Drathnoxis said:
EternallyBored said:
I don't see why it's necessary to spoil key plot points in pop culture. Sure there are many classics that I wouldn't have experienced if they had not been repeatedly referenced in popular culture, however, my experience with those classics was definitely diminished by knowing the plots ahead of time. It's possible to make references to things in ways that do not spoil them for those that haven't seen them. I've seen plenty of references to Citizen Kane that do not give away the identity of Rosebud.
It's not necessary, but then neither is putting literally everything in spoiler tags either, your slightly lessened enjoyment of a movie that's been spoiled for you is counterbalanced by pop culture scene that thrives on common knowledge, from comedy, to literary analysis, to commercials, to common conversation. What you are proposing is a hell of a lot more than just throwing spoiler tags on a forum post.
It's really a selfish attitude. It only takes the barest amount of effort to put up a spoiler warning, and it's an enormous courtesy to those who haven't seen something for whatever reason. After all, not everybody can devote their lives to keeping up to date on the constant stream of media being released so as to experience it before society decides to ruin it for everybody else.
No, it is not the barest amount of effort, in actual mainstream media, every second of a production costs thousands upon thousands of dollars, and a spoiler warning on a television show, radio program, or movie needs to be long enough for people to change the channel or leave, that's at the bare minimum 5-10 seconds, for something like Robot chicken or other sketch comedy shows, you would need spoiler warnings for a lot of different things, enough that you would have to cut out half to a whole sketch in order to fit run times. That time also adds up, you would be dealing with several cumulative hours worth of spoiler warnings a year, just sitting there.
It's also not easy to put them in things like movies either, the Clerks movie spoils Star Wars, do they stick the spoiler warning at the beginning of the movie or before the scene, one answer makes the warning useless as most people aren't going to tune into a movie playing on T.V. from the very beginning, the later interrupts the flow of the movie.
What about a comedian that makes a pop culture joke that might spoil something? Do they halt their set to warn the audience before they tell the joke? What about commercials, a lot do pop culture parodies of famous pieces of fiction? Commercials are planned and paid for down to the second, they either need to cut their running time or pay more money to include spoiler warnings.
I can go on and on, the plots and ripples caused by popular pieces of fiction are everywhere, they can't be expunged with a few spoiler warnings.
You may think its selfish, but I consider it infinitely more selfish to expect the entirety of pop culture and human media as a whole to cater to the completely uninitiated for all works ever produced by human beings. Going into a work unspoilered is not some necessary goal we should be shooting for, putting spoiler tags on forum posts is one thing, expecting media, comedy, analysis, and basic human conversation to conform to that standard just so you can enjoy your media a little bit more strikes me as very selfish indeed.
You are the one expecting everyone else to make the effort, but you fail to explain why it should matter, why is your desire to remain unspoiled on literally everything ever worth that. I've been spoiled on plenty of things, can it suck if it was something I might have been interested in? Yeah, it can be annoying, but I find the alternative you are proposing to be far, far worse.
