Poll: Spoilers! What do they mean?

[dangoball]

Many fear them for the power they hold. The terror of their mere existence is enough to induce paranoia in some. They have been know to be used as tools of vengeance or means to let loose mindless malice.

I'm talking about spoilers, the narrative kind. Sorry, dieselheads.

We have all doubtless seen the rage when some GoT or TWD spoiler shows up on the internet and the unity we are capable of when it comes to not spoiling SW:TFA (btw the acronym always makes me think of Captain America: TFA).

Not even watching the shows I expressly gained knowledge of certain key events, such as
Glen is dead! Dead CAROL! DEEEAAAD!
and not having seen the new Star Wars yet, I already know great many things:
Rey is the new Jedi, Luke is in hiding and trains Rey later, Han dies and miss Chrometrooper does fuck all in the whole movie.

Yet my desire to see the movie is no lesser. I dare even say that spoilers enhance my excitement for the thing I have not seen/read yet. There are always questions like "What lead to that point? What followed? How did the characters react? How was it all executed?"
I must be a lucky man for not fearing spoilers, because I have seen how some people react to them. Hence the opening paragraph. But telling me that the 5th mile of the road is cast in gold and socketed with diamonds does not harm my experience of the journey. Because it's the journey I'm interested in, not just the end or some highlights.

So what do spoilers do to/for you?
And how do you feel about people posting spoilers, be it fully intentionally or by accident in their excitement?

 

[tippy2k2]

I hate spoilers with the passion of a thousand suns and anyone that goes out of their way to spoil things for people are the biggest of assholes that deserve the swiftest kick to their fun zone.

I know there are people who say that spoilers don't bother them or that it makes them MORE excited to see something and I envy them. A spoiler is the very quickest way to ruin my excitement for anything so much so that once I determine I'm going to see/play a piece of media, I go into blackout mode and ignore all news and trailers about said piece of media. Generally, the only thing I will do once I think I'd like to experience it is check the review for the score (without reading the review) to make sure that it's not a giant suck-bomb.

As to the million dollar question....why? Why do spoilers ruin things for me? I don't know if it's how my mind works or what but once I know something is going to happen in a movie, it's all I can think about. If I know that character X is going to die, all I'm going to do until they die is sit there and wonder "How does it happen? Is it about to happen? No, they're safe. I bet it's going to happen in the next scene. I wonder who/what kills them. Oh, I bet it's the good guy who is secretly a bad guy who kills them. Wait...never mind, I guess that guy is not a secret bad guy and is actually still a good guy. Is that a bus in the background? I bet they get hit by a bus! It all makes sense now. Seriously, why are they dragging this out, why is Character X not dead yet? It's been a solid ten minutes since the movie started, what the fuck are they waiting for?"

My thoughts are a terrifying place to be sometimes...

 

[Legion]

Spoilers are fine from an intellectual perspective (unless it's something like a murder mystery), but from an emotional one they can entirely ruin things. Knowing a character is going to be betrayed for example can lead to an interest in discovering the hows and the whys, but it also completely robs the shock and emotional impact of the scene.

Take for example the 5th Harry Potter book: The Order of the Phoenix. J.K Rowling told us a character was going to die, but provided no details. This of course leads to speculation and when several red herrings appear in the book you might wonder if that's the moment it will happen. But as there are several moments where a character could have died and the moment when it does happen comes out of nowhere, it still retains the shock that we are supposed to feel.

If on the other hand she'd said how and when it would happen, not only would the moment itself not have any impact, all of the previous moments where someone might have died would also feel flat, as we'd know they aren't going to end up with a characters death.

As for people who post them, I cannot stand people who do it intentionally and do not feel much different from people who do it accidentally in an online situation where you need to confirm what you write (like when people don't take five seconds to tag on this website).

People who accidentally let slip in a conversation on the other hand I am still going to feel annoyed with, but am not going to get irrationally angry at them.

 

[Scarim Coral]

For me it's kinda hard to say since I do intend to spoiler myself. In saying so the spoiler I look into are the stuff I don't care too much about like let say Michael Bay Transformers films or maybe I will spoiler myself with that upcoming Revenant film.

On the other hand, as soon The Force Awaken, I knew I had to watched it asap (normally I watched a winter film with my brother) so I don't get spoiler which I was right about in the end. Some ahole spoiler it on Guild Wars 2 on the LFG page.

 

[FalloutJack]

I tend to forget most spoilers when they're told to me...right up until the point where they're mentioned. Weird, huh?

 

[Sniper Team 4]

I hate spoilers if it's for something big that I'm looking forward to. I don't care if "you can see it coming" I still don't want you telling me about it. I warned all of my friends that if they spoiled anything regarding the new Star Wars, there was a very real chance I would never speak to them again.
To deliberately take away the feeling of shock, awe, horror, amazement, or pure joy from another person, knowing full well that they will never get a chance to experience that feeling for that event ever again, is disgusting to me. If I'm walking down the street and I overhear it, damn my luck and I might be ticked at the people talking, but that's life. But to have someone go out of their way to ruin something like that? That's you being the worst type of human being--one who takes pleasure in causing distress and misery in other people.

 

[Elementary - Dear Watson]

If you were to watch Soylent Green, Fight Club or Citizen Kane and the endings had been spoiled for you then you almost definitely wouldn't enjoy them as much as if you were oblivious of the twists. I feel the same for books... much of the enjoyment in film and books is finding out what happens.

That said, I for one don't really care about spoilers in TV shows. Sometimes I look up what will happen before I decide whether I will invest so much time in the series!

 

[HybridChangeling]

Spoilers are such a common thing I just expect it. Unless I am reading a book of course, people rarely spoil them. Meanwhile some movies get so ingrained in our culture you know about them years before you even are able to watch the movie. Spoilers in Soylent Green or Empire Strikes back are so iconic you probably know all about them before you know what movies they are.

 

[Bellvedere]

I love spoilers. It annoys me when I can't find spoilers for something. I'm one of those people that looks up what happens in a movie or tv show before watching it. Then I can play my 3DS whilst watching the show which is just one big productivity win. Books I always read ahead too, just to see how far I am from a "good bit" - also I read the end first to make sure it's worth reading the whole book for.

Sometimes I feel that the experience may have been slightly better if it was a surprise. In those instances I get my partner to watch it to see how surprising it is in context.

 

[SmallHatLogan]

If it's a big plot twist or a murder mystery then spoilers can definitely put a damper on things. For example the big moment in Bioshock was one of those "holy shit" moments for me which would have had a lot less impact had it been spoiled. I guess it had been partially spoiled because I knew there was a plot twist, but that's not quite the same as spoiling the twist itself.

Apart from more serious plot points like that spoilers don't really bother me. Usually if something is spoiled I feel disappointed for a couple of minutes then I get over it.

There were a couple of times in the Danganronpa series when spoilers/partial spoilers ended up working as kind of a red herring for me due to the way events played out and kind of made things more entertaining. It's not something I'd bank on though. I'm not going to go searching for spoilers in the hope of repeating those circumstances. (By the way, if you're planning on playing the Danganronpa games, don't google anything about the game. Character pictures, voice actors, don't do it. You will end up spoiling something for yourself.)

 

[Grouchy Imp_v1legacy]

The thing with spoilers is that for the tiny, tiny amount of effort it takes to put up (spoiler)(/spoiler) tags a huge amount of frustration can potentially be saved. It takes me hardly any extra effort to spoiler tag the plot of Fallout 2, and although some may say that the game is fifteen years old and therefore doesn't need spoilers anymore I hold that just because the game is old to me it doesn't mean it's old to someone who, for example, was new to the franchise with F4 and has decided to purchase the back catalogue.

TL;DR - For the minuscule amount of effort spoiler tags take, why not use them for any and all plot twists?

 

[Kyrian007]

TL;DR - For the minuscule amount of effort spoiler tags take, why not use them for any and all plot twists?

Exactly. Most online sites make it nearly effortless to put on a spoiler tag, so there's no other reasons for actually posting spoilers. Someone who posts spoilers is either just an oblivious, selfish, ignorant, prick... or is intentionally being an asshole and doesn't care who or how many people he's being an asshole to.

Also, there is no such thing as an "expiration date" for spoilers. Again its so effortless to be a decent human being and avoid them there's no valid reason for an "expiration date." You never know, someone may never have finished season 8 of the X-Files, may not know about the end of Twin Peaks, may not have read the Iliad. It's NEVER appropriate and anyone who would offer up any exception... is part of the problem.