously, what about when stuff passes into our social consciousness as a whole? Dracula being synonymous with vampires would be one example, but there are more recent ones: "Luke, I am your father" is a classic line that's formed the basis for countless jokes/references and is pretty much a general shorthand for Star Wars as a whole. The common joke about how Sean Bean always dies, that's a whole bunch of spoilers rolled into one. In fact, a whole lot of comedy, and even the media in general, relies on a shared knowledge of certain pieces of entertainment media. Any number of literary references that occur in everyday speech, not to mention in other literature, could technically count as spoilers. Pretty much any discussion of comic book continuity is going to be unavoidably riddled with spoilers, even on such a basic level as revealing the names of major characters. (Side note: in my experience people are way less bothered about spoilers for comics than for other media. Can anyone offer an explanation?)

A genuinely spoiler-free world would be significantly poorer in my opinion, if it wasn't basically impossible.

 

[Johnny Novgorod]

To me, it's not okay to spoil anything. Ever.

Never? Did you see my Dracula example above?

Seriously, what about when stuff passes into our social consciousness as a whole?

Social consciousness is a slippery concept seeing as how we have many different societies populated by very different consciousness...es.

 

[IllumInaTIma]

I try to avoid spoilers and I understand if someone accidentally slips one, or mentions it while discussing it with someone else. However, I despise people who go out of their way to spoil something to somebody else. Like people who will just post spoiling picture from an episode without any context and attempt for discussion. They just do it for spoiling sake! It's like real life equivalent of making someone drop their books, or spilling your coke on their shirt. A lowest and pettiest of bad deeds. But they know that in real life they are going to get punched in their stupid face, so they do it online!

 

[ex275w]

I don't want to have to avoid the internet for ages, just because I don't have the right channel to watch GoT (I have to wait a full year for the DVD boxset. Man, I could rant about HBO's shitty shit for ages).

Of course, you could always read the books in the meantime. Then you'd hold all the spoiler cards

To me, it's not okay to spoil anything. Ever.

Never? Did you see my Dracula example above?

Seriously, what about when stuff passes into our social consciousness as a whole? Dracula being synonymous with vampires would be one example, but there are more recent ones: "Luke, I am your father" is a classic line that's formed the basis for countless jokes/references and is pretty much a general shorthand for Star Wars as a whole. The common joke about how Sean Bean always dies, that's a whole bunch of spoilers rolled into one. In fact, a whole lot of comedy, and even the media in general, relies on a shared knowledge of certain pieces of entertainment media. Any number of literary references that occur in everyday speech, not to mention in other literature, could technically count as spoilers. Pretty much any discussion of comic book continuity is going to be unavoidably riddled with spoilers, even on such a basic level as revealing the names of major characters. (Side note: in my experience people are way less bothered about spoilers for comics than for other media. Can anyone offer an explanation?)

A genuinely spoiler-free world would be significantly poorer in my opinion, if it wasn't basically impossible.

Comic Books tend to revive/kill/change characters so any potential "spoiler" could be rendered useless in a couple of months.

As for your point it's pretty true, I've never really seen A Christmas Carol (or remember the original version) which considering how frequently it's parodied I've had apparently ruined forever. Same with It's a wonderful life, if any of the parodies were extremely spoiler free from what they were parodying they would be much, much worse. Hell try this with any parody, if they didn't spoil anything would they still be effective parodies? I would like an example.