Discussion: Spoilers and Spoiling Others

December 18, 2015     erinbook     Discussion, Feature, Uncategorized

 
Spoilers and Spoiling
 
 
*sigh*
Why must people be a bag of dicks? Last night my fiancee was hanging out on Facebook, you know like you do, and one of his friends posted a photo from a rather integral part of the new Star Wars film. Needless to say he has been in a foul mood ever since.
And can you really blame him? This is something he has been looking forward to for over a year now and he just had a very important part ruined for him. What possesses someone to post a picture, a video, or a comment that will ruin something that’s supposed to be a joyful experience? Is it that they want people to feel crushing disappointment of not having the full experience themselves? Or is it that they feel a driving need to talk about it, regardless of the feelings of others?
There are a few different kinds of people who spoil things.
1. The troll spoiler- this person doesn’t care about your feelings. They enjoy ruining everyone’s fun for their own pleasure, purposely seeking out people who haven’t seen whatever it is that they want to spoil and crushing their enthusiasm.
2. The stupid spoiler- a jerk who doesn’t think about others and posts whatever they feel like. This guy is just oblivious to people around him and will casually drop a spoiler into random conversation.
3. The accidental spoiler- this person usually isn’t intending to be an asshole. Oftentimes they’re so excited about something they loved that they just assume everyone has already seen or read the thing. They don’t mean to spoil you, they’re just passionate.
4. The news spoiler- news sites and articles that think spoilers are the equivalent to news drive me up a wall. If you read an article that’s going to give away the ending to whatever their reporting about, why would that be a good thing for the product?
5. The fake spoiler- I’m not talking about goofy, obvious fake spoilers. I’m talking about people who come up with really detailed and elaborate spoilers, make you think they spoiled you, only to find out that none of what they said was actually true. It’s one of the crappiest feelings.
Getting spoiled never feels good. You may feel like they’ve taken the wind out of your sails. You may feel your enthusiasm draining as you realize that the whole experience will now be different. Now you will sit there as you’re reading and watching, anticipating the thing you were told rather than enjoying to ride. It’s a crappy thing to do to someone.
If you’re excited, find people you KNOW have already seen/read the thing. Talk about it where everyone else won’t have to see it. Put spoiler warnings on posts, hide your spoilers, do whatever you can not to taint the experience for someone else.
You don’t want to be spoiled, so why would you do it to someone else?
How do you feel about spoilers? Tell us about your spoiler experiences. Share in the comments.
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5 responses to “Discussion: Spoilers and Spoiling Others

  1. I got the ending of Allegiant spoiled for me. I was perusing Instagram and one of the immediately viewable comments on one of Veronica Roth's pictures of like a dog or something was the big fat spoiler. I wanted to fill a pillowcase with bars of soap and beat the crap out of the person with it! I think that if something JUST came out, anything you say about it should be as vague as humanly possible. That's UNCOOL!

    • erinthebooknut

      I’m quite partial to it as a description of people being jerks. I think I picked it up from Wil Wheaton and Chris Hardwick

  2. Ugh, I haaaate spoilers so much! It’s why I rarely read reviews anymore. Oftentimes, people are accidental spoilers who don’t know when they’re giving too much away and they don’t tag them! BUT then there are the trolls and the assholes on Twitter who ended up spoiling the two big titles of the year — Queen of Shadows and Winter. Luckily I follow the best people and didn’t see anything. But that was DELIBERATE and a rude move on their parts. I get if you don’t know if you’re spoiling something (if you can’t figure it out, might be best to be safe and tag a spoiler). And I know some people just don’t think about these things when they’re chatting with friends on Twitter (like casually dropping which “team” wins in a love triangle in a series). It’s super hard to stay away from spoilers. It’s even harder to be excited about a book or series when you hear it talked about all the time. I feel like I know so much of what happens in the Throne of Glass series by how people talk about it, and it honestly doesn’t make me want to really read the books (I’ve read ToG though, just haven’t continued it). But yeah, anyway, if you’re deliberately spoiling because you’re just a dick, then you’re the worst type of troll. Most of the time, though, I find that people just don’t know how to define a spoiler, and so, accidentally ruin things for people. It still sucks, though…

    Great post, Erin!

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