Spoiler Alert!: It's about spoilers
April 28, 2019 3:10 PM Subscribe
"Why are the movies and TV shows we most worry will be spoiled for us always the most predictable ones?"
The studios didn’t begin this movement (it was organically grown by fans), but they’ve certainly fanned its flames, because it solved a lot of their problems. Anxiety around spoilers played into an inherent belief many of us have that a virgin viewing experience is preferable; it gave filmmakers and showrunners a drum to beat about preserving their surprises; and it gave studios another way to subtly insinuate that you should see that movie or TV show right now.
I thought Alfred Hitchcock started the no spoilers thing when he demanded proscribed screening beginning times for Psycho and didn't he even include a "don't tell the ending" sort of promo about Psycho?
Oh yeah, he did. He totally did.
posted by hippybear at 3:29 PM on April 28, 2019 [14 favorites]
Oh yeah, he did. He totally did.
posted by hippybear at 3:29 PM on April 28, 2019 [14 favorites]
Literally the first thing my friend and his dumb little brother said the first time they saw me after they saw The Empire Strikes Back was "DARTH VADER IS LUKE'S FATHER!" and I've never forgiven them.
Don't spoil things.
posted by bondcliff at 3:32 PM on April 28, 2019 [30 favorites]
Don't spoil things.
posted by bondcliff at 3:32 PM on April 28, 2019 [30 favorites]
Well, Psycho (1960) can't have been the first. Les Diaboliques, 1955:
The end credit contains an early example of an "anti-spoiler message."[16]
Ne soyez pas DIABOLIQUES! Ne détruisez pas l'intérêt que pourraient prendre vos amis à ce film. Ne leur racontez pas ce que vous avez vu. Merci pour eux. (Don't be DEVILS! Don't destroy the interest that your friends might have in this movie. Don't tell them what you saw. Thank you, for them.)[16][17]
spoilers at Wikipedia link, I guess I should say
posted by thelonius at 3:33 PM on April 28, 2019 [11 favorites]
The end credit contains an early example of an "anti-spoiler message."[16]
Ne soyez pas DIABOLIQUES! Ne détruisez pas l'intérêt que pourraient prendre vos amis à ce film. Ne leur racontez pas ce que vous avez vu. Merci pour eux. (Don't be DEVILS! Don't destroy the interest that your friends might have in this movie. Don't tell them what you saw. Thank you, for them.)[16][17]
spoilers at Wikipedia link, I guess I should say
posted by thelonius at 3:33 PM on April 28, 2019 [11 favorites]
...you end up with something like the production of Endgame, where Brie Larson has no idea what she’s doing or who she’s talking to.How good is the acting in this film?
posted by clawsoon at 3:34 PM on April 28, 2019 [8 favorites]
Although I conform to the "no spoilers!" culture, I sure don't like it. Because the demand for "no spoilers!" is unrelenting.
Six months from now, there will still be people demanding "no spoilers!" about Endgame. There are demands for "no spoilers!" about books that were published a decade ago.
Endgame, for example, was an enjoyable, if overly long action epic, and it ends on a very emotional note (someone was literally loudly weeping a couple of rows behind us at the end when a major character [redacted redacted redacted].
But the plot device or macguffin that underpins the resolution of Endgame is so ridiculously convoluted, contradictory and illogical that I can't help but wonder why the "no spoilers!" crowd takes this stuff so seriously.
It's a formulaic movie. We know what will happen as soon as we set foot in the theater.
posted by JamesBay at 3:41 PM on April 28, 2019 [12 favorites]
Six months from now, there will still be people demanding "no spoilers!" about Endgame. There are demands for "no spoilers!" about books that were published a decade ago.
Endgame, for example, was an enjoyable, if overly long action epic, and it ends on a very emotional note (someone was literally loudly weeping a couple of rows behind us at the end when a major character [redacted redacted redacted].
But the plot device or macguffin that underpins the resolution of Endgame is so ridiculously convoluted, contradictory and illogical that I can't help but wonder why the "no spoilers!" crowd takes this stuff so seriously.
It's a formulaic movie. We know what will happen as soon as we set foot in the theater.
posted by JamesBay at 3:41 PM on April 28, 2019 [12 favorites]
How good is the acting in this film?
I thought this installment had the best acting of any of the movies, particularly Chris Hemsworth and Martin Downey Jr.
Brie Larson, not so much, but I cannot elaborate as to why I think this is because... no spoilers!
posted by JamesBay at 3:42 PM on April 28, 2019 [2 favorites]
I thought this installment had the best acting of any of the movies, particularly Chris Hemsworth and Martin Downey Jr.
Brie Larson, not so much, but I cannot elaborate as to why I think this is because... no spoilers!
posted by JamesBay at 3:42 PM on April 28, 2019 [2 favorites]
We know what will happen as soon as we set foot in the theater.
We used to have to suspend disbelief with regard to the special effects. Now we have to suspend disbelief with regard to how surprising the plot is.
posted by clawsoon at 3:44 PM on April 28, 2019 [15 favorites]
We used to have to suspend disbelief with regard to the special effects. Now we have to suspend disbelief with regard to how surprising the plot is.
posted by clawsoon at 3:44 PM on April 28, 2019 [15 favorites]
There was one time I could've really used some spoilers: Some older family members asked me for a movie recommendation. I hadn't watched many movies, but I mentioned that I had read a positive review of The Crying Game.
posted by clawsoon at 3:50 PM on April 28, 2019 [19 favorites]
posted by clawsoon at 3:50 PM on April 28, 2019 [19 favorites]
I think part of the problem is the distinction between a spoiler as a thing that exists and spoiling somebody as an act of bullying or abuse, which is super-popular. When somebody wants the experience of seeing a movie or reading a book or whathaveyou without knowing the ending, and you take it from them, you're being an asshole. You're causing them discomfort because it feels good to hurt them. Sure, it's over something frivolous, but a lot of bullying behavior uses something frivolous. It's not about the excuse for bullying but the act of bullying that is shit and deserves condemnation.
posted by Pope Guilty at 3:54 PM on April 28, 2019 [37 favorites]
posted by Pope Guilty at 3:54 PM on April 28, 2019 [37 favorites]
Spoilers really ruined "Titanic" for me. Knowing the boat sinks changes EVERYTHING!
posted by kevinbelt at 3:54 PM on April 28, 2019 [10 favorites]
posted by kevinbelt at 3:54 PM on April 28, 2019 [10 favorites]
"The ending is obvious" seems like a weird argument to me, akin to being confused at people scared by horror movies because well, the people on the screen are all just actors. Horror movies are very enjoyable from that point of view, but it's also nice to experience the fiction. Spoilers make that harder in the same way boom mics falling into frame do, the disbelief is suspended on very fragile legs.
posted by lucidium at 3:55 PM on April 28, 2019 [17 favorites]
posted by lucidium at 3:55 PM on April 28, 2019 [17 favorites]
WHO DIES ON GAME OF THRONES TONIGHT???
posted by oneswellfoop at 3:58 PM on April 28, 2019 [2 favorites]
posted by oneswellfoop at 3:58 PM on April 28, 2019 [2 favorites]
I respect the wishes of people who don't want things spoiled (and I never considered that spoiling a movie online s done intentionally) but I think part of the problem and disconnect for me is that I'm not particularly interested in plot-driven entertainment -- I'll often start reading books in the middle, and when I get to the end I start from the beginning. Alice Munro does this too.
In the Sopranos, for example, various characters get murdered but I didn't really care about that. The social commentary was more interesting to me, and I think the Sopranos foundered when the series because plot-driven in the middle years.
posted by JamesBay at 4:00 PM on April 28, 2019 [10 favorites]
In the Sopranos, for example, various characters get murdered but I didn't really care about that. The social commentary was more interesting to me, and I think the Sopranos foundered when the series because plot-driven in the middle years.
posted by JamesBay at 4:00 PM on April 28, 2019 [10 favorites]
WHO DIES ON GAME OF THRONES TONIGHT???
Everyone in the crypt "where it's safe" because the dead can be raised to fight. And the Night King skips Winterfell and heads straight to Kings Landing on his dragon.
Those aren't spoilers. Those are predictions. Are they different?
posted by hippybear at 4:03 PM on April 28, 2019 [2 favorites]
Everyone in the crypt "where it's safe" because the dead can be raised to fight. And the Night King skips Winterfell and heads straight to Kings Landing on his dragon.
Those aren't spoilers. Those are predictions. Are they different?
posted by hippybear at 4:03 PM on April 28, 2019 [2 favorites]
The spoiler can be for used for good:
From AntiFashGordon on twitter: there’s a lot of ways to do antifascism, but special shoutout to the dude who just posted a bunch of “Avengers: Endgame” spoilers + tagged a buttload of fash accounts
posted by vespabelle at 4:06 PM on April 28, 2019 [39 favorites]
From AntiFashGordon on twitter: there’s a lot of ways to do antifascism, but special shoutout to the dude who just posted a bunch of “Avengers: Endgame” spoilers + tagged a buttload of fash accounts
posted by vespabelle at 4:06 PM on April 28, 2019 [39 favorites]
@mattyglesias: Well-crafted drama features scenes that are suspenseful whether or not you already know what’s going to happen. The triumph of anti-spoiler culture is a triumph for mediocrity. What happens in War & Peace is that Napoleon loses.
Disposable entertainment that can be seen once and then never again isn’t bad, but I have a hard time thinking of it unconditionally as “art” at the same level.
posted by Going To Maine at 4:16 PM on April 28, 2019 [5 favorites]
Disposable entertainment that can be seen once and then never again isn’t bad, but I have a hard time thinking of it unconditionally as “art” at the same level.
posted by Going To Maine at 4:16 PM on April 28, 2019 [5 favorites]
Dunno... after a heavy dose of books, having played a host of tabletop RPGs growing up, and ultimately having read a solid chunk of Shakespeare - there are very few movies which spoilers cant and shouldn't be obviously predicted.
I mean, it takes a special thing for the heavy handed nature of TV producers to not spoil who did it in procedurals - unless they just mcGuffin the bad guys until the last scene. In movies - I'm pretty sure that Shakespeare hit all the themes with Jack London finishing the rest. And walking into a movie and knowing it isn't a bad thing. Instead, I walk into or watch TV shows in order to see what themes, tweaks and stretches that a story will have in it... Solid acting and delivery will make me willfully ignore overdone stories...
You can make me jump scare. You can withhold information. You can tell a story out of order - but only if you don't do those things with polish and good direction are you cheating me of entertainment.
posted by Nanukthedog at 4:35 PM on April 28, 2019 [6 favorites]
I mean, it takes a special thing for the heavy handed nature of TV producers to not spoil who did it in procedurals - unless they just mcGuffin the bad guys until the last scene. In movies - I'm pretty sure that Shakespeare hit all the themes with Jack London finishing the rest. And walking into a movie and knowing it isn't a bad thing. Instead, I walk into or watch TV shows in order to see what themes, tweaks and stretches that a story will have in it... Solid acting and delivery will make me willfully ignore overdone stories...
You can make me jump scare. You can withhold information. You can tell a story out of order - but only if you don't do those things with polish and good direction are you cheating me of entertainment.
posted by Nanukthedog at 4:35 PM on April 28, 2019 [6 favorites]
Also, I find it really hard to get over just how cut-up actual moviemaking process is, doubly-so when it turns out that they are hiding your character arc from you.
posted by Going To Maine at 4:39 PM on April 28, 2019 [4 favorites]
posted by Going To Maine at 4:39 PM on April 28, 2019 [4 favorites]
I will always respect people’s boundaries around spoilers, and have never intentionally told anyone spoilers about something they wanted to see fresh. (It has happened a couple of times accidentally, but in both cases a year had passed since release. I felt bad, but I’m not going to beat myself up after that much of a delay.)
However.... I like having spoilers. I will often read a plot summary of a movie before seeing it, because I sometimes find the plot or the dialogue difficult to follow in the moment. So my only frustration with the prevailing anti-spoiler sentiment, is that it sometimes makes it a lot harder to find the plot summaries I’m looking for, even a week or two after release.
I totally recognize that this is my issue and not the world’s. :)
posted by a device for making your enemy change his mind at 4:46 PM on April 28, 2019 [13 favorites]
However.... I like having spoilers. I will often read a plot summary of a movie before seeing it, because I sometimes find the plot or the dialogue difficult to follow in the moment. So my only frustration with the prevailing anti-spoiler sentiment, is that it sometimes makes it a lot harder to find the plot summaries I’m looking for, even a week or two after release.
I totally recognize that this is my issue and not the world’s. :)
posted by a device for making your enemy change his mind at 4:46 PM on April 28, 2019 [13 favorites]
I wonder if any of the people who agitate against a no-spoilers policy are people who enjoy long digressive hikes and say things like "the journey is more important than the destination", and never see the contradiction.
I mean, I know Thanos is going to get his ass beat. I know Spider-Man and the Guardians will be fine, they have sequels coming out (for varying amounts of what "fine" means --after all, Stark survived Avengers but still had PTSD through Iron Man 3).
But I would still like my route to that destination to be a surprise to me.
posted by The Pluto Gangsta at 4:48 PM on April 28, 2019 [11 favorites]
I mean, I know Thanos is going to get his ass beat. I know Spider-Man and the Guardians will be fine, they have sequels coming out (for varying amounts of what "fine" means --after all, Stark survived Avengers but still had PTSD through Iron Man 3).
But I would still like my route to that destination to be a surprise to me.
posted by The Pluto Gangsta at 4:48 PM on April 28, 2019 [11 favorites]
Well-crafted drama features scenes that are suspenseful whether or not you already know what’s going to happen.
This is something I've spent a lot of time thinking about both in terms of visual media and written media! Occasionally when I'm watching a movie/show or reading a book I can say the next line of dialogue, sometimes word for word, that the character is going to say.
But often that makes me roll my eyes at the pedestrian and boring cliche that anyone could have seen coming... and sometimes it gives me a little frisson of pleasure because it was the inevitable perfect result of what came before in the narrative. So "knew what was going to happen/be said next" is neither a measure of quality or lack thereof. It can be either. It depends on why you knew what was coming next; because it was perfect or because it was bland and predictable.
I guess you know it when you see it? Like I said, I've thought about this a lot but I still don't know how to put it into words properly.
posted by Justinian at 4:51 PM on April 28, 2019 [19 favorites]
This is something I've spent a lot of time thinking about both in terms of visual media and written media! Occasionally when I'm watching a movie/show or reading a book I can say the next line of dialogue, sometimes word for word, that the character is going to say.
But often that makes me roll my eyes at the pedestrian and boring cliche that anyone could have seen coming... and sometimes it gives me a little frisson of pleasure because it was the inevitable perfect result of what came before in the narrative. So "knew what was going to happen/be said next" is neither a measure of quality or lack thereof. It can be either. It depends on why you knew what was coming next; because it was perfect or because it was bland and predictable.
I guess you know it when you see it? Like I said, I've thought about this a lot but I still don't know how to put it into words properly.
posted by Justinian at 4:51 PM on April 28, 2019 [19 favorites]
Yeah, the thing about spoilers is that they only matter for stuff that’s all plot, where the only enjoyment is the mystery box. For things that are good, spoilers don’t matter.
posted by Automocar at 4:52 PM on April 28, 2019 [3 favorites]
posted by Automocar at 4:52 PM on April 28, 2019 [3 favorites]
It frustrates me that people treat it as a SUPER HARD thing not to spoil people.
Rot13 is a thing that is REALLY easy to use. We use it on a couple of retrogaming blogs I'm on so that we can talk about the game while the poster is still playing through it, so that they aren't spoiled about it (puzzle spoilers make it really hard to review adventure games).
That said, spoilers are why I've never read most of Harry Potter (well, that and the fourth book was a huge slog), but I had five spoiled while I was at summer camp by people telling loud jokes about the surprise in that one, and laughing about how many people where pissed off when someone put the plot twist on an email list their whole high school was on. Then I had six spoiled for me when I was thinking of going back and reading five when six came out. After that, well, it didn't feel like there was a point.
posted by Canageek at 4:53 PM on April 28, 2019 [4 favorites]
Rot13 is a thing that is REALLY easy to use. We use it on a couple of retrogaming blogs I'm on so that we can talk about the game while the poster is still playing through it, so that they aren't spoiled about it (puzzle spoilers make it really hard to review adventure games).
That said, spoilers are why I've never read most of Harry Potter (well, that and the fourth book was a huge slog), but I had five spoiled while I was at summer camp by people telling loud jokes about the surprise in that one, and laughing about how many people where pissed off when someone put the plot twist on an email list their whole high school was on. Then I had six spoiled for me when I was thinking of going back and reading five when six came out. After that, well, it didn't feel like there was a point.
posted by Canageek at 4:53 PM on April 28, 2019 [4 favorites]
When I was younger, I had a bad experience that made me extremely vigilant about spoiler warnings.
It was 1989, Gone With The Wind would be playing at the Brattle Theater, and that was a film I wanted to see first on the big screen. I was psyched. The newspaper ran an article on the cleanup and restoration process. But in the middle, the writer said something like ...jura Eurgg & Fpneyrgg'f qnhtugre... which reveals some serious plot points.
Yes, it was a 50 year old film. Had I seen an article on how the story holds up, I would've known to avoid it. But this was supposed to be a technical article.
So, I do think it's worth remembering that there will always be new audiences, even for old material.
Over the years, I've gotten more relaxed about protecting myself from spoilers. I've seen nearly all Shakespeare's plays - many of them multiple times - and they're still enjoyable even knowing how it turns out.
But still, when I notice a fellow audience member who's clearly a first timer, watching their reactions adds to my joy.
posted by cheshyre at 4:53 PM on April 28, 2019 [7 favorites]
It was 1989, Gone With The Wind would be playing at the Brattle Theater, and that was a film I wanted to see first on the big screen. I was psyched. The newspaper ran an article on the cleanup and restoration process. But in the middle, the writer said something like ...jura Eurgg & Fpneyrgg'f qnhtugre... which reveals some serious plot points.
Yes, it was a 50 year old film. Had I seen an article on how the story holds up, I would've known to avoid it. But this was supposed to be a technical article.
So, I do think it's worth remembering that there will always be new audiences, even for old material.
Over the years, I've gotten more relaxed about protecting myself from spoilers. I've seen nearly all Shakespeare's plays - many of them multiple times - and they're still enjoyable even knowing how it turns out.
But still, when I notice a fellow audience member who's clearly a first timer, watching their reactions adds to my joy.
posted by cheshyre at 4:53 PM on April 28, 2019 [7 favorites]
Yeah, I'm on team 'spoilers don't matter.' I've been writing for years. I ran tabletop for a couple decades. Some media properties can surprise me consistently, but it's unusual.
Mostly, I care about execution: did the story make me care? How was the acting? Cinematography? Symbolism? Pacing? Did they drop any threads? Was it *fun*? Even if a story managed to surprise me, that's no guarantee it's good: did the twist make sense? Was it earned?
*shrugs*
I find the emphasis on 'I know a basic checklist of facts, why even see it?' to be reductive.
But I respect the wishes of people who feel differently and agree with the basic spoiler commandments. I'm not sure that's exactly how I'd articulate those ideas, but it's close. My SO is fanatically anti-spoiler, and is really frustrated by them. Like, I wouldn't recommend this thread to her, just in case. (In my house, rather than argue about it, I've gone with making up total nonsense pretend spoilers, like 'the Death Star was actually made of cheese, and Luke was lactose-intolerant all along, dear' to make it fun instead of frustrating for all concerned.)
posted by mordax at 4:56 PM on April 28, 2019 [16 favorites]
Mostly, I care about execution: did the story make me care? How was the acting? Cinematography? Symbolism? Pacing? Did they drop any threads? Was it *fun*? Even if a story managed to surprise me, that's no guarantee it's good: did the twist make sense? Was it earned?
*shrugs*
I find the emphasis on 'I know a basic checklist of facts, why even see it?' to be reductive.
But I respect the wishes of people who feel differently and agree with the basic spoiler commandments. I'm not sure that's exactly how I'd articulate those ideas, but it's close. My SO is fanatically anti-spoiler, and is really frustrated by them. Like, I wouldn't recommend this thread to her, just in case. (In my house, rather than argue about it, I've gone with making up total nonsense pretend spoilers, like 'the Death Star was actually made of cheese, and Luke was lactose-intolerant all along, dear' to make it fun instead of frustrating for all concerned.)
posted by mordax at 4:56 PM on April 28, 2019 [16 favorites]
I saw Deathtrap on stage around 1979, and remember the program had a no spoilers warning. Which made sense.
Decades later, in grad school, we were reading Clarissa (Richardson), which is a leading contender for longest novel in English. I snagged a nice Penguin copy of the full text (our prof had us reading an awful abridgment), and the foreword's first sentence gave away the ending.
The thing's about 1,450 pages. Huge pages, too, for Penguin, and in tiny tiny type.
posted by doctornemo at 4:59 PM on April 28, 2019 [6 favorites]
Decades later, in grad school, we were reading Clarissa (Richardson), which is a leading contender for longest novel in English. I snagged a nice Penguin copy of the full text (our prof had us reading an awful abridgment), and the foreword's first sentence gave away the ending.
The thing's about 1,450 pages. Huge pages, too, for Penguin, and in tiny tiny type.
posted by doctornemo at 4:59 PM on April 28, 2019 [6 favorites]
Spoilers
MeFi just needs a button in the editor for that.posted by zengargoyle at 5:01 PM on April 28, 2019 [10 favorites]
So "knew what was going to happen/be said next" is neither a measure of quality or lack thereof. It can be either. It depends on why you knew what was coming next; because it was perfect or because it was bland and predictable.
You've described country music in a nutshell. This is the best and worst thing about it.
posted by sjswitzer at 5:05 PM on April 28, 2019 [7 favorites]
You've described country music in a nutshell. This is the best and worst thing about it.
posted by sjswitzer at 5:05 PM on April 28, 2019 [7 favorites]
Literally the first thing my friend and his dumb little brother said the first time they saw me after they saw The Empire Strikes Back was "DARTH VADER IS LUKE'S FATHER!" and I've never forgiven them.
Geez, man, you couldn't have given a warning before spoiling that ending?
posted by biogeo at 5:15 PM on April 28, 2019 [4 favorites]
Geez, man, you couldn't have given a warning before spoiling that ending?
posted by biogeo at 5:15 PM on April 28, 2019 [4 favorites]
That's not the ending. The ending is that the Rebels have assembled a fleet and are going to try to attack the Empire again. That reveal happens well before the ending.
posted by hippybear at 5:17 PM on April 28, 2019 [5 favorites]
posted by hippybear at 5:17 PM on April 28, 2019 [5 favorites]
The most upset I ever was about a spoiler was watching Fight Club for the first time with someone who'd seen it multiple times. Ten minutes or so into it he turns to me and pronounces, "Lbh frr, npghnyyl Glyre Qheqra vfa'g erny ng nyy. Ur'f n unyyhpvangvba bs gur znva punenpgre naq rirelguvat jr frr uvz qbvat vf ernyyl gur znva punenpgre qbvat vg ol uvzfrys."
God damn it. At least give me a chance to figure that out on my own!
posted by glonous keming at 5:21 PM on April 28, 2019 [2 favorites]
God damn it. At least give me a chance to figure that out on my own!
posted by glonous keming at 5:21 PM on April 28, 2019 [2 favorites]
Fight Club is a movie that's 20 years old this year. I don't think spoilers really count much beyond about maybe 6 months on the outside.
posted by hippybear at 5:22 PM on April 28, 2019 [4 favorites]
posted by hippybear at 5:22 PM on April 28, 2019 [4 favorites]
omg clawsoon - "We used to have to suspend disbelief with regard to the special effects. Now we have to suspend disbelief with regard to how surprising the plot is."
that is SO GREAT i am totally stealing that for future convos with friends.
i LOVE spoilers. i seek them out. i have already totally spoiled myself on Endgame. i still plan to go see it. i really enjoy watching HOW a film is made, and knowing the basic plot helps me do that, because i don't get too distracted by the story. i enjoy seeing it play out, much as Justinian describes - that frisson of participation, the pleasure of seeing a genre or plot point handled beautifully, even if it's been done a million times.
that said, i am very respectful of those who want to remain spoiler-free. the thing that really annoys me, and that i have no respect for, are people who cannot even hear a PREMISE without freaking out and yelling shut up and "don't spoil it!"
PREMISE IS NOT A SPOILER. neither is cast of actors. neither is saying "the special effects are AWESOME!"
people who respond like that need to chill the fuck out.
but people who do that bullying spoiling? yeah those people are assholes. you don't give away plot, twists, cameos, reveals, the killer, deaths, return-from-deaths, the end, and that kind of thing.
it's a two-way street: be considerate. there will always be spoilers. there is no way a studio can ever control human nature, and humans will spoil things. but i totally agree that spoilers should never be invasive. one should have to hunt them down! that makes it even more fun, for those who love spoilers.
oh and - The Pluto Gangsta, i am someone who considers the journey to be AS important as the destination. because i HAVE a destination, and usually a map, or at least am on familiar territory and know how to get home. but even though i walk the same way to the bus stop every day, doesn't mean it's ruined for me. i take pleasure in the simple act, and always see something new. but i really like knowing how to get there. i kinda think of spoilers as a map.
posted by lapolla at 5:22 PM on April 28, 2019 [11 favorites]
that is SO GREAT i am totally stealing that for future convos with friends.
i LOVE spoilers. i seek them out. i have already totally spoiled myself on Endgame. i still plan to go see it. i really enjoy watching HOW a film is made, and knowing the basic plot helps me do that, because i don't get too distracted by the story. i enjoy seeing it play out, much as Justinian describes - that frisson of participation, the pleasure of seeing a genre or plot point handled beautifully, even if it's been done a million times.
that said, i am very respectful of those who want to remain spoiler-free. the thing that really annoys me, and that i have no respect for, are people who cannot even hear a PREMISE without freaking out and yelling shut up and "don't spoil it!"
PREMISE IS NOT A SPOILER. neither is cast of actors. neither is saying "the special effects are AWESOME!"
people who respond like that need to chill the fuck out.
but people who do that bullying spoiling? yeah those people are assholes. you don't give away plot, twists, cameos, reveals, the killer, deaths, return-from-deaths, the end, and that kind of thing.
it's a two-way street: be considerate. there will always be spoilers. there is no way a studio can ever control human nature, and humans will spoil things. but i totally agree that spoilers should never be invasive. one should have to hunt them down! that makes it even more fun, for those who love spoilers.
oh and - The Pluto Gangsta, i am someone who considers the journey to be AS important as the destination. because i HAVE a destination, and usually a map, or at least am on familiar territory and know how to get home. but even though i walk the same way to the bus stop every day, doesn't mean it's ruined for me. i take pleasure in the simple act, and always see something new. but i really like knowing how to get there. i kinda think of spoilers as a map.
posted by lapolla at 5:22 PM on April 28, 2019 [11 favorites]
catching up on comments that happened while i was writing: what Mordax said!
posted by lapolla at 5:24 PM on April 28, 2019 [1 favorite]
posted by lapolla at 5:24 PM on April 28, 2019 [1 favorite]
Yeah, and it was 19 and a half years ago, so do I have you permission to be upset about it Mr Emotion Police?
posted by glonous keming at 5:24 PM on April 28, 2019 [5 favorites]
posted by glonous keming at 5:24 PM on April 28, 2019 [5 favorites]
If we're tallying votes, I love seeking out spoilers. I don't intentionally spoil things, but the idea that people, in a public forum, cannot have the conversation they want to have because someone else may not have seen or read something...c'mon.
I mean, it would be an asshole thing to do to drop a spoiler into a completely unrelated thread, but if people are talking about a movie, you know they're talking about a movie, you haven't seen it and don't want to be spoiled...you know, the solution is right in front of you. Don't seek out discussion until you've seen it.
ROT13 is a garbage solution for a non-problem.
posted by maxwelton at 5:28 PM on April 28, 2019 [11 favorites]
I mean, it would be an asshole thing to do to drop a spoiler into a completely unrelated thread, but if people are talking about a movie, you know they're talking about a movie, you haven't seen it and don't want to be spoiled...you know, the solution is right in front of you. Don't seek out discussion until you've seen it.
ROT13 is a garbage solution for a non-problem.
posted by maxwelton at 5:28 PM on April 28, 2019 [11 favorites]
It frustrates me that people treat it as a SUPER HARD thing not to spoil people.
It depends. It's not hard to clearly title what you're talking about, use cut tags, and flag stuff in your lede. On the other hand, people will apparently complain that critical discussion of 50-year-old movies constitutes a spoiler so there's no pleasing everyone.
I'm in favor of reasonable spoilers. It's reasonable to flag spoilers and keep things to yourself immediately after release. It's less reasonable to demand an embargo years after the fact when a work has become the basis of multiple derivative works. There's a fair bit of grey area in between. At a certain point, I have to take responsibility for the convenience of my own time-shifted media lifestyle and recognize that people wanted to talk about the last movie I watched the week it opened.
posted by GenderNullPointerException at 5:29 PM on April 28, 2019 [9 favorites]
It depends. It's not hard to clearly title what you're talking about, use cut tags, and flag stuff in your lede. On the other hand, people will apparently complain that critical discussion of 50-year-old movies constitutes a spoiler so there's no pleasing everyone.
I'm in favor of reasonable spoilers. It's reasonable to flag spoilers and keep things to yourself immediately after release. It's less reasonable to demand an embargo years after the fact when a work has become the basis of multiple derivative works. There's a fair bit of grey area in between. At a certain point, I have to take responsibility for the convenience of my own time-shifted media lifestyle and recognize that people wanted to talk about the last movie I watched the week it opened.
posted by GenderNullPointerException at 5:29 PM on April 28, 2019 [9 favorites]
Since we’re doing hot takes:
I’ve never been too concerned with knowing how something will end (for example). That said, I try to be polite about spoilers and appreciate when other people do too.
I don’t like spoilers for the simple reason that they distract me from being in the moment with the film. Especially the “see if you can figure it out” plot twist type spoilers.
(However, even worse is someone literally telling me “there’s a plot twist, see if you can figure it out” before a film. Arrrgh. Please don’t do this.)
posted by Tiny Bungalow at 5:33 PM on April 28, 2019 [3 favorites]
I’ve never been too concerned with knowing how something will end (for example). That said, I try to be polite about spoilers and appreciate when other people do too.
I don’t like spoilers for the simple reason that they distract me from being in the moment with the film. Especially the “see if you can figure it out” plot twist type spoilers.
(However, even worse is someone literally telling me “there’s a plot twist, see if you can figure it out” before a film. Arrrgh. Please don’t do this.)
posted by Tiny Bungalow at 5:33 PM on April 28, 2019 [3 favorites]
I hear that The Usual Suspects has quite a plot twist.
posted by hippybear at 5:38 PM on April 28, 2019 [3 favorites]
posted by hippybear at 5:38 PM on April 28, 2019 [3 favorites]
Yeah, and it was 19 and a half years ago, so do I have you permission to be upset about it Mr Emotion Police?
Of course you do, but I think the point was there's no reason to go to great lengths to hide something about the plot now, which is what your comment did.
There's two main groups here. In one are people who think that the entire world should adopt a new social convention to avoid talking about any details about any piece of media without prefacing that discussion with a warning. The other group thinks that you can avoid that warning by just knowing that when talking about media that you may learn something about its details. I fall mostly into the second group. People who tell you about the details of a film or book with the intention of making you feel bad are an entirely separate group who are not affected by the stances of the other two groups.
posted by runcibleshaw at 5:42 PM on April 28, 2019 [6 favorites]
Of course you do, but I think the point was there's no reason to go to great lengths to hide something about the plot now, which is what your comment did.
There's two main groups here. In one are people who think that the entire world should adopt a new social convention to avoid talking about any details about any piece of media without prefacing that discussion with a warning. The other group thinks that you can avoid that warning by just knowing that when talking about media that you may learn something about its details. I fall mostly into the second group. People who tell you about the details of a film or book with the intention of making you feel bad are an entirely separate group who are not affected by the stances of the other two groups.
posted by runcibleshaw at 5:42 PM on April 28, 2019 [6 favorites]
I was reading Jules Verne's "The Mysterious Island" and my partner blithely gave away the MAJOR spoiler. Sure, it was written in 1874, but Verne is not a great writer, and it was actually painful to continue reading the book now that I knew the MAJOR spoiler. So when I tell someone I saw X movie or book, I ask them if they're worried about spoilers before going on. However, a lot of times it makes no difference. After that discussion of "UHF" in the other thread, I pretty much knew the whole plot, but when I watched it yesterday, no harm had been done, because the major virtue of that movie was Billy Barty's performance.
posted by acrasis at 5:55 PM on April 28, 2019 [3 favorites]
posted by acrasis at 5:55 PM on April 28, 2019 [3 favorites]
The real fucker is people who want spoiler warnings for things like sports games, which are in fact events which took place in real life. It's like asking for a spoiler warning for traffic.
posted by runcibleshaw at 5:58 PM on April 28, 2019 [6 favorites]
posted by runcibleshaw at 5:58 PM on April 28, 2019 [6 favorites]
I am glad to have been spoiled about one thing in Endgame--gur fgevat bs sng wbxrf/vafhygf nvzrq ng Gube--because that touches me really personally, will be painful to see, and, since I'll be seeing it with my children, it will be painful to see them laughing. I'm glad to be ready for it, and to have a chance to prepare for the conversation I'll want to have with them.
I think people's different experiences are fascinating. I am also someone who enjoys spoilers--I dislike tension, so I can enjoy a lot of movies and books more if I know some things about how the story plays out. I get most of my enjoyment from characters interacting rather than from plot per se.
posted by Orlop at 6:03 PM on April 28, 2019 [3 favorites]
I think people's different experiences are fascinating. I am also someone who enjoys spoilers--I dislike tension, so I can enjoy a lot of movies and books more if I know some things about how the story plays out. I get most of my enjoyment from characters interacting rather than from plot per se.
posted by Orlop at 6:03 PM on April 28, 2019 [3 favorites]
The article makes a good point about the changing speed of information transfer. Compare it to sports, where it's a cliche joke for someone to be avoiding hearing a result, only for it to be revealed just as they're settling down to watch. It feels reasonable to not spoil that sort of thing, or to not reveal the punchline to a joke someone's telling, but years later? The problem now is that the potential audience is so spread in time and space, maintaining a present for anyone requires ridiculous stringency.
posted by lucidium at 6:04 PM on April 28, 2019 [2 favorites]
posted by lucidium at 6:04 PM on April 28, 2019 [2 favorites]
Spoilers pose some interesting problems for academics, because when you're modeling how to analyze a novel, you sometimes need to spoil a plot point that won't be made clear in the text for another two or three class sessions. For example, I just finished teaching a novel with a really unreliable narrator (of the oblivious type), and to show the students just how closely they needed to pay attention to details, I had to "spoil" something not revealed until several chapters later--in this case, because the reader should be able to pick up on the warning signs that the narrator conspicuously misses. (In any event, I got an "ohhhhh..." from the students, and they became very good at spotting threads.)
It would be interesting to know about "spoilers" in regards to nineteenth-century serial fiction, come to think of it. There's a famous anecdote about eager readers begging to know if Little Nell lives at the end of Dickens' Old Curiosity Shop...
posted by thomas j wise at 6:29 PM on April 28, 2019 [8 favorites]
It would be interesting to know about "spoilers" in regards to nineteenth-century serial fiction, come to think of it. There's a famous anecdote about eager readers begging to know if Little Nell lives at the end of Dickens' Old Curiosity Shop...
posted by thomas j wise at 6:29 PM on April 28, 2019 [8 favorites]
Sometimes opinions about spoilers seem like they're related to concern for authorial intent.
I seek out spoilers and commentary, because if your work can't stand up to fannish queer people discussing it critically, I'm extremely unlikely to consume the work. Relatedly, I have a strong preference for works with useful content warnings - letting people find out ahead of time whether your work is potentially hazardous suggests you care more about your potential audience's well-being than the intensity of their responses.
Being chill about people spoiling and critiquing your work suggests to me that you want your audience to have a positive experience, rather than being a kind of narrative telemarketer who wants as much attention as possible, consequences be damned.
There's at least one theater LARP with a really fucked-up code of silence/anti-spoiler thingy that is...let's say...not unrelated to the power-trippiness of the work or its creators. I'm thinking of the one that's almost thirty and first ran in eastern Massachusetts, and was received extremely negatively the one time it ran at MIT.
I don't feel like a policy that constrains audiences' behavior for decades to benefit informal or formal authorities should, like, exist.
posted by bagel at 6:31 PM on April 28, 2019 [1 favorite]
I seek out spoilers and commentary, because if your work can't stand up to fannish queer people discussing it critically, I'm extremely unlikely to consume the work. Relatedly, I have a strong preference for works with useful content warnings - letting people find out ahead of time whether your work is potentially hazardous suggests you care more about your potential audience's well-being than the intensity of their responses.
Being chill about people spoiling and critiquing your work suggests to me that you want your audience to have a positive experience, rather than being a kind of narrative telemarketer who wants as much attention as possible, consequences be damned.
There's at least one theater LARP with a really fucked-up code of silence/anti-spoiler thingy that is...let's say...not unrelated to the power-trippiness of the work or its creators. I'm thinking of the one that's almost thirty and first ran in eastern Massachusetts, and was received extremely negatively the one time it ran at MIT.
I don't feel like a policy that constrains audiences' behavior for decades to benefit informal or formal authorities should, like, exist.
posted by bagel at 6:31 PM on April 28, 2019 [1 favorite]
Wouldn't it be incredibly easier if the studio just leaked multiple fake spoilers?
posted by Brocktoon at 6:36 PM on April 28, 2019 [4 favorites]
posted by Brocktoon at 6:36 PM on April 28, 2019 [4 favorites]
I got my ticket to Endgame for this afternoon; my roommate went to see it first thing in the morning on Friday. I deliberately stayed out of the thread in Fanfare between Thursday and today. The roommate and I had an interesting conversation about spoilers last night; he has a similar opinion about spoilers that most in here do, that how the story is told is just as important. He doesn't mind spoilers.
Neither do I, necessarily. In fact, I also had a family friend's kid spoil the Empire Strikes Back Vader reveal for me before I saw it- they'd been to see it already and my brother and I hadn't yet, and one of their kids blurted it out to me. It wasn't a deliberate dick move at all, and I knew it - he was a kid who'd gotten his mind blown, he wanted to talk about it, I was another kid who'd give a shit and would also understand how mind-blowing it was. The adults all immediately started scolding him for spoiling it for me, but I was standing there thinking "holy cow, really????"
But for this film I decided I wanted to try staying spoiler-free. Because - I recently had a conversation with a friend about the Vader reveal, and how he remembers finding that out in the theater and his head practically exploding with the shock. And just this once I wanted to see if I could have that kind of communal in-a-theater experience.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 6:39 PM on April 28, 2019 [2 favorites]
Neither do I, necessarily. In fact, I also had a family friend's kid spoil the Empire Strikes Back Vader reveal for me before I saw it- they'd been to see it already and my brother and I hadn't yet, and one of their kids blurted it out to me. It wasn't a deliberate dick move at all, and I knew it - he was a kid who'd gotten his mind blown, he wanted to talk about it, I was another kid who'd give a shit and would also understand how mind-blowing it was. The adults all immediately started scolding him for spoiling it for me, but I was standing there thinking "holy cow, really????"
But for this film I decided I wanted to try staying spoiler-free. Because - I recently had a conversation with a friend about the Vader reveal, and how he remembers finding that out in the theater and his head practically exploding with the shock. And just this once I wanted to see if I could have that kind of communal in-a-theater experience.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 6:39 PM on April 28, 2019 [2 favorites]
I am really stupid when it comes to picking up on foreshadowing, so I hate it when something is spoiled for me. In fact, I’m one of those people who wants to know next to nothing about a movie before watching it. Basic premise, and that’s it.
Other people are welcome to discuss and spoil stuff for themselves, but I like to learn stuff as I go. The downside is that I sometimes miss subtext, but look, you can’t have everything all the time. My enjoyment of a movie is usually diminished if learn ahead of time how things will turn out.
I hate the idea that you can’t expect to avoid a spoiler after a certain length of time. “It’s been seven months, if you haven’t seen it by now that’s on you.” It’s just kind of a weirdly dismissive attitude to me.
posted by shapes that haunt the dusk at 6:49 PM on April 28, 2019 [3 favorites]
Other people are welcome to discuss and spoil stuff for themselves, but I like to learn stuff as I go. The downside is that I sometimes miss subtext, but look, you can’t have everything all the time. My enjoyment of a movie is usually diminished if learn ahead of time how things will turn out.
I hate the idea that you can’t expect to avoid a spoiler after a certain length of time. “It’s been seven months, if you haven’t seen it by now that’s on you.” It’s just kind of a weirdly dismissive attitude to me.
posted by shapes that haunt the dusk at 6:49 PM on April 28, 2019 [3 favorites]
It turns out that Soylent Green was really the friends we made along the way.
posted by Huffy Puffy at 6:50 PM on April 28, 2019 [38 favorites]
posted by Huffy Puffy at 6:50 PM on April 28, 2019 [38 favorites]
Incidentally, “if you haven’t seen it by now, spoilers are on you” was what someone on this site said when they spoiled a major plot point for me in Star Wars 7 a few months after its release. I mean, OK, it had been out a while, but does it kill you to exercise a little restraint?
posted by shapes that haunt the dusk at 6:52 PM on April 28, 2019
posted by shapes that haunt the dusk at 6:52 PM on April 28, 2019
I mean, I just finished a video game in which I intentionally looked up "does everybody die" halfway through, and also would have been disappointed if I had been spoiled about the big plot twist. But this was something that was actually well written, and the enjoyment I got from the plot twist was not being surprised by it, but figuring it out about 10-15 minutes before it was revealed in the action, by piecing together all the little bits of information I'd been fed and going, "I wonder if... oh." And then, of course, there's the satisfaction when you find out you're right.
So I'm on both sides, really. I pretty much always want to know who's going to die going in, and I don't mind knowing what the epilogue is going to be. I don't necessarily want the character development or the climax to be spoiled, though, because I like figuring it out and then being proven right. I am notoriously very good at predicting media--I remember watching Coco and seeing every major emotional beat of the movie coming about 15 minutes before it happened. There was one time I was reading a book and a character I loved dearly had just betrayed all of his friends, and I had one minute of, "Shit! I've gotta keep reading to figure out what happened!" despite it being my bedtime. Then I thought about it for two minutes and went, "Oh, clearly he's being blackmailed by x because he's y and since the bad guys are z they can use that to do a, when really he feels b and desperately wants to do c." Pleased that I'd figured it out, I went soundly to sleep. This wasn't because the writing for either of those pieces of media was bad or cliche or predictable, but because it made sense. The satisfaction for me came from that sudden shock of realization, when that whole jumble of pieces suddenly fell together in just the right way.
It's not as satisfying if someone just tells you. Then you don't get the chance to juggle all those seemingly disparate threads in your head and feel them slowly come together until suddenly you get it. Sure, it may still be enjoyable on a re-read/re-watch/re-play, but nothing can quite compare to that first sense of, "Oh."
Mind you, I suspect nothing like this happens in Endgame. But I don't think it's entirely unreasonable to not want things to be spoiled, at least for media where there's actually something to figure out. The core point of this article is solid, I think, but some people seem baffled by why anyone could be bothered by spoilers in the first place.
posted by brook horse at 6:52 PM on April 28, 2019 [1 favorite]
So I'm on both sides, really. I pretty much always want to know who's going to die going in, and I don't mind knowing what the epilogue is going to be. I don't necessarily want the character development or the climax to be spoiled, though, because I like figuring it out and then being proven right. I am notoriously very good at predicting media--I remember watching Coco and seeing every major emotional beat of the movie coming about 15 minutes before it happened. There was one time I was reading a book and a character I loved dearly had just betrayed all of his friends, and I had one minute of, "Shit! I've gotta keep reading to figure out what happened!" despite it being my bedtime. Then I thought about it for two minutes and went, "Oh, clearly he's being blackmailed by x because he's y and since the bad guys are z they can use that to do a, when really he feels b and desperately wants to do c." Pleased that I'd figured it out, I went soundly to sleep. This wasn't because the writing for either of those pieces of media was bad or cliche or predictable, but because it made sense. The satisfaction for me came from that sudden shock of realization, when that whole jumble of pieces suddenly fell together in just the right way.
It's not as satisfying if someone just tells you. Then you don't get the chance to juggle all those seemingly disparate threads in your head and feel them slowly come together until suddenly you get it. Sure, it may still be enjoyable on a re-read/re-watch/re-play, but nothing can quite compare to that first sense of, "Oh."
Mind you, I suspect nothing like this happens in Endgame. But I don't think it's entirely unreasonable to not want things to be spoiled, at least for media where there's actually something to figure out. The core point of this article is solid, I think, but some people seem baffled by why anyone could be bothered by spoilers in the first place.
posted by brook horse at 6:52 PM on April 28, 2019 [1 favorite]
My friends were talking about this recently, and some of the most adamant anti-spoiler people also don't like hearing people theorize about a text due to inadvertent spoilers that might arrise. I'm the polar opposite: I see narratives as an intellectual game against the author to figure out what's going to happen before it appears on screen.
posted by codacorolla at 6:55 PM on April 28, 2019 [2 favorites]
posted by codacorolla at 6:55 PM on April 28, 2019 [2 favorites]
This whole thing drives me nuts. The world is not obligated to keep me ignorant. I mean, don’t be the asshole leaving the theatre shouting the ending to those waiting in line for the next showing. But other than that YOU are responsible for not getting spoiled, for the most part. I normally don’t care about spoilers, but I did want to go into endgame unspoiled. So not only did I see it opening weekend, but I told everyone I thought I would interact with that I didn’t want it to get spoiled, so please hold off on their reactions to me until Saturday, and I went on an internet blackout for 2 days. I stayed off mefi, Twitter, everything. I wore headphones in public in case someone was talking about it near me. I treated it like my own responsibility to avoid talk of the movie, not other people’s responsibility to shield me.
And likely, this will be the only movie I ever do that for - just because it was like part 22 of a series. It was special. But now I’m back on the reg. Spoil me. It’s fine. I may get to watching the last season of GoT later this year. And I’m positive I’ll have heard all the major plot points by then. It’s fine.
posted by greermahoney at 6:57 PM on April 28, 2019 [4 favorites]
And likely, this will be the only movie I ever do that for - just because it was like part 22 of a series. It was special. But now I’m back on the reg. Spoil me. It’s fine. I may get to watching the last season of GoT later this year. And I’m positive I’ll have heard all the major plot points by then. It’s fine.
posted by greermahoney at 6:57 PM on April 28, 2019 [4 favorites]
I'm respectful enough of other people's desire to remain spoiler-free because I don't want to be a dick.
BUT I feel like the more that a spoiler has the capacity to ruin a particular film, the less that film is doing anything outside of serving as a plot delivery mechanism. Which is fine, not all films need to do more than that, but none of my favourite films are ones where being given a plot synopsis beforehand would matter much.
And this isn't remotely a high-brow/low-brow thing either. The plot of John Wick, for instance, hardly matters: it's a pretty safe bet most people walked into that movie already knowing that Keanu was going to shoot or otherwise murder a bunch of worse people because they done him wrong. And yeah, okay someone might say that's just the premise of JW and not a spoiler, but what does accounting along the lines of "Dude x tries to kill Keanu but Keanu kills him instead" ten or more times really get you?
posted by juv3nal at 6:58 PM on April 28, 2019 [5 favorites]
BUT I feel like the more that a spoiler has the capacity to ruin a particular film, the less that film is doing anything outside of serving as a plot delivery mechanism. Which is fine, not all films need to do more than that, but none of my favourite films are ones where being given a plot synopsis beforehand would matter much.
And this isn't remotely a high-brow/low-brow thing either. The plot of John Wick, for instance, hardly matters: it's a pretty safe bet most people walked into that movie already knowing that Keanu was going to shoot or otherwise murder a bunch of worse people because they done him wrong. And yeah, okay someone might say that's just the premise of JW and not a spoiler, but what does accounting along the lines of "Dude x tries to kill Keanu but Keanu kills him instead" ten or more times really get you?
posted by juv3nal at 6:58 PM on April 28, 2019 [5 favorites]
I remember seeing Argo with absolutely no foreknowledge beyond 'it was good'. I barely ever see movies with no idea what I'm in for, so it was an interesting experience, but one I'm unlikely to be able to repeat.
I'm especially unlikely to be able to repeat it with tentpole franchises or shared universes, because often production details give away the shape of the plot. There's another Spider-Man movie coming, huh? There's only a few ways that can go based on what I know about it. I think, if you're following these movies, it doesn't take too much effort to piece together the basic beats. Even knowing that there's a 'twist' is usually enough.
There's also how tiresomely predictable some of these can be. It was a bit of a cliche in games for the tutorial character to end up being the secret villain, because they were so starved for characters who'd been around the entire game that if they want to have a villain reveal, the only person you can actually 'reveal' is the only other character who's been around for the game's whole running time. The real issue with this is the need to have a 'reveal' in the first place - nerd culture got infected with the idea that having a twist automatically made a story better, but most stories can't actually sustain the two simultaneous plotlines required for a twist to be effective, nor should they have to. Time spent making sure that your twist works is time not spent on themes, better characterisation, or renovating cliches. (And as Game of Thrones proved, time spent on renovating cliches often surprises people enough that they call it a 'twist'.) Making a story surprising can be done in a number of ways, and plot events are usually the least of these.
posted by Merus at 7:07 PM on April 28, 2019 [1 favorite]
I'm especially unlikely to be able to repeat it with tentpole franchises or shared universes, because often production details give away the shape of the plot. There's another Spider-Man movie coming, huh? There's only a few ways that can go based on what I know about it. I think, if you're following these movies, it doesn't take too much effort to piece together the basic beats. Even knowing that there's a 'twist' is usually enough.
There's also how tiresomely predictable some of these can be. It was a bit of a cliche in games for the tutorial character to end up being the secret villain, because they were so starved for characters who'd been around the entire game that if they want to have a villain reveal, the only person you can actually 'reveal' is the only other character who's been around for the game's whole running time. The real issue with this is the need to have a 'reveal' in the first place - nerd culture got infected with the idea that having a twist automatically made a story better, but most stories can't actually sustain the two simultaneous plotlines required for a twist to be effective, nor should they have to. Time spent making sure that your twist works is time not spent on themes, better characterisation, or renovating cliches. (And as Game of Thrones proved, time spent on renovating cliches often surprises people enough that they call it a 'twist'.) Making a story surprising can be done in a number of ways, and plot events are usually the least of these.
posted by Merus at 7:07 PM on April 28, 2019 [1 favorite]
ROSEBUD IS KANE'S CHILDHOOD SLED
Not telegraphing a key plot point is really valid for some productions like The Crying Game or The Manchurian Candidate. But take fireside ghost stories, except for the youngest listeners there is not much surprise except in the way it's told and the tone of voice and the darkness and mood. Take Killing Eve, don't care how it ends, the twists will be just as fun on a second viewing.
posted by sammyo at 7:14 PM on April 28, 2019
Not telegraphing a key plot point is really valid for some productions like The Crying Game or The Manchurian Candidate. But take fireside ghost stories, except for the youngest listeners there is not much surprise except in the way it's told and the tone of voice and the darkness and mood. Take Killing Eve, don't care how it ends, the twists will be just as fun on a second viewing.
posted by sammyo at 7:14 PM on April 28, 2019
So looking forward to the Deadwood movie.
TV and movies are so SHIT these days. Marvel Universe is fucking awful. People who talk about Avengers or Guardians of the Galaxy being "great movies" are deluded. Awful, awful stuff.
posted by dobbs at 7:26 PM on April 28, 2019 [6 favorites]
TV and movies are so SHIT these days. Marvel Universe is fucking awful. People who talk about Avengers or Guardians of the Galaxy being "great movies" are deluded. Awful, awful stuff.
posted by dobbs at 7:26 PM on April 28, 2019 [6 favorites]
I now know what happens on Game Of Thrones but I'm not going to tell any of you, even if you pay me.
posted by hippybear at 7:28 PM on April 28, 2019
posted by hippybear at 7:28 PM on April 28, 2019
The only chance I have of making it through Hereditary by myself is in reading spoilers re the ending. I bailed at 1:38, despite watching on a tiny tablet screen in the middle of the day.
At my son's request, I haven't yet checked the spoilers. I'm going to spend a few days with him this week and despite the fact that he's already seen the film, it's on our to-do list. But, if we don't fit it into the schedule, I will be googling spoilers when I return.
posted by she's not there at 7:28 PM on April 28, 2019 [1 favorite]
At my son's request, I haven't yet checked the spoilers. I'm going to spend a few days with him this week and despite the fact that he's already seen the film, it's on our to-do list. But, if we don't fit it into the schedule, I will be googling spoilers when I return.
posted by she's not there at 7:28 PM on April 28, 2019 [1 favorite]
The Wizard of Oz is probably the most influential work of American fantasy fiction. It has been quoted, parodied, and adapted so many times that some passages are idioms for American English. How do we have conversations about the use of "Somewhere Over the Rainbow" and the Godzilla King Of Monsters trailer absent any discussion about the 1939 film that might, possibly, be seen as a spoiler?
A "little restraint" goes both ways, including recognizing that people want to talk about the cultural significance of a work and may slip as a work becomes older and more influential. When that discussion happens through appropriately titled articles and blog posts, it's not really an attempt to ruin my day.
posted by GenderNullPointerException at 7:33 PM on April 28, 2019 [2 favorites]
A "little restraint" goes both ways, including recognizing that people want to talk about the cultural significance of a work and may slip as a work becomes older and more influential. When that discussion happens through appropriately titled articles and blog posts, it's not really an attempt to ruin my day.
posted by GenderNullPointerException at 7:33 PM on April 28, 2019 [2 favorites]
I've gradually come to the conclusion that I don't really understand any relatively complicated narrative fiction until I've read/watched it at least twice. And that goes double for tv and movies, since I find it hard to take in all the sensory detail all at once, especially in contemporary movies with their frenetic editing. Because of that, I have no concern whatsoever about spoilers, and I find the idea that you can "spoil" a work of narrative fiction by summarizing its plot hard to empathize with (although, like any decent person, I don't go around gratuitously spoiling stories for other people).
But that makes me wonder if this might come down to a difference between my desire to understand a story, in as much detail as possible, to know its whole shape so that I can turn it around in my mind and examine it from various angles, analyze individual components in light of the whole, and some people's preference for a more immediate kind of experience of the plot unfolding in time.
posted by a certain Sysoi Pafnut'evich at 7:38 PM on April 28, 2019 [5 favorites]
But that makes me wonder if this might come down to a difference between my desire to understand a story, in as much detail as possible, to know its whole shape so that I can turn it around in my mind and examine it from various angles, analyze individual components in light of the whole, and some people's preference for a more immediate kind of experience of the plot unfolding in time.
It would be interesting to know about "spoilers" in regards to nineteenth-century serial fiction, come to think of it. There's a famous anecdote about eager readers begging to know if Little Nell lives at the end of Dickens' Old Curiosity Shop...At least when it comes to many 19th-century Russian novels, the author hadn't finished the manuscript when the first installments appeared (Anna Karenina ends [no spoilers!] with a reference to historical events that hadn't happened when the first chapters of the novel were published). Reviews would appear after the first part, in which the reviewer would try to predict how the story would develop. I imagine that would have really intensified the sense of anticipation for the readers.
posted by a certain Sysoi Pafnut'evich at 7:38 PM on April 28, 2019 [5 favorites]
I do agree that often the "shocking twist" used by TV and cinema production these days isn't all that shocking, it's just cliche violence and abuse.
posted by GenderNullPointerException at 7:45 PM on April 28, 2019 [4 favorites]
posted by GenderNullPointerException at 7:45 PM on April 28, 2019 [4 favorites]
I do say that if Patrick Duffy being in the shower in that one episode of Dallas had been spoiled, it really would have ruined everything for the entire country. They went to giant lengths to keep even the main cast from knowing, editing in Bobby just before airing. That shit was huge, and everyone watched it. I think everyone was hoping for something similar with a revelation in Twin Peaks, but of course that show wasn't about doing that kind of thing.
posted by hippybear at 7:51 PM on April 28, 2019 [1 favorite]
posted by hippybear at 7:51 PM on April 28, 2019 [1 favorite]
It seems like spoiler techniques have also gotten worse. Twenty years ago, someone would have said, "did you seen Endgame?!" and given you the opportunity to demur. Now, you're scrolling along on Facebook, and a major plot point is just on your screen.
People are more anti-spoiler because people are just so fucking clueless about etiquette these days. I've even seen some folks argue "if you don't want to be spoiled, stay off the Internet until you see the movie!" Used to be people would keep discussions to specific forums online. Now it's just a free-for-all.
Some of the spoiler-phobia is really dumb, but people have also gotten really bad about how they choose to discuss media online.
posted by explosion at 8:19 PM on April 28, 2019 [7 favorites]
People are more anti-spoiler because people are just so fucking clueless about etiquette these days. I've even seen some folks argue "if you don't want to be spoiled, stay off the Internet until you see the movie!" Used to be people would keep discussions to specific forums online. Now it's just a free-for-all.
Some of the spoiler-phobia is really dumb, but people have also gotten really bad about how they choose to discuss media online.
posted by explosion at 8:19 PM on April 28, 2019 [7 favorites]
Spoiler culture was bad enough when it just made media impossible to have a cogent discussion about, but now it's making our media itself fundamentally worse by depriving actors of necessary context to build their performance around. Just stop, just fucking stop, it was his goddamned sled, let's all move on with our lives already.
posted by tobascodagama at 8:22 PM on April 28, 2019 [9 favorites]
posted by tobascodagama at 8:22 PM on April 28, 2019 [9 favorites]
So they've done at least one study (but of course), and it turns out spoilers increase enjoyment.
Of course, that's just a study, not emotion, so I realize it probably won't persuade people really, really attached to the idea that "spoilers" exist. But, as the emperor says in Amadeus, there it is.
posted by aurelian at 8:25 PM on April 28, 2019 [2 favorites]
Of course, that's just a study, not emotion, so I realize it probably won't persuade people really, really attached to the idea that "spoilers" exist. But, as the emperor says in Amadeus, there it is.
posted by aurelian at 8:25 PM on April 28, 2019 [2 favorites]
there it is.
Well, I don't believe things just because someone did one study, especially in psychology, that came to a certain conclusion. There's a difference between being anti-science and being not credulous.
posted by thelonius at 8:34 PM on April 28, 2019 [2 favorites]
Well, I don't believe things just because someone did one study, especially in psychology, that came to a certain conclusion. There's a difference between being anti-science and being not credulous.
posted by thelonius at 8:34 PM on April 28, 2019 [2 favorites]
Second study. Third study, though variable depending on medium. One study against. Round up that I think links to at least one additional study not previously cited.
So that's, what, 4.5 to 1?
posted by aurelian at 8:54 PM on April 28, 2019 [3 favorites]
So that's, what, 4.5 to 1?
posted by aurelian at 8:54 PM on April 28, 2019 [3 favorites]
(I also think you were over-reading how strongly I meant the "there it is" line, as opposed to comic relief. But, fair enough.... I'm a lousy writer.)
posted by aurelian at 8:59 PM on April 28, 2019
posted by aurelian at 8:59 PM on April 28, 2019
The obsession with spoilers seems primarily a young person's game to me. Back in the before-times on RASFW when I was even more of a jackass a younger person myself there was a nice older woman (with at least one novel published to her name) who would deliberately spoil herself before reading essentially every book. And I couldn't understand it. Why would you do that? Why?
Now that 25 years have passed I understand it a lot better. I don't make it a habit but I'd be lying if I didn't admit that occasionally when I come across one of those scenes where it's unclear whether a character died or not I flip forward to look for their name. Because I'd rather concentrate on the writing than anxiety over whether they are dead. So, yeah, apologies DJH you were right.
I still don't understand rage quitting books if a cat gets harmed which was another one of her things though.
posted by Justinian at 9:05 PM on April 28, 2019 [3 favorites]
Now that 25 years have passed I understand it a lot better. I don't make it a habit but I'd be lying if I didn't admit that occasionally when I come across one of those scenes where it's unclear whether a character died or not I flip forward to look for their name. Because I'd rather concentrate on the writing than anxiety over whether they are dead. So, yeah, apologies DJH you were right.
I still don't understand rage quitting books if a cat gets harmed which was another one of her things though.
posted by Justinian at 9:05 PM on April 28, 2019 [3 favorites]
... now I realize that "older woman" was not even a decade older than I am now oh god
posted by Justinian at 9:06 PM on April 28, 2019 [9 favorites]
posted by Justinian at 9:06 PM on April 28, 2019 [9 favorites]
I understand the "no spoilers" culture to a degree. Just a small degree, though. Some people take it to extremes.
A friend of mine got super bent out of shape a few years ago regarding what he considered spoilers for a book. I had remarked "It was good. It was paced well, I enjoyed it. The last couple pages were totally unexpected, though."
I was informed that was an egregious spoiler.
I don't deliberately spoil things for people, but the notion that a general "I didn't see that coming!" is a story destroying spoiler is a bit much.
Caesar dies. Frodo lives. Christ does both. Rosebud is a sled. FFS.
posted by MissySedai at 9:13 PM on April 28, 2019 [4 favorites]
A friend of mine got super bent out of shape a few years ago regarding what he considered spoilers for a book. I had remarked "It was good. It was paced well, I enjoyed it. The last couple pages were totally unexpected, though."
I was informed that was an egregious spoiler.
I don't deliberately spoil things for people, but the notion that a general "I didn't see that coming!" is a story destroying spoiler is a bit much.
Caesar dies. Frodo lives. Christ does both. Rosebud is a sled. FFS.
posted by MissySedai at 9:13 PM on April 28, 2019 [4 favorites]
At the risk of appearing to contradict myself (though I don't think), I am far less annoyed at a true spoiler of the X HAPPENS variety than I am something vague like "I totally didn't see the twist at the end coming!". That's far more egregious because it takes me out of the story and I'm now hypervigilant about clues to this supposed twist.
"He was a ghost all along" isn't nearly as problematic as the shitty previews for stuff that say things like "And make sure you don't miss the LAST FIVE MINUTES!". Thanks, previews.
posted by Justinian at 9:18 PM on April 28, 2019 [5 favorites]
"He was a ghost all along" isn't nearly as problematic as the shitty previews for stuff that say things like "And make sure you don't miss the LAST FIVE MINUTES!". Thanks, previews.
posted by Justinian at 9:18 PM on April 28, 2019 [5 favorites]
Way back when, I was excited that the movie Seven was coming out but went on a road trip the weekend it came out. There was one person who split off from the main group of the trip and went and saw the movie with other friends while the rest of us went and did other things (this was the plan, she wasn't being excluded), and then proceeded to sit there in the car ride home and go through every plot point despite the rest of us trying to get her to shut up. It still sticks out as a pretty dickish move.
posted by Candleman at 9:40 PM on April 28, 2019
posted by Candleman at 9:40 PM on April 28, 2019
I don't know where I stand on all this. On the one hand, sure, I get that it's super frustrating not to be able to talk about a thing with people on the off-chance that one of them has maybe not seen, read or experienced the thing you want to talk about. This is especially true as the number of people who HAVE seen the thing becomes the majority, and yet you still have to make concessions to people who have not seen the thing but want to see the thing and please don't talk to me about the thing. You can see the light fade in people's eyes as they reluctantly drop the line of discussion they had planned to take up. I totally get it.
I think there's a weird kind of fear from which spoiler culture springs, a sort of inability to trust in the quality of a piece of entertainment. And I don't mean that in a snarky way, either towards the source material or the people who don't ever want to be spoiled about a thing. I mean that very literally: what if, for a given work, there's a sort of Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle at work? Attempting to measure the quality of a work by finding out more about it may in itself affect the quality of a work. Knowing how the plot goes may rob you of a key surprise and thus diminish your enjoyment of the work. And what if it turns out that's all the work really had to offer in the first place? Or what if that's the main thing you really cared about, that the rest of the stuff that goes into making a movie or a book or a play is either a) stuff you don't care about or b) stuff you feel reasonably confident will be executed to a particular standard?
The article mentions that things were very different not that long ago, and in the days of Shakespeare plays would announce the broad strokes of the plot via the chorus. The corollary is that things have changed recently, and I don't think it's just that the internet exists now and that casual spoiling is so easy that effort has to be made to avoid it. It's also that creative works have begun to lean more heavily on plot surprises for entertainment value. For years, the best shows on television have harboured at least one major plot twist. People still talk about shows like Lost today. There's an entire genre of shows called "puzzle boxes." Anthology shows like The Twilight Zone and The Outer Limits have trafficked in this kind of thing for decades, but now these kinds of things are built into nearly every type of show. Reality shows derive a great deal of drama from last-second swerves. The Good Place is a comedy that's so good at plot twists that it thinks nothing of throwing a few into a single season.
Like it or not, that's what a lot of our creative works rely on nowadays. And yeah, we can talk about how the MCU's plot twists are pretty milquetoast—as someone who hasn't yet seen Endgame, it's pretty clear to me that there are only so many possible resolutions and someone has probably written thinkpieces for each option long ago. (Someone did apparently put together a video re-enactment of the "Ant-Man expands inside Thanos's butt" theory, after all.) But I think if you're going to rail against spoiler culture, there has to be some examination of how movies and television came to the point where the most exciting way to tell stories was to focus on surprise and suspense, and whether that's something that can be walked back in blockbuster culture. Do people even make narrative art that announces its plot upfront via chorus (or any other method), and if not, why isn't that a viable way to craft a narrative anymore?
posted by chrominance at 9:54 PM on April 28, 2019 [5 favorites]
I think there's a weird kind of fear from which spoiler culture springs, a sort of inability to trust in the quality of a piece of entertainment. And I don't mean that in a snarky way, either towards the source material or the people who don't ever want to be spoiled about a thing. I mean that very literally: what if, for a given work, there's a sort of Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle at work? Attempting to measure the quality of a work by finding out more about it may in itself affect the quality of a work. Knowing how the plot goes may rob you of a key surprise and thus diminish your enjoyment of the work. And what if it turns out that's all the work really had to offer in the first place? Or what if that's the main thing you really cared about, that the rest of the stuff that goes into making a movie or a book or a play is either a) stuff you don't care about or b) stuff you feel reasonably confident will be executed to a particular standard?
The article mentions that things were very different not that long ago, and in the days of Shakespeare plays would announce the broad strokes of the plot via the chorus. The corollary is that things have changed recently, and I don't think it's just that the internet exists now and that casual spoiling is so easy that effort has to be made to avoid it. It's also that creative works have begun to lean more heavily on plot surprises for entertainment value. For years, the best shows on television have harboured at least one major plot twist. People still talk about shows like Lost today. There's an entire genre of shows called "puzzle boxes." Anthology shows like The Twilight Zone and The Outer Limits have trafficked in this kind of thing for decades, but now these kinds of things are built into nearly every type of show. Reality shows derive a great deal of drama from last-second swerves. The Good Place is a comedy that's so good at plot twists that it thinks nothing of throwing a few into a single season.
Like it or not, that's what a lot of our creative works rely on nowadays. And yeah, we can talk about how the MCU's plot twists are pretty milquetoast—as someone who hasn't yet seen Endgame, it's pretty clear to me that there are only so many possible resolutions and someone has probably written thinkpieces for each option long ago. (Someone did apparently put together a video re-enactment of the "Ant-Man expands inside Thanos's butt" theory, after all.) But I think if you're going to rail against spoiler culture, there has to be some examination of how movies and television came to the point where the most exciting way to tell stories was to focus on surprise and suspense, and whether that's something that can be walked back in blockbuster culture. Do people even make narrative art that announces its plot upfront via chorus (or any other method), and if not, why isn't that a viable way to craft a narrative anymore?
posted by chrominance at 9:54 PM on April 28, 2019 [5 favorites]
The other group thinks that you can avoid that warning by just knowing that when talking about media that you may learn something about its details.
This ignores the actual context in which the problem arises, which is social media that sloshes a lot of people's opinions on a topic onto your screen whether or not you are seeking them out. Spoilers were less of a problem when you were only going to be talking about movies with people you knew in conversations you actually chose to participate in. On Twitter these days you can't even be confident you won't be shown posts by people you have never heard of before in your life talking about things you never expressed an interest in knowing. I don't even watch GoT and, with the exception of checking in on Fanfare out of boredom at work, I don't sit around talking about it. But I can hold a conversation about what happened in tonight's episode already based solely on other people's spoiling away in general forums. Without spoilers, you don't get the chance to avoid having information you don't want thrust into your face. I had to go off a couple of platforms since midweek just to avoid not finding out the key points of Endgame before I could go a whole two days after it opened.
posted by praemunire at 10:28 PM on April 28, 2019 [3 favorites]
This ignores the actual context in which the problem arises, which is social media that sloshes a lot of people's opinions on a topic onto your screen whether or not you are seeking them out. Spoilers were less of a problem when you were only going to be talking about movies with people you knew in conversations you actually chose to participate in. On Twitter these days you can't even be confident you won't be shown posts by people you have never heard of before in your life talking about things you never expressed an interest in knowing. I don't even watch GoT and, with the exception of checking in on Fanfare out of boredom at work, I don't sit around talking about it. But I can hold a conversation about what happened in tonight's episode already based solely on other people's spoiling away in general forums. Without spoilers, you don't get the chance to avoid having information you don't want thrust into your face. I had to go off a couple of platforms since midweek just to avoid not finding out the key points of Endgame before I could go a whole two days after it opened.
posted by praemunire at 10:28 PM on April 28, 2019 [3 favorites]
I mind the hell out of spoilers, and I'm online a lot.
This means that I hope the world ends by time zones, because for once I can revel in the East Coast spoiling things.
When it comes to things like Twitter, I try to run a pack of mutes for anything I care about going into unspoiled, and I appreciate people who use tags when conversing.
posted by taterpie at 10:55 PM on April 28, 2019 [2 favorites]
This means that I hope the world ends by time zones, because for once I can revel in the East Coast spoiling things.
When it comes to things like Twitter, I try to run a pack of mutes for anything I care about going into unspoiled, and I appreciate people who use tags when conversing.
posted by taterpie at 10:55 PM on April 28, 2019 [2 favorites]
Spoilers really ruined "Titanic" for me. Knowing the boat sinks changes EVERYTHING!
As I mentioned before on the blue, when the hundredth anniversary of the sinking rolled around (some fifteen years after the movie was released) there seemed to a fair number of clueless people on social media who were genuinely surprised that there really had been such a vessel.
The hackneyed joke of late nineties comedians (“Spoiler: the boat sinks!”) was indeed a spoiler for many.
posted by ricochet biscuit at 10:58 PM on April 28, 2019 [4 favorites]
As I mentioned before on the blue, when the hundredth anniversary of the sinking rolled around (some fifteen years after the movie was released) there seemed to a fair number of clueless people on social media who were genuinely surprised that there really had been such a vessel.
The hackneyed joke of late nineties comedians (“Spoiler: the boat sinks!”) was indeed a spoiler for many.
posted by ricochet biscuit at 10:58 PM on April 28, 2019 [4 favorites]
I don’t like spoilers, I hate “omg, there’s this thing, just wait”, I hate “joke spoilers” that incidentally reveal that nothing actually has happened to character X since you are casually joking about them. I am the perfect cinema client, I suspend disbelief very well; I have twice now wondered if there’s a documentary about Mark Watney while watching The Martian. If you’re not much of a smarty pants and just along for the ride a lot of predictable mainstream culture is actually pretty good fun.
Also, to everyone ironically posting older key plot points, please remember that not all mefites were even alive when these films came out, it’s not super-unreasonable that a 25 year old might not have gotten around to The Usual Suspects yet or may not have yet been in the mood for Kane. It’s kinda “everyone is like me” in a way that’s probably less fun-loving than intended.
posted by Iteki at 11:01 PM on April 28, 2019
Also, to everyone ironically posting older key plot points, please remember that not all mefites were even alive when these films came out, it’s not super-unreasonable that a 25 year old might not have gotten around to The Usual Suspects yet or may not have yet been in the mood for Kane. It’s kinda “everyone is like me” in a way that’s probably less fun-loving than intended.
posted by Iteki at 11:01 PM on April 28, 2019
People who demand to be able to spoil things immediately or soonly are assuming everyone else has the time and money they do. And people who think only the quality of the story matters must be able to tickle themselves. For me, I cannot feel surprise over something I already know, and no matter how I admire the craft of the story, the person who spoiled it is spoiling it because they got to feel an emotion they've now prevented me from feeling.
On the other hand, I heard the Good Place was great two years ago and sat down to watch it, only to have it spoiled by people posting memes from it in response to things like politics. Mild bummer, but I was starting it 3 weeks after the season ended. I didn't feel like I could really complain, and I wasn't mad. It was already in the cultural record, so to speak.
This seems like something where common sense and courtesy can rule the day? But often do not.
posted by taterpie at 11:17 PM on April 28, 2019 [3 favorites]
On the other hand, I heard the Good Place was great two years ago and sat down to watch it, only to have it spoiled by people posting memes from it in response to things like politics. Mild bummer, but I was starting it 3 weeks after the season ended. I didn't feel like I could really complain, and I wasn't mad. It was already in the cultural record, so to speak.
This seems like something where common sense and courtesy can rule the day? But often do not.
posted by taterpie at 11:17 PM on April 28, 2019 [3 favorites]
Someone above also touched on the fact that serial genre fiction does, in fact, rely on creating a delicious suspense before delivering a satisfying genre-appropriate resolution. It fits into a tiny space between predictability and not-predictability, doubt and certainty. It's a very real pleasure, and media that can recreate that experience in my jaded, weary, genre-savvy brain hits my buttons in a totally pure, childlike way.
(OMG THE WHITE GUARDIAN IS SECRETLY THE BLACK GUARDIAN--!!!!!)
posted by praemunire at 11:20 PM on April 28, 2019 [3 favorites]
(OMG THE WHITE GUARDIAN IS SECRETLY THE BLACK GUARDIAN--!!!!!)
posted by praemunire at 11:20 PM on April 28, 2019 [3 favorites]
Spoilers do not bother me and I frequently prefer to know how things end before I start ... I feel like I enjoy the journey a lot more that way. Very rarely, I prefer to read/watch unspoiled, but not often. (But then, I cry with anxiety at Apollo 13 which not only is a true damn story, but I've probably watched the movie 100 times! Still cry.)
I don't spoil anybody on purpose, but I do think "NO SPOILERS!" is a bit out of hand. A friend got upset when I spoiled the ending of A Star Is Born when it had been in theaters a month and REMADE REPEATEDLY SINCE 1934, I honestly had no idea anybody didn't know the ending!
But the spoiler insanity winner was when I finished Moby Dick and was talking about it with a few friends from my book club and we started discussing (spoiler!) Ishmael alone at the end after the ship sinks, and one girl cried, "OMG SPOILER!" in dismay. "Are you serious?" I asked.
She was serious, and she was PISSED that we'd ruined Moby Dick for her.
That's just flatly insane.
posted by Eyebrows McGee at 11:29 PM on April 28, 2019 [12 favorites]
I don't spoil anybody on purpose, but I do think "NO SPOILERS!" is a bit out of hand. A friend got upset when I spoiled the ending of A Star Is Born when it had been in theaters a month and REMADE REPEATEDLY SINCE 1934, I honestly had no idea anybody didn't know the ending!
But the spoiler insanity winner was when I finished Moby Dick and was talking about it with a few friends from my book club and we started discussing (spoiler!) Ishmael alone at the end after the ship sinks, and one girl cried, "OMG SPOILER!" in dismay. "Are you serious?" I asked.
She was serious, and she was PISSED that we'd ruined Moby Dick for her.
That's just flatly insane.
posted by Eyebrows McGee at 11:29 PM on April 28, 2019 [12 favorites]
yet or may not have yet been in the mood for Kane
Eh, to someone who hasn't seen it, it might seem like a big deal because it's nominally the question characters are trying to answer, but it's metonymy. Trying to find out what the word is referring to is shorthand for asking questions about who Kane was in his private life versus his public persona.
posted by juv3nal at 11:29 PM on April 28, 2019 [4 favorites]
Eh, to someone who hasn't seen it, it might seem like a big deal because it's nominally the question characters are trying to answer, but it's metonymy. Trying to find out what the word is referring to is shorthand for asking questions about who Kane was in his private life versus his public persona.
posted by juv3nal at 11:29 PM on April 28, 2019 [4 favorites]
The thing about Citizen Kane is that it doesn't actually make a lick of difference what Rosebud really was, and that's part of the point of the movie. The movie isn't about finding out what it is, anyway; the characters never do.
posted by praemunire at 11:52 PM on April 28, 2019 [3 favorites]
posted by praemunire at 11:52 PM on April 28, 2019 [3 favorites]
She was serious, and she was PISSED that we'd ruined Moby Dick for her.
This points to the complication of how people frame their understanding of their pleasures. I mean thinking Moby Dick is ruined for having the ending revealed suggests one's appreciation of Moby Dick was always going to be limited at best, so the reveal doesn't do much other than cross one of thousands and thousands of titles off the list of things to read.
In like fashion, there have been thousands of movies released since the Usual Suspects or Citizen Kane, so demanding no spoilers for those suggests a desire to not want to hear about any story one hasn't read oneself no matter how old or influential, which is a limit on culture that is as selfish as someone choosing to spoil things just because they can.
Modern television/streaming shows don't help the process because often all they have to offer is plot twists that are made up as they go along rather than coming from something in the work as a whole that is expressed; the difference between surprise at an event in the work opposed to surprise from the work as a whole. The former can be spoiled with loss as that's all there is while the latter largely resists spoiling because it is descriptive of the work's innovation. The boundaries on these things aren't entirely clear of course, with some viewers seeing everything as only story and some works relying on cliches of "surprise" that become as predictable and tired as playing it straight.
Movies of the late sixties and early seventies, for example, regularly had "surprise"/unhappy endings, so much so that it became its own cliche and could be just as expected as the hero saving the day might be in another era. That came from the Vietnam War Civil unrest era and had some sense in the time, but led to a conservative backlash in media where the "good guys" would win again and old cliches would be restored. Innovation and challenge to expectation, when deemed successful, are duplicated and become as cliched as that which they replaced so the process repeats itself, that's the cyclical nature of entertainment/art.
But since we can now browse most of the history of entertainment at our leisure, dipping in here and there, taking things from their context for our amusement, the connection between the time and the works is lost so that, for many, all that remains is their pleasure. The surprise that might come from seeing something dragged out of its own era into ours where expectations may not hold. Fitting those works into context often requires "spoiling" and that context can be more important than whether any one person has the ending of movie revealed to them. There's more to most works than just the surprise events in the story might bring, but at the same time there's no sense to revealing story events just to do so, there should be some contextual purpose to it or be talked about in ways that signal the discussion will be about response to the works and all that entails.
The internet isn't ever going to go spoiler free, even for current works, as people want to share what they're interested in, even good faith efforts made on some sites won't be enough to alter that, so accepting that as the reality of the current media landscape as much as the attempts to create surprise, whether meaningful or no, seems to me to all be part of the same package.
posted by gusottertrout at 12:14 AM on April 29, 2019 [1 favorite]
This points to the complication of how people frame their understanding of their pleasures. I mean thinking Moby Dick is ruined for having the ending revealed suggests one's appreciation of Moby Dick was always going to be limited at best, so the reveal doesn't do much other than cross one of thousands and thousands of titles off the list of things to read.
In like fashion, there have been thousands of movies released since the Usual Suspects or Citizen Kane, so demanding no spoilers for those suggests a desire to not want to hear about any story one hasn't read oneself no matter how old or influential, which is a limit on culture that is as selfish as someone choosing to spoil things just because they can.
Modern television/streaming shows don't help the process because often all they have to offer is plot twists that are made up as they go along rather than coming from something in the work as a whole that is expressed; the difference between surprise at an event in the work opposed to surprise from the work as a whole. The former can be spoiled with loss as that's all there is while the latter largely resists spoiling because it is descriptive of the work's innovation. The boundaries on these things aren't entirely clear of course, with some viewers seeing everything as only story and some works relying on cliches of "surprise" that become as predictable and tired as playing it straight.
Movies of the late sixties and early seventies, for example, regularly had "surprise"/unhappy endings, so much so that it became its own cliche and could be just as expected as the hero saving the day might be in another era. That came from the Vietnam War Civil unrest era and had some sense in the time, but led to a conservative backlash in media where the "good guys" would win again and old cliches would be restored. Innovation and challenge to expectation, when deemed successful, are duplicated and become as cliched as that which they replaced so the process repeats itself, that's the cyclical nature of entertainment/art.
But since we can now browse most of the history of entertainment at our leisure, dipping in here and there, taking things from their context for our amusement, the connection between the time and the works is lost so that, for many, all that remains is their pleasure. The surprise that might come from seeing something dragged out of its own era into ours where expectations may not hold. Fitting those works into context often requires "spoiling" and that context can be more important than whether any one person has the ending of movie revealed to them. There's more to most works than just the surprise events in the story might bring, but at the same time there's no sense to revealing story events just to do so, there should be some contextual purpose to it or be talked about in ways that signal the discussion will be about response to the works and all that entails.
The internet isn't ever going to go spoiler free, even for current works, as people want to share what they're interested in, even good faith efforts made on some sites won't be enough to alter that, so accepting that as the reality of the current media landscape as much as the attempts to create surprise, whether meaningful or no, seems to me to all be part of the same package.
posted by gusottertrout at 12:14 AM on April 29, 2019 [1 favorite]
Never accept terrible things! Fight for a better way!
And block jerks. Even your sister.
posted by taterpie at 12:32 AM on April 29, 2019
And block jerks. Even your sister.
posted by taterpie at 12:32 AM on April 29, 2019
People are more anti-spoiler because people are just so fucking clueless about etiquette these days. I've even seen some folks argue "if you don't want to be spoiled, stay off the Internet until you see the movie!" Used to be people would keep discussions to specific forums online. Now it's just a free-for-all.That's because most of us aren't on specific forums anymore: we're all stuck in the same morass of a Facebook, Instagram, Twitter or what have you, were you're not actually allowed to control what comes across your timeline and everything is served up in one big stream.
That's why spoiler culture is so heated right now and why people make such a Big Deal about Avengers: Endgame. What with everybody going to see it and everybody being on social media, it makes for the perfect storm.
posted by MartinWisse at 12:36 AM on April 29, 2019 [5 favorites]
It looks like spoilers matter mainly to people who are always waiting in sync with their friends to read or watch the next installment of various n-part things in which what matters is that Exciting Stuff Happens (and art is parenthetical if not entirely beside the point). Like watching old-time serials with actual cliff hangers. Or like going on an amusement park ride. If that's you, it matters a lot whether you get to enjoy the tension and surprises and gasps together with your pals. If someone pokes an early hole in your excitement and lets all their pressure hiss out, you don't get to enjoy it as much as your friend in the next seat.
posted by pracowity at 12:40 AM on April 29, 2019 [1 favorite]
posted by pracowity at 12:40 AM on April 29, 2019 [1 favorite]
MartinWisse: "What with everybody going to see it and everybody being on social media, it makes for the perfect storm."
It almost seem like everyone who will ever see Endgame saw it opening weekend. I mean, $1.2 billion, even at $20 a head that means 60 million people saw it. (Or 30 million people saw it twice.)
posted by chavenet at 12:42 AM on April 29, 2019 [2 favorites]
It almost seem like everyone who will ever see Endgame saw it opening weekend. I mean, $1.2 billion, even at $20 a head that means 60 million people saw it. (Or 30 million people saw it twice.)
posted by chavenet at 12:42 AM on April 29, 2019 [2 favorites]
It almost seem like everyone who will ever see Endgame saw it opening weekend.
I felt like I had to, for this very reason. I went Thursday night.
posted by taterpie at 12:47 AM on April 29, 2019 [3 favorites]
I felt like I had to, for this very reason. I went Thursday night.
posted by taterpie at 12:47 AM on April 29, 2019 [3 favorites]
I'm vehemently anti-spoiler; if I really want to watch something, I'd prefer to know nothing about it going in. This has been a source of some conflict with my partner, who is more likely to see something if he's heard some cool details about it, and who also likes to illustrate points he's making with details from media whether the person he's talking to has consumed that media yet or not.
Here's how I justified my hate-on for spoilers to him:
So you've got this carefully crafted experience that an author prepared for you, there are several levels on which it's intended to be enjoyable, and one of them is you receiving all of the plot twists in the way the author intended them to be delivered. That's not the only pleasurable part of the experience, but it's significant, especially in plot-twist-heavy media where the author spent most of their time crafting the reveals.
If I tell you a spoiler for a piece of media, I've destroyed your ability to experience it as the author intended. There's a life experience you could have had that you literally cannot have anymore. It's like going up to someone when they're about to chow down on a ham sandwich and saying "Oh, is that from Analogy Deli? I heard someone found broken glass in one of their ham sandwiches last week."
Sure, they can still eat the ham sandwich, maybe even enjoy the ham sandwich, but it's not going to be the same experience, because they'll be thinking about whether there are shards of glass in the ham. Just like when you're watching a movie thinking "Is this where this character is going to die? I wish I didn't already know their wife was a ghost. I am SO MAD at the person who spoiled this for me. Thank God I don't know how Moby Dick ends... oh shit, I've forgotten to pay attention to this movie."
But other than that YOU are responsible for not getting spoiled, for the most part.
I clicked on the google search bar on my phone last week and it popped up a trending search with the names of two Game of Thrones characters. Also a human being who is communicating with you can choose to spoil anything at any time. The level of vigilance required to completely protect yourself from spoilers seems extreme!
posted by taquito sunrise at 12:55 AM on April 29, 2019 [2 favorites]
Here's how I justified my hate-on for spoilers to him:
So you've got this carefully crafted experience that an author prepared for you, there are several levels on which it's intended to be enjoyable, and one of them is you receiving all of the plot twists in the way the author intended them to be delivered. That's not the only pleasurable part of the experience, but it's significant, especially in plot-twist-heavy media where the author spent most of their time crafting the reveals.
If I tell you a spoiler for a piece of media, I've destroyed your ability to experience it as the author intended. There's a life experience you could have had that you literally cannot have anymore. It's like going up to someone when they're about to chow down on a ham sandwich and saying "Oh, is that from Analogy Deli? I heard someone found broken glass in one of their ham sandwiches last week."
Sure, they can still eat the ham sandwich, maybe even enjoy the ham sandwich, but it's not going to be the same experience, because they'll be thinking about whether there are shards of glass in the ham. Just like when you're watching a movie thinking "Is this where this character is going to die? I wish I didn't already know their wife was a ghost. I am SO MAD at the person who spoiled this for me. Thank God I don't know how Moby Dick ends... oh shit, I've forgotten to pay attention to this movie."
But other than that YOU are responsible for not getting spoiled, for the most part.
I clicked on the google search bar on my phone last week and it popped up a trending search with the names of two Game of Thrones characters. Also a human being who is communicating with you can choose to spoil anything at any time. The level of vigilance required to completely protect yourself from spoilers seems extreme!
posted by taquito sunrise at 12:55 AM on April 29, 2019 [2 favorites]
I forgot to mention the compromise my partner & I came to in regards to spoilers: he asks if I care about the piece of media in question before he spoils it, and I honestly assess whether I was actually going to consume it or if I'm just being precious about it. (I was never going to read Moby Dick. Word on the street about Moby Dick is that while Herman Melville was writing it he used to read it aloud to a captive audience of houseguests in the evenings, which is something I think about a lot.)
posted by taquito sunrise at 1:01 AM on April 29, 2019 [4 favorites]
posted by taquito sunrise at 1:01 AM on April 29, 2019 [4 favorites]
PREMISE IS NOT A SPOILER
Anything that's a good surprise can be fun for people who enjoy surprises. That's true whether the movie is otherwise disposable or if it's a classic that rewards repeated watching.
I think it can be really fun to watch a movie completely cold, not even knowing what genre it is, or anything about it besides someone you trust telling you it is worth watching. But it's a very rare pleasure.
posted by straight at 1:18 AM on April 29, 2019 [2 favorites]
Anything that's a good surprise can be fun for people who enjoy surprises. That's true whether the movie is otherwise disposable or if it's a classic that rewards repeated watching.
I think it can be really fun to watch a movie completely cold, not even knowing what genre it is, or anything about it besides someone you trust telling you it is worth watching. But it's a very rare pleasure.
posted by straight at 1:18 AM on April 29, 2019 [2 favorites]
My friends were talking about this recently, and some of the most adamant anti-spoiler people also don't like hearing people theorize about a text due to inadvertent spoilers that might arrise.
I'm sorry, this is just flatly absurd, consumerist and anti-intellectual - not even anti-intellectual but anti-thinking. "Never talk about books, that ruins them for others; if you have ideas about an author or a novel, keep them to yourself lest someone learn before their time that Elizabeth Bennett marries Mr. Darcy. Treat books in the crassest consumerist manner, churning through them but never thinking about them; consume them alone unless you wish to participate in celebratory fan culture, the one acceptable outlet. Books are for consuming, not thinking about! Thinking ruins the experience!"
I guess all these people who love to read so much had better avoid the English department - you start breaking out the lit crit and all of the sudden people start telling you not only that Young Werther dies but why it's important.
posted by Frowner at 1:21 AM on April 29, 2019 [22 favorites]
I'm sorry, this is just flatly absurd, consumerist and anti-intellectual - not even anti-intellectual but anti-thinking. "Never talk about books, that ruins them for others; if you have ideas about an author or a novel, keep them to yourself lest someone learn before their time that Elizabeth Bennett marries Mr. Darcy. Treat books in the crassest consumerist manner, churning through them but never thinking about them; consume them alone unless you wish to participate in celebratory fan culture, the one acceptable outlet. Books are for consuming, not thinking about! Thinking ruins the experience!"
I guess all these people who love to read so much had better avoid the English department - you start breaking out the lit crit and all of the sudden people start telling you not only that Young Werther dies but why it's important.
posted by Frowner at 1:21 AM on April 29, 2019 [22 favorites]
So they've done at least one study (but of course), and it turns out spoilers increase enjoyment.
Those studies are basically just opinion polls. Did you like it better this way or that way? Saying this "proves" spoilers increase enjoyment is like saying the box office take proves that Jurassic World was a better movie than Mad Max Fury Road.
posted by straight at 1:29 AM on April 29, 2019 [5 favorites]
Those studies are basically just opinion polls. Did you like it better this way or that way? Saying this "proves" spoilers increase enjoyment is like saying the box office take proves that Jurassic World was a better movie than Mad Max Fury Road.
posted by straight at 1:29 AM on April 29, 2019 [5 favorites]
Tangentially: I find it funny how so many of the reactionary people who loudly declare how little they give a shit about people's pronouns or content warnings for traumatic content are also the very same people who get incredibly upset if you spoil their movies/TV shows/whatever.
Of course, it makes a sad sort of sense that their enjoyment of mass produced media trumps their respect of people who aren't exactly like them.
posted by Ouverture at 1:30 AM on April 29, 2019 [1 favorite]
Of course, it makes a sad sort of sense that their enjoyment of mass produced media trumps their respect of people who aren't exactly like them.
posted by Ouverture at 1:30 AM on April 29, 2019 [1 favorite]
I still remember watching Letterman back in the day, and he spoiled The Crying Game, saying "It's a guy!" Even then there was something of some backlash, maybe in print? I had no interest in seeing the movie, but even I was pissed by that.
posted by zardoz at 1:34 AM on April 29, 2019
posted by zardoz at 1:34 AM on April 29, 2019
PREMISE IS NOT A SPOILER.
I don't know about this, by the way. The first, oh, ten minutes of one of the all-time classics, The Third Man, involve a naive American writer arriving in post-war Vienna to work for a friend of his there, "happy as a lark and without a cent," only to slowly discover, through a darkly comic series of linguistic mishaps, that the friend has just been tragically killed and is in fact being buried that very day. The audience is unquestionably supposed to identify with oblivious Holly and be disoriented as Holly is by the news. If someone tells you that the premise of the movie is "Naive American writer comes to post-war Vienna to work for a friend, but learns he must investigate his death instead," which is, I think, basically the kind of premise summary you'd ordinarily get, you really are taking something away from the intended experience of the movie.
posted by praemunire at 1:39 AM on April 29, 2019 [1 favorite]
I don't know about this, by the way. The first, oh, ten minutes of one of the all-time classics, The Third Man, involve a naive American writer arriving in post-war Vienna to work for a friend of his there, "happy as a lark and without a cent," only to slowly discover, through a darkly comic series of linguistic mishaps, that the friend has just been tragically killed and is in fact being buried that very day. The audience is unquestionably supposed to identify with oblivious Holly and be disoriented as Holly is by the news. If someone tells you that the premise of the movie is "Naive American writer comes to post-war Vienna to work for a friend, but learns he must investigate his death instead," which is, I think, basically the kind of premise summary you'd ordinarily get, you really are taking something away from the intended experience of the movie.
posted by praemunire at 1:39 AM on April 29, 2019 [1 favorite]
Sure, if something is relatively recent or famous for a big plot twist, it's discourteous to reveal all and I don't do it. But I feel like the "oooh, don't spoil Romeo and Juliet" mentality just shuts down every conversation about books that you can possibly have. If I'm talking about books with people, I don't expect to have read every book that every person in the room brings up - in general, I expect to learn about new books.
And if we're talking about, eg, queer literature prior to 1980, I expect that we can talk about themes and plot devices with the goal of arriving at some conclusions rather than discovering that we've all read Finisterre, some of us have read Beebo Brinker, two of us have started City of Night but only one has finished it and one person has read the entire works of Joanna Russ and therefore we can only talk about Finisterre, which is much the most depressing one. It's like, what good is done here? The off-chance that everyone in the room will have the time and energy to one day read all the books unspoiled is the only gain, and the loss is the whole conversation.
posted by Frowner at 1:39 AM on April 29, 2019 [12 favorites]
And if we're talking about, eg, queer literature prior to 1980, I expect that we can talk about themes and plot devices with the goal of arriving at some conclusions rather than discovering that we've all read Finisterre, some of us have read Beebo Brinker, two of us have started City of Night but only one has finished it and one person has read the entire works of Joanna Russ and therefore we can only talk about Finisterre, which is much the most depressing one. It's like, what good is done here? The off-chance that everyone in the room will have the time and energy to one day read all the books unspoiled is the only gain, and the loss is the whole conversation.
posted by Frowner at 1:39 AM on April 29, 2019 [12 favorites]
I guess all these people who love to read so much had better avoid the English department - you start breaking out the lit crit and all of the sudden people start telling you not only that Young Werther dies but why it's important.
What makes it really bizarre is that many of the works people don't want spoiled, if they aren't brand new, are only kept notable by the history of criticism and response celebrating the works. The "spoiling" is what shows the works are still relevant and desirable to engage with.
posted by gusottertrout at 1:40 AM on April 29, 2019 [5 favorites]
What makes it really bizarre is that many of the works people don't want spoiled, if they aren't brand new, are only kept notable by the history of criticism and response celebrating the works. The "spoiling" is what shows the works are still relevant and desirable to engage with.
posted by gusottertrout at 1:40 AM on April 29, 2019 [5 favorites]
"Never talk about books, that ruins them for others; if you have ideas about an author or a novel, keep them to yourself lest someone learn before their time that Elizabeth Bennett marries Mr. Darcy. Treat books in the crassest consumerist manner, churning through them but never thinking about them; consume them alone unless you wish to participate in celebratory fan culture, the one acceptable outlet. Books are for consuming, not thinking about! Thinking ruins the experience!"
I might be misunderstanding what you're talking about here, but if two people are going to engage in a theoretical discussion of a book, isn't it better if they've both actually read the book first? I love to read critical analysis and have conversations about themes & narrative but I feel like "read book first, then discuss/read analysis of book" is a completely reasonable order of operations?
posted by taquito sunrise at 1:45 AM on April 29, 2019 [3 favorites]
I might be misunderstanding what you're talking about here, but if two people are going to engage in a theoretical discussion of a book, isn't it better if they've both actually read the book first? I love to read critical analysis and have conversations about themes & narrative but I feel like "read book first, then discuss/read analysis of book" is a completely reasonable order of operations?
posted by taquito sunrise at 1:45 AM on April 29, 2019 [3 favorites]
There's also, you know, the change in attitude about spoilers being related to how much more stuff is now available. Movies used to disappear once they'd been shown in the cinema, tv shows might live on in syndication or not, comic books, well, those were so disposable you had entire fanzines that specialised in recapping them for new readers. You were spoiled because often that was the only way you could experience something, even if only second hand.
What with everything being available online and always on, it's strange to think that even something as big as Star Wars could just disappear, but for a few years it did, once the last movie had left the theatres and the only thing you could get was the Marvel comic.
posted by MartinWisse at 1:48 AM on April 29, 2019
What with everything being available online and always on, it's strange to think that even something as big as Star Wars could just disappear, but for a few years it did, once the last movie had left the theatres and the only thing you could get was the Marvel comic.
posted by MartinWisse at 1:48 AM on April 29, 2019
For many movies I want to accept the unfolding at the author's pace. That process is unique and fertile.
That's really all you need to know.
posted by tychotesla at 1:53 AM on April 29, 2019 [8 favorites]
That's really all you need to know.
posted by tychotesla at 1:53 AM on April 29, 2019 [8 favorites]
And if we're talking about, eg, queer literature prior to 1980, I expect that we can talk about themes and plot devices with the goal of arriving at some conclusions rather than discovering that we've all read Finisterre, some of us have read Beebo Brinker, two of us have started City of Night but only one has finished it and one person has read the entire works of Joanna Russ and therefore we can only talk about Finisterre, which is much the most depressing one.
Oh, I see what you mean now! My personal preference in these situations is for themes to be up for grabs & major/semi-major plot points to be prefaced with "Are either of you actually going to finish City of Night, do you care if I spoil City of Night?" (The honest answer 99% of the time is "no, it's been in the trunk of my car for eight years now.")
posted by taquito sunrise at 1:55 AM on April 29, 2019 [2 favorites]
Oh, I see what you mean now! My personal preference in these situations is for themes to be up for grabs & major/semi-major plot points to be prefaced with "Are either of you actually going to finish City of Night, do you care if I spoil City of Night?" (The honest answer 99% of the time is "no, it's been in the trunk of my car for eight years now.")
posted by taquito sunrise at 1:55 AM on April 29, 2019 [2 favorites]
I might be misunderstanding what you're talking about here, but if two people are going to engage in a theoretical discussion of a book, isn't it better if they've both actually read the book first? I love to read critical analysis and have conversations about themes & narrative but I feel like "read book first, then discuss/read analysis of book" is a completely reasonable order of operations?
For a long time I ran a feminist science fiction book group. Discussion was wide-ranging. While of course we'd focus on the book we'd read for the meeting, we'd often have conversations along the lines of "The novel we read parallels similar novels such as A, B and C" or "a common theme in eighties feminist science fiction is Blah, worked out in ways 1, 2 and 3". At no point did we pause to make sure that everyone had read every Suzy McKee Charnas novel.
If you're going to talk about a genre, a period, a common theme or even the entire corpus of books by an author, it's unlikely that everyone in the room will have read all of the relevant books. The point of such a conversation is precisely to compare, to draw out shared themes, to make general statements. It is literally impossible to have this type of conversation if the requirement is that every person in the room has read every book that is referenced.
In general, if you read books about books, the assumption is not that you've finished All The Dickens before you start reading and thinking about Dickens as a writer; the assumption is that you're interested in reading and thinking about Dickens, so you're okay with learning that Kit isn't transported to Australia.
posted by Frowner at 1:57 AM on April 29, 2019 [8 favorites]
For a long time I ran a feminist science fiction book group. Discussion was wide-ranging. While of course we'd focus on the book we'd read for the meeting, we'd often have conversations along the lines of "The novel we read parallels similar novels such as A, B and C" or "a common theme in eighties feminist science fiction is Blah, worked out in ways 1, 2 and 3". At no point did we pause to make sure that everyone had read every Suzy McKee Charnas novel.
If you're going to talk about a genre, a period, a common theme or even the entire corpus of books by an author, it's unlikely that everyone in the room will have read all of the relevant books. The point of such a conversation is precisely to compare, to draw out shared themes, to make general statements. It is literally impossible to have this type of conversation if the requirement is that every person in the room has read every book that is referenced.
In general, if you read books about books, the assumption is not that you've finished All The Dickens before you start reading and thinking about Dickens as a writer; the assumption is that you're interested in reading and thinking about Dickens, so you're okay with learning that Kit isn't transported to Australia.
posted by Frowner at 1:57 AM on April 29, 2019 [8 favorites]
that Kit isn't transported to Australia.
What? Oh, dang, and I was sure Quilp was gonna have his way.
posted by gusottertrout at 2:11 AM on April 29, 2019
What? Oh, dang, and I was sure Quilp was gonna have his way.
posted by gusottertrout at 2:11 AM on April 29, 2019
I don't think spoilers really count much beyond about maybe 6 months on the outside.
See, I think this is bullshit. If you're sitting there watching a film with someone and they haven't seen it before, you keep the damn plot twists to yourself. That it's twenty years old is a reason you can assume people have seen it or aren't going to in general circumstances, but there is basically no reason to ever be all "so you see, this is happening because [major plot twist]". There is never a reason to do that, doubly so if you're watching the film with someone who hasn't seen it before, age be damned.
posted by Dysk at 2:40 AM on April 29, 2019 [3 favorites]
See, I think this is bullshit. If you're sitting there watching a film with someone and they haven't seen it before, you keep the damn plot twists to yourself. That it's twenty years old is a reason you can assume people have seen it or aren't going to in general circumstances, but there is basically no reason to ever be all "so you see, this is happening because [major plot twist]". There is never a reason to do that, doubly so if you're watching the film with someone who hasn't seen it before, age be damned.
posted by Dysk at 2:40 AM on April 29, 2019 [3 favorites]
I suspect this is me rerunning a comment from a few years ago, but: I grew up in a household that got the BFI's Monthly Film Bulletin delivered, what has now been rolled into the back of Sight and Sound. The MFB included a comprehensive synopsis, credit list and review for every film released in the UK. Including the porn movies, which are entertaining to read. Anyway, because my experience of most films for a long time was reading about them in the MFB, I've no fear at all of spoilers.
I also think The Sixth Sense is a much better film the second time, when it's about the boy, than it is the first, when it's about the Bruce Willis character.
On the other hand, I also made a point of seeing Endgame as soon after release as possible, so that I wasn't going in with any expectations, and I do respect that. There was nothing there that surprised me in a twisty sort of way, but I was glad to watch it not waiting for the things I knew were about to happen.
posted by Grangousier at 2:48 AM on April 29, 2019
I also think The Sixth Sense is a much better film the second time, when it's about the boy, than it is the first, when it's about the Bruce Willis character.
On the other hand, I also made a point of seeing Endgame as soon after release as possible, so that I wasn't going in with any expectations, and I do respect that. There was nothing there that surprised me in a twisty sort of way, but I was glad to watch it not waiting for the things I knew were about to happen.
posted by Grangousier at 2:48 AM on April 29, 2019
It's funny, I just posted on twitter last week: Spoilers are by far the thing that make me feel the most alienated from the rest of the human race. Every year the anti-spoiler sentiment gets stronger, and applies to more things. And I just don't care. It does not affect my enjoyment one bit. I respect it. But I don't get it.
There is an interesting assumption in the idea that by hearing a spoiler you are being deprived of experiencing the work the way the creator(s) intended: that the work is intended to be experienced by someone who knows nothing about it. That might seem obvious, but then think about how much effort authors and creators put into referencing themes from culture and other works.
When I write a story, my goal is to bring the reader with me, to make them think or feel something. But I want to make them feel something in the story (that interaction really affected me), not about my telling of the story (I did not see that coming).
Finding out what happens in a story is completely unrelated to experiencing a story, as far as I am concerned. And I am much more interested in being able to share and discuss stories than in preserving a cultural dialogue that does not "give anything away." But I also try not to be a dick, so...
posted by Nothing at 2:55 AM on April 29, 2019 [8 favorites]
There is an interesting assumption in the idea that by hearing a spoiler you are being deprived of experiencing the work the way the creator(s) intended: that the work is intended to be experienced by someone who knows nothing about it. That might seem obvious, but then think about how much effort authors and creators put into referencing themes from culture and other works.
When I write a story, my goal is to bring the reader with me, to make them think or feel something. But I want to make them feel something in the story (that interaction really affected me), not about my telling of the story (I did not see that coming).
Finding out what happens in a story is completely unrelated to experiencing a story, as far as I am concerned. And I am much more interested in being able to share and discuss stories than in preserving a cultural dialogue that does not "give anything away." But I also try not to be a dick, so...
posted by Nothing at 2:55 AM on April 29, 2019 [8 favorites]
Different people value a spoiler-free experience differently. I get that. Completely prioritizing spoiler avoidance creates a lot of cognitive load & makes certain kinds of valuable conversations impossible. I get that too.
What I'm hoping to communicate is that spoiling something for someone who highly values spoiler-free experiences is to deprive them of something they value, without their consent, and being conscious of that fact is a kindness you can do for fellow humans.
Ideally this empathy goes both ways & the spoiler-haters develop an understanding that a 100% spoiler-free world is impossible & that some flexibility on their part reduces the spoiler-not-minders' cognitive load & makes more conversations possible; also, like other issues of consent, both parties gotta be able to talk about their needs & boundaries.
I'm interested in reading everybody's different viewpoints in this thread but it's not something where I'm suddenly going to go "Right, this argument has convinced me: I now value spoiler-free experiences less highly, if at all."
posted by taquito sunrise at 3:57 AM on April 29, 2019 [4 favorites]
What I'm hoping to communicate is that spoiling something for someone who highly values spoiler-free experiences is to deprive them of something they value, without their consent, and being conscious of that fact is a kindness you can do for fellow humans.
Ideally this empathy goes both ways & the spoiler-haters develop an understanding that a 100% spoiler-free world is impossible & that some flexibility on their part reduces the spoiler-not-minders' cognitive load & makes more conversations possible; also, like other issues of consent, both parties gotta be able to talk about their needs & boundaries.
I'm interested in reading everybody's different viewpoints in this thread but it's not something where I'm suddenly going to go "Right, this argument has convinced me: I now value spoiler-free experiences less highly, if at all."
posted by taquito sunrise at 3:57 AM on April 29, 2019 [4 favorites]
I don't care about spoilers in the least. I feel like for a movie all spoiler warnings should be gone after a month; for a weekly television show, four days. For bingeable shows, a month. Plot points are spoilers, most punchlines are not. And ROT-13 in 2019 makes you look like you've been taken by an Old God.
However...
In my online social media circles, the notion of alluding to ANYTHING that happened in Endgame was a mortal sin. Yet last night those same Twitter and Facebook timelines were FULL of people live tweeting Game of Thrones either without the hashtag, or one of the misspelled hashtags (GameofThornes, GameofThones) - anyone who muted #GoT, #GameofThrones, and any of the 25 character names like they were told to do didn't stand a chance. So like everything else in 2019, it's "don't ruin things for me, but if you don't want things ruined for yourself, you have to leave."
posted by kimberussell at 4:06 AM on April 29, 2019 [3 favorites]
However...
In my online social media circles, the notion of alluding to ANYTHING that happened in Endgame was a mortal sin. Yet last night those same Twitter and Facebook timelines were FULL of people live tweeting Game of Thrones either without the hashtag, or one of the misspelled hashtags (GameofThornes, GameofThones) - anyone who muted #GoT, #GameofThrones, and any of the 25 character names like they were told to do didn't stand a chance. So like everything else in 2019, it's "don't ruin things for me, but if you don't want things ruined for yourself, you have to leave."
posted by kimberussell at 4:06 AM on April 29, 2019 [3 favorites]
I've got to say, my least favorite take in this thread is the people arguing that spoilers are irrelevant for Truly Great Works, because spoilers are about mere Plot, the lowliest of literary devices, and only works where dull old Plot is crucial can be "spoiled", as opposed to those where Theme and Character are blah blah blah etc.
I mean, you can't imagine that going in to see Romeo and Juliet for the first time WITHOUT KNOWING OR EXPECTING THAT THEY DIE might have made it a more emotionally wrenching experience? You don't believe that tension, surprise, shock, mystery, revelation, or relief are things people might want to experience when they engage with fiction?
This is not, of course, meant to suggest that there is no place for spoilers anywhere, including some very valid ones that have been raised in this thread -- academic analysis, content warnings, people who deliberately seek out spoilers because they want to know something, etc. But this whole "Spoilers? Only naifs who cannot predict the entire plot of a movie from the poster are concerned about spoilers!" thing is really sticking in my craw.
posted by kyrademon at 4:08 AM on April 29, 2019 [22 favorites]
I mean, you can't imagine that going in to see Romeo and Juliet for the first time WITHOUT KNOWING OR EXPECTING THAT THEY DIE might have made it a more emotionally wrenching experience? You don't believe that tension, surprise, shock, mystery, revelation, or relief are things people might want to experience when they engage with fiction?
This is not, of course, meant to suggest that there is no place for spoilers anywhere, including some very valid ones that have been raised in this thread -- academic analysis, content warnings, people who deliberately seek out spoilers because they want to know something, etc. But this whole "Spoilers? Only naifs who cannot predict the entire plot of a movie from the poster are concerned about spoilers!" thing is really sticking in my craw.
posted by kyrademon at 4:08 AM on April 29, 2019 [22 favorites]
True story: When I left the first screening of "Empire Strikes Back," I grabbed the first person in line for the second screening by the shoulders and cried, "you'll never believe it! Darth Vader is Luke Skywalker's father!" He covered his mouth and shouted, "Noooooo!"
I thought this was clever instead of rude because it was at the 1998 re- release of a movie that was as old as I was, which was a cultural touchstone that somehow I hadn't managed to watch front-to-back before. That "spoiler" was basically the only thing I knew about the movie going in. and I thought it was one of the least interesting parts of the story.
Teenage-me did not appreciate that one person's "clever" is another person's "asshole."
posted by fantabulous timewaster at 4:11 AM on April 29, 2019 [2 favorites]
I thought this was clever instead of rude because it was at the 1998 re- release of a movie that was as old as I was, which was a cultural touchstone that somehow I hadn't managed to watch front-to-back before. That "spoiler" was basically the only thing I knew about the movie going in. and I thought it was one of the least interesting parts of the story.
Teenage-me did not appreciate that one person's "clever" is another person's "asshole."
posted by fantabulous timewaster at 4:11 AM on April 29, 2019 [2 favorites]
Metafilter: My apologies for the above post. I was drunk.
posted by zardoz at 4:18 AM on April 29, 2019 [7 favorites]
posted by zardoz at 4:18 AM on April 29, 2019 [7 favorites]
How can you have a conversation about how the "red pill" manosphere has appropriated and misunderstood that metaphor from the Matrix without touching on Arb vf Xevfuan be Qhetn? Or the boycott Captain Marvel movement without Pncgnva Zneiry vf zvyvgnevfgvp nf shpx, naq Nyvgn jnf nagv-Pncvgnyvfg?
Again, I'm all for tagging and labeling discussion so that people know what they're getting. But the argument for the use of ROT13 or equivalent in perpetuity isn't feasible.
posted by GenderNullPointerException at 4:34 AM on April 29, 2019 [2 favorites]
Again, I'm all for tagging and labeling discussion so that people know what they're getting. But the argument for the use of ROT13 or equivalent in perpetuity isn't feasible.
posted by GenderNullPointerException at 4:34 AM on April 29, 2019 [2 favorites]
I mean, you can't imagine that going in to see Romeo and Juliet for the first time WITHOUT KNOWING OR EXPECTING THAT THEY DIE might have made it a more emotionally wrenching experience?
Maybe? Or maybe the extreme contrivance of its set-up would have left me sitting there going "really? Fucking really?"
Counter-example: One of the best things about the graphic novel From Hell is that it is not set up as a whodunit--you know who Jack the Ripper is from about the second chapter--and it's refreshing, although the book is not without its own last-minute surprises. The movie adaptation, on the other hand, is set up as a whodunit, and it sucks.
posted by Halloween Jack at 4:53 AM on April 29, 2019 [5 favorites]
Maybe? Or maybe the extreme contrivance of its set-up would have left me sitting there going "really? Fucking really?"
Counter-example: One of the best things about the graphic novel From Hell is that it is not set up as a whodunit--you know who Jack the Ripper is from about the second chapter--and it's refreshing, although the book is not without its own last-minute surprises. The movie adaptation, on the other hand, is set up as a whodunit, and it sucks.
posted by Halloween Jack at 4:53 AM on April 29, 2019 [5 favorites]
I mean, you can't imagine that going in to see Romeo and Juliet for the first time WITHOUT KNOWING OR EXPECTING THAT THEY DIE might have made it a more emotionally wrenching experience?
R&J is an odd choice to use as an example given that the full title refers to it as a “lamentable tragedy.” One wouldn’t *know* they die, but given how other Shakespearian tragedies play out, it would have to be a likely expectation.
posted by juv3nal at 5:04 AM on April 29, 2019 [1 favorite]
R&J is an odd choice to use as an example given that the full title refers to it as a “lamentable tragedy.” One wouldn’t *know* they die, but given how other Shakespearian tragedies play out, it would have to be a likely expectation.
posted by juv3nal at 5:04 AM on April 29, 2019 [1 favorite]
Halloween Jack, I am assuming you are not making the argument that because you find Romeo and Juliet contrived, everyone agrees it is a crappy play and no one is ever affected by it when they see a teenage girl stab herself to death in front of them, or that because From Hell exists and is a good story where the murderer is known from the beginning, there is no such thing as a good whodunit where that is not the case, so I honestly have no idea what point you're trying to make.
posted by kyrademon at 5:04 AM on April 29, 2019 [5 favorites]
posted by kyrademon at 5:04 AM on April 29, 2019 [5 favorites]
Two households, both alike in dignity,
In fair Verona, where we lay our scene,
From ancient grudge break to new mutiny,
Where civil blood makes civil hands unclean.
From forth the fatal loins of these two foes
A pair of star-cross'd lovers take their life;
Whose misadventured piteous overthrows
Do with their death bury their parents' strife.
The fearful passage of their death-mark'd love,
And the continuance of their parents' rage,
Which, but their children's end, nought could remove,
Is now the two hours' traffic of our stage;
The which if you with patient ears attend,
What here shall miss, our toil shall strive to mend.
The first fucking lines on the fucking play. Sorry for the spoiler.
posted by tobascodagama at 5:06 AM on April 29, 2019 [29 favorites]
In fair Verona, where we lay our scene,
From ancient grudge break to new mutiny,
Where civil blood makes civil hands unclean.
From forth the fatal loins of these two foes
A pair of star-cross'd lovers take their life;
Whose misadventured piteous overthrows
Do with their death bury their parents' strife.
The fearful passage of their death-mark'd love,
And the continuance of their parents' rage,
Which, but their children's end, nought could remove,
Is now the two hours' traffic of our stage;
The which if you with patient ears attend,
What here shall miss, our toil shall strive to mend.
The first fucking lines on the fucking play. Sorry for the spoiler.
posted by tobascodagama at 5:06 AM on April 29, 2019 [29 favorites]
So the fuck what?
If people are going to miss my point this willfully, I give up.
posted by kyrademon at 5:09 AM on April 29, 2019 [3 favorites]
If people are going to miss my point this willfully, I give up.
posted by kyrademon at 5:09 AM on April 29, 2019 [3 favorites]
I mean, you can't imagine that going in to see Romeo and Juliet for the first time WITHOUT KNOWING OR EXPECTING THAT THEY DIE might have made it a more emotionally wrenching experience?
But the thing about Romeo and Juliet is that it is hundreds of years old and deeply embedded in European and American culture. If you say that something is a Romeo and Juliet story or that people are star-crossed lovers, you expect others to know what you mean and that it means nothing good. Now, okay, yes, if you individually encounter someone who does not know what happens in Romeo and Juliet and they're headed to the theater, it would be the work of a jerk to tell them what happens. But Romeo and Juliet is so "spoiled" that a whole set of exceedingly well-known cultural things have grown up around its plot.
Think about all the stuff that grows up around "spoiled" plots: the million jokes of varying quality about "Luke I'm you're father", the entirety of literary criticism, paintings and illustrations, remakes, recastings (could we even have Wide Sargasso Sea without "spoiling" Jane Eyre?). Those things aren't tragic signs of smashed enjoyment, where millions of people should have been protected from the Star Wars plot arc, the death of Little Nell and the fact that Mr. Rochester keeps his poor abused wife in the attic, but rather new, worthwhile and ultimately more lasting enjoyments.
"Spoiled" plots are what create common stories and tropes, if by "spoiled" you mean "something that is no longer new or obviously built around a huge surprise is discussed in its entirety in public".
It's not that there's no value in surprise (although some "surprises", like in The Crying Game, are really only "twists" at all because people are terrible). It's that surprise isn't the only value and eventually its importance attenuates.
posted by Frowner at 5:19 AM on April 29, 2019 [11 favorites]
OK, I'll try this once more, then stop.
Romeo and Juliet, per se, was irrelevant to my point. I'd forgotten that it "spoils" itself (sorry, I guess), and even before I'd forgotten that if you'd asked me if I thought Shakespeare cared if people knew the ending I'd say no, of course not, he was basing it on what he considered to be a well-known story anyway. Nor was it relevant to my point whether I was using an example with a well-known plot hundreds of years old or something that dropped yesterday and was completely surprising to all.
My point was that going into a story without knowing the precise events can add emotional impact to the events when they occur. If you're hung up on Romeo and Juliet being a bad example for whatever reason, pick something else.
posted by kyrademon at 5:27 AM on April 29, 2019 [3 favorites]
Romeo and Juliet, per se, was irrelevant to my point. I'd forgotten that it "spoils" itself (sorry, I guess), and even before I'd forgotten that if you'd asked me if I thought Shakespeare cared if people knew the ending I'd say no, of course not, he was basing it on what he considered to be a well-known story anyway. Nor was it relevant to my point whether I was using an example with a well-known plot hundreds of years old or something that dropped yesterday and was completely surprising to all.
My point was that going into a story without knowing the precise events can add emotional impact to the events when they occur. If you're hung up on Romeo and Juliet being a bad example for whatever reason, pick something else.
posted by kyrademon at 5:27 AM on April 29, 2019 [3 favorites]
The notion of spoiling Romeo and Juliet has me wondering: are there any works meant to be experienced by lottery or chance, such that advance knowledge of the work's existence would be considered a spoiler? Or in the opposite direction, are there works sufficiently explicit about their subsequent events that they could not be meaningfully spoiled?
Also, it's fun to imagine not knowing about stuff that's pervasively, comprehensively spoiled. Even three quarters of the Gospels spoil each other. Imagine the Bible as having a twist ending.
posted by ddbeck at 5:27 AM on April 29, 2019 [1 favorite]
Also, it's fun to imagine not knowing about stuff that's pervasively, comprehensively spoiled. Even three quarters of the Gospels spoil each other. Imagine the Bible as having a twist ending.
posted by ddbeck at 5:27 AM on April 29, 2019 [1 favorite]
That's why spoiler culture is so heated right now and why people make such a Big Deal about Avengers: Endgame. What with everybody going to see it
Speak for yourself, bud. I sure as shit ain't spending more than the runtime of the film slogging my way through traffic to the other side of town to watch a damn movie. Feel free to spoil, though, if you're only holding back for me. My foreknowledge of a film has zero impact on my enjoyment of a film. If it's crappy, any plot twists will feel unearned to me anyway. If it's well constructed, I will enjoy the narrative well enough that I will probably not remember the spoilers in the moment. Even if I do happen to remember it, it ruins nothing. If it did, I wouldn't watch films or read books more than once.
Most of the things that baffle me about people I can eventually understand through putting myself in their shoes and working through their thought process. Spoiler culture is one of the few things I simply can't figure out, though. It makes no damn sense to me. In the vast majority of media there are poorly thought out/unresearched parts that take me right out of it if I let them. Suspending disbelief requires ignoring the part of the brain saying "x doesn't work like that!" Why then, are spoilers any different? It seems exactly like the suspension of disbelief required of most media.
That doesn't excuse anybody intentionally being a dick, by the way. Telling someone something when they have made it clear they don't want to hear it is a dick move, regardless of the situation. Whether it makes sense to me or not is irrelevant. However, there is a limit to the amount of self-policing I'm willing to do on other people's behalf, though. It's pretty unreasonable to expect other people to expend effort keeping you from hearing anything about The Usual Suspects, for example.
posted by wierdo at 5:30 AM on April 29, 2019
Speak for yourself, bud. I sure as shit ain't spending more than the runtime of the film slogging my way through traffic to the other side of town to watch a damn movie. Feel free to spoil, though, if you're only holding back for me. My foreknowledge of a film has zero impact on my enjoyment of a film. If it's crappy, any plot twists will feel unearned to me anyway. If it's well constructed, I will enjoy the narrative well enough that I will probably not remember the spoilers in the moment. Even if I do happen to remember it, it ruins nothing. If it did, I wouldn't watch films or read books more than once.
Most of the things that baffle me about people I can eventually understand through putting myself in their shoes and working through their thought process. Spoiler culture is one of the few things I simply can't figure out, though. It makes no damn sense to me. In the vast majority of media there are poorly thought out/unresearched parts that take me right out of it if I let them. Suspending disbelief requires ignoring the part of the brain saying "x doesn't work like that!" Why then, are spoilers any different? It seems exactly like the suspension of disbelief required of most media.
That doesn't excuse anybody intentionally being a dick, by the way. Telling someone something when they have made it clear they don't want to hear it is a dick move, regardless of the situation. Whether it makes sense to me or not is irrelevant. However, there is a limit to the amount of self-policing I'm willing to do on other people's behalf, though. It's pretty unreasonable to expect other people to expend effort keeping you from hearing anything about The Usual Suspects, for example.
posted by wierdo at 5:30 AM on April 29, 2019
Setting aside the choice of an old work, there are bunch of different problems involved. The first, as mentioned before, is that the only reason we read or watch some old works and not others is because they've gone through a long history of explanation and celebration. Asking people not to spoil old works cuts that process off at the start, making the likelihood of works having an extended life much less. It's by talking about them that they are watched or read instead of something else. People don't watch every movie from 1941, they watch the one's people talk and write about like Citizen Kane and people sure as heck aren't reading a lot of books from 1841 but they might look up The Old Curiosity Shop because of Dickens and the history of conversation about his works that require spoilers to make.
Secondly, the idea that some few types of plot choices are inherently spoilers while other attributes of the work somehow aren't is tied to this conception and it's also misguided. Putting emphasis on who lives and dies at the end of Moby Dick misses out on why the book has lasted to large degree. The plot isn't irrelevant, but it isn't the thing that people most celebrate the book for on its own, it's just one aspect of the larger whole. Focusing on surprise as key reframes the determination of value to something far more limited than the book as a whole, which does it a disservice, makes it less likely to be enjoyed by someone expecting a potboiler or heavy plotting, and it suggests that the plot is more important and surprising than the other aspects of the book, which isn't really true. The chapter on Cetology, for example, is more a surprise, in its way, than the ultimate fate of the Pequod and her crew, but the emphasis is always on plot point as if the rest was secondary.
While I'm definitely sympathetic to the want for new releases to be left spoiler free, though I'm at a loss as to how one would expect that to come about on the internet, the idea that all works should be left un"spoiled" in general conversation just doesn't work at all for me. As was pointed out above, authors allude to other works in their own, discussing those allusions can be an important part of gaining appreciation for the work being discussed. An author's body of work, it's relation to other works of its time, genre, or to other like works is also important to conversation. The expectations on those things vary even among spoilerphobes, where someone might feel fine talking about how Avengers Endgame relates to any of the other 22 films leading to it, as if one should expect everyone to have seen every one of those other movies. That seems natural, but referencing a body of work or tracking an allusion less so.
posted by gusottertrout at 5:40 AM on April 29, 2019 [4 favorites]
Secondly, the idea that some few types of plot choices are inherently spoilers while other attributes of the work somehow aren't is tied to this conception and it's also misguided. Putting emphasis on who lives and dies at the end of Moby Dick misses out on why the book has lasted to large degree. The plot isn't irrelevant, but it isn't the thing that people most celebrate the book for on its own, it's just one aspect of the larger whole. Focusing on surprise as key reframes the determination of value to something far more limited than the book as a whole, which does it a disservice, makes it less likely to be enjoyed by someone expecting a potboiler or heavy plotting, and it suggests that the plot is more important and surprising than the other aspects of the book, which isn't really true. The chapter on Cetology, for example, is more a surprise, in its way, than the ultimate fate of the Pequod and her crew, but the emphasis is always on plot point as if the rest was secondary.
While I'm definitely sympathetic to the want for new releases to be left spoiler free, though I'm at a loss as to how one would expect that to come about on the internet, the idea that all works should be left un"spoiled" in general conversation just doesn't work at all for me. As was pointed out above, authors allude to other works in their own, discussing those allusions can be an important part of gaining appreciation for the work being discussed. An author's body of work, it's relation to other works of its time, genre, or to other like works is also important to conversation. The expectations on those things vary even among spoilerphobes, where someone might feel fine talking about how Avengers Endgame relates to any of the other 22 films leading to it, as if one should expect everyone to have seen every one of those other movies. That seems natural, but referencing a body of work or tracking an allusion less so.
posted by gusottertrout at 5:40 AM on April 29, 2019 [4 favorites]
I guess what really bothers me about the conversation is the idea that we better appreciate things coming to them from a state of pure ignorance than one of understanding, which is may be true for things that rely purely on plot twist to maintain interest, see Lost, but is decidedly not true for the works that have a lasting effect on the culture.
posted by gusottertrout at 5:46 AM on April 29, 2019 [10 favorites]
posted by gusottertrout at 5:46 AM on April 29, 2019 [10 favorites]
People didn't seem to particularly mind spoilers when we were talking about Bannon's editorials pulling talking points from French anti-immigrant science fiction. Sometimes, people's political interests are at stake, and while I try to explicitly label my stuff and put spoilers behind a cut, I'm not going to embargo discussion about how people like me are represented in popular culture because someone thinks just tagging a movie with "LGBTQ" is too much.
posted by GenderNullPointerException at 5:49 AM on April 29, 2019 [1 favorite]
posted by GenderNullPointerException at 5:49 AM on April 29, 2019 [1 favorite]
pick something else.
Pride and Prejudice? It would be a spoiler, at least back before all romance novels worked this way, to tell people that Darcy isn't actually an asshole and that he and Elizabeth marry in the end. Knowing that going in would have to reduce the effect of the novel on the reader. (I guess. I don't actually remember ever not knowing they married. I'm sure I must have known it before I read it the first time.) Nonetheless, I dependably enjoy rereading it, even though I always know exactly where it's going.
Maybe a good novel or good movie is more like good music or a good painting or good food: you don't like it less for knowing the ingredients or for having enjoyed it before. You enjoy the act of consuming it over and over.
posted by pracowity at 5:50 AM on April 29, 2019
Pride and Prejudice? It would be a spoiler, at least back before all romance novels worked this way, to tell people that Darcy isn't actually an asshole and that he and Elizabeth marry in the end. Knowing that going in would have to reduce the effect of the novel on the reader. (I guess. I don't actually remember ever not knowing they married. I'm sure I must have known it before I read it the first time.) Nonetheless, I dependably enjoy rereading it, even though I always know exactly where it's going.
Maybe a good novel or good movie is more like good music or a good painting or good food: you don't like it less for knowing the ingredients or for having enjoyed it before. You enjoy the act of consuming it over and over.
posted by pracowity at 5:50 AM on April 29, 2019
My apologies for the above post. I was drunk.
No! I can feel your anger - it makes you powerful.
posted by thelonius at 5:57 AM on April 29, 2019 [1 favorite]
No! I can feel your anger - it makes you powerful.
posted by thelonius at 5:57 AM on April 29, 2019 [1 favorite]
are there any works meant to be experienced by lottery or chance, such that advance knowledge of the work's existence would be considered a spoiler?
Maybe those Improv Everywhere stunts where they do stuff like perform a musical in a shopping mall? It wouldn't be the same if the mall had signs up for weeks before saying "Visit the Food Court at 12:30 on March 28 to see a Food Court Musical!"
posted by Daily Alice at 6:05 AM on April 29, 2019 [6 favorites]
Maybe those Improv Everywhere stunts where they do stuff like perform a musical in a shopping mall? It wouldn't be the same if the mall had signs up for weeks before saying "Visit the Food Court at 12:30 on March 28 to see a Food Court Musical!"
posted by Daily Alice at 6:05 AM on April 29, 2019 [6 favorites]
Darcy isn't actually an asshole and that he and Elizabeth marry in the end.
Oh come on! I hadn’t read that yet!!
(I kid. I’ll likely never read it anyway.)
I, too, have a friend who considers a comment like “Yeah that show does not go in the direction you think” to be a spoiler, and we’ve just decided we really can’t discuss movies or tv anymore. I mean, what’s next? “It’s a really great movie!” “Ahhh! You ruined it!!”
That’s mainly why I dislike anti-spoiler culture. I’m fine with not disclosing plot twists for a reasonable amount of time. But some people have such a broad view of what a spoiler is, they end up putting the onus on those who have seen it to pretend it doesn’t even exist or something.
posted by greermahoney at 6:08 AM on April 29, 2019 [3 favorites]
Oh come on! I hadn’t read that yet!!
(I kid. I’ll likely never read it anyway.)
I, too, have a friend who considers a comment like “Yeah that show does not go in the direction you think” to be a spoiler, and we’ve just decided we really can’t discuss movies or tv anymore. I mean, what’s next? “It’s a really great movie!” “Ahhh! You ruined it!!”
That’s mainly why I dislike anti-spoiler culture. I’m fine with not disclosing plot twists for a reasonable amount of time. But some people have such a broad view of what a spoiler is, they end up putting the onus on those who have seen it to pretend it doesn’t even exist or something.
posted by greermahoney at 6:08 AM on April 29, 2019 [3 favorites]
ddbeck and Daily Alice, I bet there are frequently such works and they're ephemeral or secret such that we can't or won't name most of them in a public, indexable forum like this one.
posted by brainwane at 6:19 AM on April 29, 2019 [1 favorite]
posted by brainwane at 6:19 AM on April 29, 2019 [1 favorite]
I think the fundamental problem is the word "spoiler" itself, since that implies a value judgment about a work's quality being reduced after learning the information.
To me this is completely wrong. A spoiler isn't about a surprise, it's about the experience of the person who doesn't know the information. You can only experience a work for the first time (that is, without any prior knowledge of it) once. Whether that first experience is better or worse than subsequent experiences is a matter of personal judgment, but will inherently be different than those later viewings.
All this talk of whether is a work is truly good if it can't stand repeat readings/viewings or whatever are therefore irrelevant and missing the point, and discussing spoilers in terms of value judgments or whether it affects your enjoyment of the work and just creates conflict as we see in this thread.
All that's being asked is to respect people's right to decide for themselves if they want to have that first experience that, again, can only be had by a person once.
posted by Sangermaine at 6:34 AM on April 29, 2019 [6 favorites]
To me this is completely wrong. A spoiler isn't about a surprise, it's about the experience of the person who doesn't know the information. You can only experience a work for the first time (that is, without any prior knowledge of it) once. Whether that first experience is better or worse than subsequent experiences is a matter of personal judgment, but will inherently be different than those later viewings.
All this talk of whether is a work is truly good if it can't stand repeat readings/viewings or whatever are therefore irrelevant and missing the point, and discussing spoilers in terms of value judgments or whether it affects your enjoyment of the work and just creates conflict as we see in this thread.
All that's being asked is to respect people's right to decide for themselves if they want to have that first experience that, again, can only be had by a person once.
posted by Sangermaine at 6:34 AM on April 29, 2019 [6 favorites]
I'm not interested in comic book movies generally, so the only bit of the Marvel Cinematic Universe I've seen is Black Panther (and maaaaaaaaybe Iron Man, way back when?), but I am interested in them as part of the culture. And I'm accustomed to reading ABOUT movies, music, books, TV shows, etc., that I won't personally experience because they're not my thing, but that I'm curious to learn about because other people enjoy them so much. I've been reading cultural criticism since I was a wee sprog and I read it all in my parents' newspaper, and this has always been really interesting and fulfilling, and makes me more conversant with the culture (even when it's not a bit of the culture I particularly enjoy) and helps me understand other people's tastes. And I've learned a lot! For example, I don't listen to a whole lot of rap, but I've been reading intelligent criticism ABOUT rap for 25 years, so I've learned a whole lot and I have a lot of appreciation for the genre, even if it's not what I listen to on a daily basis. When Hamilton came out, I was able to appreciate a lot of the references to rap that other non-rap-listeners missed, and my appreciation of Hamilton was significantly enriched by my largely second-hand knowledge of rap.
So something I've noticed, as a non-MCU watcher, who nonetheless is interested in the MCU's cultural importance, is how weirdly impoverished cultural and critical discourse about the movies is, and I do think a lot of that is down to spoiler-phobia and Marvel Studios' strong anti-spoiler stance in particular. People do go out of their way to respect that stance, that people should be able to enjoy the movies without spoilers!, but whether because of the rise of streaming and the fall of time-synchronized cultural events, or because people over-respect Marvel's insistence on not revealing twists and keep on not revealing them long past when it matters, criticism and discussion of the MCU has long been weirdly muted and shallow. I feel like I know less about the MCU than I have about almost any cultural thing for the last 20 years, and given how omnipresent the MCU is, that's really weird!
And I totally don't dispute people's right to see movies unspoiled! Or Marvel's right to create a spoiler-free environment for each movie as it comes out. (Although the Endgame pre-release press was SO ANNOYING as all these actors went on talk shows and weren't allowed to talk about anything but were contractually obligated to spend ten minutes "discussing" Marvel where they refused to answer any questions, and weren't allowed to talk about Endgame for 90 seconds and then tout their other projects.) But it is really strange to have this utterly massive culture phenomenon with so little critical analysis, and I do think that in the long run that's impoverishing for the MCU and will tend to it being remembered for box-office successes (and how Hollywood adapted in response) rather than the cultural import and impact of the movies themselves.
posted by Eyebrows McGee at 6:40 AM on April 29, 2019 [14 favorites]
So something I've noticed, as a non-MCU watcher, who nonetheless is interested in the MCU's cultural importance, is how weirdly impoverished cultural and critical discourse about the movies is, and I do think a lot of that is down to spoiler-phobia and Marvel Studios' strong anti-spoiler stance in particular. People do go out of their way to respect that stance, that people should be able to enjoy the movies without spoilers!, but whether because of the rise of streaming and the fall of time-synchronized cultural events, or because people over-respect Marvel's insistence on not revealing twists and keep on not revealing them long past when it matters, criticism and discussion of the MCU has long been weirdly muted and shallow. I feel like I know less about the MCU than I have about almost any cultural thing for the last 20 years, and given how omnipresent the MCU is, that's really weird!
And I totally don't dispute people's right to see movies unspoiled! Or Marvel's right to create a spoiler-free environment for each movie as it comes out. (Although the Endgame pre-release press was SO ANNOYING as all these actors went on talk shows and weren't allowed to talk about anything but were contractually obligated to spend ten minutes "discussing" Marvel where they refused to answer any questions, and weren't allowed to talk about Endgame for 90 seconds and then tout their other projects.) But it is really strange to have this utterly massive culture phenomenon with so little critical analysis, and I do think that in the long run that's impoverishing for the MCU and will tend to it being remembered for box-office successes (and how Hollywood adapted in response) rather than the cultural import and impact of the movies themselves.
posted by Eyebrows McGee at 6:40 AM on April 29, 2019 [14 favorites]
Dickens works were generally published as serials and benefitted from that format. The idea that you could "spoil" a plot twist for someone who hadn't gotten the chance to read it yet has to go back at least that far.
But here are two things.
1. There are things that are best experienced not knowing they're coming and things that aren't that. Obviously the ends of movies like Psycho, The Usual Suspects, The Sixth Sense, etc. But also great moments of spectacle. I generally don't give half a shit about spoilers, but I'm really glad I didn't know about the "Holdo maneuver" going into The Last Jedi. And it took me a few weeks to get around to seeing The Last Jedi, three weeks lived as much online as any other three weeks, so how did I avoid getting spoiled?
2. There are trolls, and there are other people just wanting to talk. The folks posting "SNAPE KILLS DUMBLEDORE" where the most eyes can see it on the day that HP6 comes out are (hopefully) different from your friends who all have seen the thing and want to talk about it. It's not on them to notparticipate in the conversation about the cultural moment because you're not caught up. And because they're not trolls, it's shockingly easy for you to not engage with conversations you don't want to join yet.
And obviously we're having this conversation now because the biggest opening weekend ever for a movie coincided with the biggest tv episode ever aired. Based on the Box Office for "Endgame," it seems like damn near everyone who cares enough must have seen it already, but it has I'm sure a lot of spectacular moments that are best experienced going in cold. The latest "Game of Thrones" has at least one of those, which I haven't seen anybody spoiling but, sure, go into the threads on those FB comments and people will be talking openly about what they watched. Don't go in there if you don't want to read about it.
In short: don't be a dick. But that applies to majority of people who've seen the thing already as well as the people shushing everybody else.
posted by Navelgazer at 6:41 AM on April 29, 2019 [1 favorite]
But here are two things.
1. There are things that are best experienced not knowing they're coming and things that aren't that. Obviously the ends of movies like Psycho, The Usual Suspects, The Sixth Sense, etc. But also great moments of spectacle. I generally don't give half a shit about spoilers, but I'm really glad I didn't know about the "Holdo maneuver" going into The Last Jedi. And it took me a few weeks to get around to seeing The Last Jedi, three weeks lived as much online as any other three weeks, so how did I avoid getting spoiled?
2. There are trolls, and there are other people just wanting to talk. The folks posting "SNAPE KILLS DUMBLEDORE" where the most eyes can see it on the day that HP6 comes out are (hopefully) different from your friends who all have seen the thing and want to talk about it. It's not on them to notparticipate in the conversation about the cultural moment because you're not caught up. And because they're not trolls, it's shockingly easy for you to not engage with conversations you don't want to join yet.
And obviously we're having this conversation now because the biggest opening weekend ever for a movie coincided with the biggest tv episode ever aired. Based on the Box Office for "Endgame," it seems like damn near everyone who cares enough must have seen it already, but it has I'm sure a lot of spectacular moments that are best experienced going in cold. The latest "Game of Thrones" has at least one of those, which I haven't seen anybody spoiling but, sure, go into the threads on those FB comments and people will be talking openly about what they watched. Don't go in there if you don't want to read about it.
In short: don't be a dick. But that applies to majority of people who've seen the thing already as well as the people shushing everybody else.
posted by Navelgazer at 6:41 AM on April 29, 2019 [1 favorite]
Rights come with responsibilities. Unfortunately, we as a society have yet to come to grips with what exactly the balance should be in this case.
posted by wierdo at 6:43 AM on April 29, 2019 [1 favorite]
posted by wierdo at 6:43 AM on April 29, 2019 [1 favorite]
I think that if you willfully and gleefully spoil something for someone you know hasn't seen a thing, you're an asshole. I also think that if you expect the whole world not to talk about something because you haven't seen it yet, you're also an asshole.
Basically, I think people are assholes.
posted by jacquilynne at 6:43 AM on April 29, 2019 [16 favorites]
Basically, I think people are assholes.
posted by jacquilynne at 6:43 AM on April 29, 2019 [16 favorites]
So - I am of two minds - I think the older I get, the less I care about spoilers - because most things have become predictable, but the journey, the characters and the cinematography/effects are fun.
OTOH, I understand that complete sense of wonder and awe that can occur, which could not happen for some people with spoilers. So - I typically ask if someone has seen/read something before talking about it - and even ask if they have plans to see it. My partner does not like horror or violent or supernatural movies, so I can watch them, talk to her about how crazy they are, but only after I ask if there is any possibility that she will want to see it.
And - for some horror, I find I am getting more squeamish as I get older - so, I watch that at home, with my phone/tablet in hand and self-spoil it as I go along (Hereditary... Mama...) - sometimes if it is too intense, I stop watching completely and just read the plot synopsis.
posted by jkaczor at 7:35 AM on April 29, 2019 [1 favorite]
OTOH, I understand that complete sense of wonder and awe that can occur, which could not happen for some people with spoilers. So - I typically ask if someone has seen/read something before talking about it - and even ask if they have plans to see it. My partner does not like horror or violent or supernatural movies, so I can watch them, talk to her about how crazy they are, but only after I ask if there is any possibility that she will want to see it.
And - for some horror, I find I am getting more squeamish as I get older - so, I watch that at home, with my phone/tablet in hand and self-spoil it as I go along (Hereditary... Mama...) - sometimes if it is too intense, I stop watching completely and just read the plot synopsis.
posted by jkaczor at 7:35 AM on April 29, 2019 [1 favorite]
Or in the opposite direction, are there works sufficiently explicit about their subsequent events that they could not be meaningfully spoiled?
Chronicle of a Death Foretold has the ending explicitly in the very first sentence of the book, in case the title wasn't enough of a clue.
posted by Dysk at 7:45 AM on April 29, 2019 [1 favorite]
Chronicle of a Death Foretold has the ending explicitly in the very first sentence of the book, in case the title wasn't enough of a clue.
posted by Dysk at 7:45 AM on April 29, 2019 [1 favorite]
Or in the opposite direction, are there works sufficiently explicit about their subsequent events that they could not be meaningfully spoiled?
The Secret History reveals the major plot development in the introduction, and then develops the events that led to it.
posted by thelonius at 7:48 AM on April 29, 2019 [1 favorite]
The Secret History reveals the major plot development in the introduction, and then develops the events that led to it.
posted by thelonius at 7:48 AM on April 29, 2019 [1 favorite]
Just like I've weeded out "friends" who are nazis, and won't go out to eat with people who I know to be miserable non-tipping cheapskates, I don't hang out with people who are spoiler zealots. So tiresome.
"About the President--oh, wait! Have you read the Mueller Report or the Constitution? No? How about that weather--wait, have you looked outside? No? Well, I heard an interesting word the other day--but, lemme guess, you haven't read the dictionary? Welp."
posted by maxwelton at 7:54 AM on April 29, 2019 [6 favorites]
"About the President--oh, wait! Have you read the Mueller Report or the Constitution? No? How about that weather--wait, have you looked outside? No? Well, I heard an interesting word the other day--but, lemme guess, you haven't read the dictionary? Welp."
posted by maxwelton at 7:54 AM on April 29, 2019 [6 favorites]
I guess what really bothers me about the conversation is the idea that we better appreciate things coming to them from a state of pure ignorance than one of understanding, which is may be true for things that rely purely on plot twist to maintain interest, see Lost, but is decidedly not true for the works that have a lasting effect on the culture.
I think this is one of the primary disconnects in this conversation. Most people aren't arguing that a work is better unspoiled, but simply that surprises can be enjoyable, so try not to take that away from people if you can help it.
If I say that I enjoy the puns in Romeo and Juliet and I didn't like it when this production edited them out, and you start going off about how Shakespeare and literature is so much more than puns and you could take out the puns and it would still be great, and personally you don't like puns, and this study "proves" puns are bad because a narrow majority of people don't like puns, and how shallow of you to think puns are more important than theme and character, then we're just talking past each other.
posted by straight at 7:57 AM on April 29, 2019 [7 favorites]
I think this is one of the primary disconnects in this conversation. Most people aren't arguing that a work is better unspoiled, but simply that surprises can be enjoyable, so try not to take that away from people if you can help it.
If I say that I enjoy the puns in Romeo and Juliet and I didn't like it when this production edited them out, and you start going off about how Shakespeare and literature is so much more than puns and you could take out the puns and it would still be great, and personally you don't like puns, and this study "proves" puns are bad because a narrow majority of people don't like puns, and how shallow of you to think puns are more important than theme and character, then we're just talking past each other.
posted by straight at 7:57 AM on April 29, 2019 [7 favorites]
[Spoilers about Moby Dick follow, if you think that is a thing that is possible]
Personal data point about Moby Dick and spoilers: when I read it, I had no idea there was going to be one chapter purely about the biology of whales, and another chapter purely about the tools and technology of whaling. When I got to the first of those, I was flabbergasted and astonished and more than a little concerned I was going to be bored. And I was bored, a little bit, but I loved the out-of-left-fieldness of those chapters -- what a weird choice! I wouldn't have appreciated them nearly as much if I knew they were coming.
My point, I guess, is that for some of us, novelty and the unexpected adds something. Please don't take it away. It's fine if you're having a critical literary discussion of weird-ass chapters in classic literature to 'spoil' stuff like that, as long as everyone has agreed to that framing of the discourse. But most conversations (face-to-face, on social media, over telegraph, whatever) are not framed as such, so to me it makes sense to be sensitive and empathetic towards folks who are spoiler averse.
posted by evinrude at 7:58 AM on April 29, 2019 [4 favorites]
Personal data point about Moby Dick and spoilers: when I read it, I had no idea there was going to be one chapter purely about the biology of whales, and another chapter purely about the tools and technology of whaling. When I got to the first of those, I was flabbergasted and astonished and more than a little concerned I was going to be bored. And I was bored, a little bit, but I loved the out-of-left-fieldness of those chapters -- what a weird choice! I wouldn't have appreciated them nearly as much if I knew they were coming.
My point, I guess, is that for some of us, novelty and the unexpected adds something. Please don't take it away. It's fine if you're having a critical literary discussion of weird-ass chapters in classic literature to 'spoil' stuff like that, as long as everyone has agreed to that framing of the discourse. But most conversations (face-to-face, on social media, over telegraph, whatever) are not framed as such, so to me it makes sense to be sensitive and empathetic towards folks who are spoiler averse.
posted by evinrude at 7:58 AM on April 29, 2019 [4 favorites]
I'm reminded of my experience with the movie "The Blair Witch Project", which had large amounts of press with little actually said about it. I feel that the hype (the cultural journey 'to' the movie), was as important as the plot of the movie, and that the movie plays very differently today if one knows anything about it.
posted by ZeusHumms at 8:00 AM on April 29, 2019 [1 favorite]
posted by ZeusHumms at 8:00 AM on April 29, 2019 [1 favorite]
Penny Arcade's 2005 comic strip on spoilers
posted by ZeusHumms at 8:01 AM on April 29, 2019 [2 favorites]
posted by ZeusHumms at 8:01 AM on April 29, 2019 [2 favorites]
I've gradually come to the conclusion that I don't really understand any relatively complicated narrative fiction until I've read/watched it at least twice. And that goes double for tv and movies, since I find it hard to take in all the sensory detail all at once, especially in contemporary movies with their frenetic editing.
This is me! And it's part of why I get soooo much satisfaction from re-reading and re-watching things. With stuff I like, my second read/viewing is often/usually the best one for me.
posted by Orlop at 8:05 AM on April 29, 2019 [2 favorites]
This is me! And it's part of why I get soooo much satisfaction from re-reading and re-watching things. With stuff I like, my second read/viewing is often/usually the best one for me.
posted by Orlop at 8:05 AM on April 29, 2019 [2 favorites]
I had no idea there was going to be one chapter purely about the biology of whales, and another chapter purely about the tools and technology of whaling.
I like to imagine that the story is told to some guy in a whaling bar, who happened to run into some old lunatic who narrates it to him. He must find out what happened with Ahab, but he's trapped until sunrise, hearing dissertations on the best method for waxing boat oars and so on, and buying Ishmael more drinks, before he can.
posted by thelonius at 8:07 AM on April 29, 2019 [1 favorite]
I like to imagine that the story is told to some guy in a whaling bar, who happened to run into some old lunatic who narrates it to him. He must find out what happened with Ahab, but he's trapped until sunrise, hearing dissertations on the best method for waxing boat oars and so on, and buying Ishmael more drinks, before he can.
posted by thelonius at 8:07 AM on April 29, 2019 [1 favorite]
'But Bertie has no other way of living,' said Charlotte.-Anthony Trollope, ch. XIV, Barchester Towers
'Then, in God's name, let him marry Mrs. Bold,' said Madeline. And so it was settled between them.
But let the gentle-hearted reader be under no apprehension whatsoever. It is not destined that Eleanor [Bold] shall marry Mr. Slope or Bertie Stanhope. And here, perhaps, it may be allowed to the novelist to explain his views on a very important point in the art of telling tales. He ventures to reprobate that system which goes so far to violate all proper confidence between the author and his readers, by maintaining nearly to the end of the third volume a mystery as to the fate of their favourite personage. Nay, more, and worse than this, is too frequently done. Have not often the profoundest efforts of genius been used to baffle the aspirations of the reader, to raise false hopes and false fears, and to give rise to expectations which are never to be realized? Are not promises all but made of delightful horrors, in lieu of which the writer produces nothing but most commonplace realities in his final chapter? And is there not a species of deceit in this to which the honesty of the present age should lend no countenance?
And what can be the worth of that solicitude which a peep into the third volume can utterly dissipate? What the value of those literary charms which are absolutely destroyed by their enjoyment? When we have once learnt what was that picture before which was hung Mrs. Radcliffe's solemn curtain, we feel no further interest about either the frame or the veil. They are to us merely a receptacle for old bones, an inappropriate coffin, which we would wish to have decently buried out of our sight.
And then, how grievous a thing it is to have the pleasure of your novel destroyed by the ill-considered triumph of a previous reader. 'Oh, you needn't be alarmed for Augusta, of course she accepts Gustavus in the end.' 'How very ill-natured you are, Susan,' says Kitty, with tears in her eyes; 'I don't care a bit about it now.' Dear Kitty, if you will read my book, you may defy the ill-nature of your sister. There shall be no secret that she can tell you. Nay, take the last chapter if you please -- learn from its pages all the results of our troubled story, and the story shall have lost none of its interest, if indeed there be any interest in it to lose.
Our doctrine is, that the author and the reader should move along together in full confidence with each other. Let the personages of the drama undergo ever so complete a comedy of errors among themselves, but let the spectator never mistake the Syracusan for the Ephesian; otherwise he is one of the dupes, and the part of a dupe is never dignified.
I would not for the value of this chapter have it believed by a single reader that my Eleanor could bring herself to marry Mr. Slope, or that she should be sacrificed to a Bertie Stanhope. But among the good folk of Barchester many believed both the one and the other.
posted by brainwane at 8:12 AM on April 29, 2019 [9 favorites]
I'm not at all spoiler-averse. I find it's more important to see how we get to the Big Event, and how they do the Big Event, than to know what the Big Event is. Plus, you know, it's easier than freaking out and trying to avoid all the spoilers, and semi-spoilers and whatnot. There's people I know who go on what they call a "Full Media Blackout" for the movies and shows they're interested in. Sometimes they'll even skip trailers and casting information so that they can go in with a fully clean slate. If that's what they want, more power to them, but that seems like way too much work, especially for a popcorn movie the various Marvel flicks, or a Star War.
(That said, people who deliberately spoil things for people are jerks. Don't do that.)
posted by SansPoint at 8:14 AM on April 29, 2019
(That said, people who deliberately spoil things for people are jerks. Don't do that.)
posted by SansPoint at 8:14 AM on April 29, 2019
I think this is one of the primary disconnects in this conversation. Most people aren't arguing that a work is better unspoiled, but simply that surprises can be enjoyable, so try not to take that away from people if you can help it.
And to be clear, I'm not saying people shouldn't like whatever they want. but arguing for a spoiler-free environment for older works makes defense of ignorance the default stance of public conversation. That's a reasonable expectation for the new, but troubling for older works.
posted by gusottertrout at 8:20 AM on April 29, 2019 [1 favorite]
And to be clear, I'm not saying people shouldn't like whatever they want. but arguing for a spoiler-free environment for older works makes defense of ignorance the default stance of public conversation. That's a reasonable expectation for the new, but troubling for older works.
posted by gusottertrout at 8:20 AM on April 29, 2019 [1 favorite]
I usually don't care about spoilers, and in fact, there are lots of times where I purposefully spoil myself. I also often find the second time I watch or read something is better than the first, so there is that.
At the same time, there are definitely works where seeing it unspoiled for the first time can make a difference. For example, I remember the first time I read the short story Shirley Jackson's "The Lottery". I think some part of the experience would have been lost if I knew the ending going into it.
posted by litera scripta manet at 8:26 AM on April 29, 2019
At the same time, there are definitely works where seeing it unspoiled for the first time can make a difference. For example, I remember the first time I read the short story Shirley Jackson's "The Lottery". I think some part of the experience would have been lost if I knew the ending going into it.
posted by litera scripta manet at 8:26 AM on April 29, 2019
(That said, people who deliberately spoil things for people are jerks. Don't do that.)
And... how, exactly, do we tell the difference, especially in the first few days/weeks after the arrival of new media? How do you tell the difference between your friend reposting some meme with some random channer "accidentally" spoiling something and your friend reposting some meme with a truly accidental spoiler?
Better to err on the side of NOT spoiling new media in public, no?
posted by hanov3r at 8:27 AM on April 29, 2019 [1 favorite]
And... how, exactly, do we tell the difference, especially in the first few days/weeks after the arrival of new media? How do you tell the difference between your friend reposting some meme with some random channer "accidentally" spoiling something and your friend reposting some meme with a truly accidental spoiler?
Better to err on the side of NOT spoiling new media in public, no?
posted by hanov3r at 8:27 AM on April 29, 2019 [1 favorite]
Spoilers really ruined "Titanic" for me. Knowing the boat sinks changes EVERYTHING!
Anybody else watched it several times, hoping each time that this time it wouldn't?
posted by flabdablet at 8:28 AM on April 29, 2019
Anybody else watched it several times, hoping each time that this time it wouldn't?
posted by flabdablet at 8:28 AM on April 29, 2019
hanov3r: Better to err on the side of NOT spoiling new media in public, no?
Yup. I make sure to err on that side. If I happen to see a spoiler for a piece of media I'm interested in, whatever, but I don't see any need to ruin other people's experiences.
I do think a lot of folks could benefit from being a bit less high-strung about spoilers in general, but you don't do that by deliberately spoiling things.
posted by SansPoint at 8:30 AM on April 29, 2019
Yup. I make sure to err on that side. If I happen to see a spoiler for a piece of media I'm interested in, whatever, but I don't see any need to ruin other people's experiences.
I do think a lot of folks could benefit from being a bit less high-strung about spoilers in general, but you don't do that by deliberately spoiling things.
posted by SansPoint at 8:30 AM on April 29, 2019
I also disagree with the author's premise. People don't get upset or excited about discussing "spoilers" for narratives with the most predictable endings where the point is the journey. "They got married" doesn't "ruin" romantic comedies.
posted by Selena777 at 8:32 AM on April 29, 2019 [4 favorites]
posted by Selena777 at 8:32 AM on April 29, 2019 [4 favorites]
This is something I've spent a lot of time thinking about both in terms of visual media and written media! Occasionally when I'm watching a movie/show or reading a book I can say the next line of dialogue, sometimes word for word, that the character is going to say.
But often that makes me roll my eyes at the pedestrian and boring cliche that anyone could have seen coming... and sometimes it gives me a little frisson of pleasure because it was the inevitable perfect result of what came before in the narrative. So "knew what was going to happen/be said next" is neither a measure of quality or lack thereof. It can be either. It depends on why you knew what was coming next; because it was perfect or because it was bland and predictable.
On the flip side from this, I often think if a twist that comes later in the work is a complete surprise that comes out of nowhere, then that is a failure of the particular work to lay the groundwork for the plot.
Now, sometimes there is a twist or a plot point that genuinely surprises you, but after it's revealed, you immediately connect the dots and see how the work was leading up to it. But if something is a complete shock that you couldn't possibly have predicted, than I think that's a problem with the work itself.
posted by litera scripta manet at 8:32 AM on April 29, 2019 [5 favorites]
But often that makes me roll my eyes at the pedestrian and boring cliche that anyone could have seen coming... and sometimes it gives me a little frisson of pleasure because it was the inevitable perfect result of what came before in the narrative. So "knew what was going to happen/be said next" is neither a measure of quality or lack thereof. It can be either. It depends on why you knew what was coming next; because it was perfect or because it was bland and predictable.
On the flip side from this, I often think if a twist that comes later in the work is a complete surprise that comes out of nowhere, then that is a failure of the particular work to lay the groundwork for the plot.
Now, sometimes there is a twist or a plot point that genuinely surprises you, but after it's revealed, you immediately connect the dots and see how the work was leading up to it. But if something is a complete shock that you couldn't possibly have predicted, than I think that's a problem with the work itself.
posted by litera scripta manet at 8:32 AM on April 29, 2019 [5 favorites]
Personal data point about Moby Dick and spoilers: when I read it, I had no idea there was going to be one chapter purely about the biology of whales, and another chapter purely about the tools and technology of whaling. When I got to the first of those, I was flabbergasted and astonished and more than a little concerned I was going to be bored. And I was bored, a little bit, but I loved the out-of-left-fieldness of those chapters -- what a weird choice! I wouldn't have appreciated them nearly as much if I knew they were coming.
Having read Moby Dick and experienced all of that narrative weirdness--there's one chapter written like a scene from a play, IIRC, as well as the chapters on whale anatomy and tools and whatnot--helped me through a couple of hard spots in a little romance novella I wrote a couple of years ago--there was one scene I ultimately could only make work at all by having one short chapter be from the point of view of a minor character than one of my two major characters, and it turns out to be a really fun chapter, and I wouldn't have known/been brave enough to do it without Moby Dick. So that's one of the little effects Moby Dick had on the world.
posted by Orlop at 8:41 AM on April 29, 2019 [5 favorites]
Having read Moby Dick and experienced all of that narrative weirdness--there's one chapter written like a scene from a play, IIRC, as well as the chapters on whale anatomy and tools and whatnot--helped me through a couple of hard spots in a little romance novella I wrote a couple of years ago--there was one scene I ultimately could only make work at all by having one short chapter be from the point of view of a minor character than one of my two major characters, and it turns out to be a really fun chapter, and I wouldn't have known/been brave enough to do it without Moby Dick. So that's one of the little effects Moby Dick had on the world.
posted by Orlop at 8:41 AM on April 29, 2019 [5 favorites]
the idea that we better appreciate things coming to them from a state of pure ignorance than one of understanding
First time in my life I've ever been accused of being in a group excessively favoring ignorance!
Of course, I don't really approach any piece of media from the position of pure ignorance, as I usually have a general knowledge of its genre, the other kind of work the creator does, the cultural context as a whole, whatever trailers have come out, etc. But I like to build my understanding of a specific piece for the first time as I go along experiencing it. Then I can circle back and read what everybody else has to say.
I find this sniffiness about mere plot quite weird from a site that just like a week ago was all too happy to be up in arms about the snobbery of literary fiction versus genre. Plot twists within an established framework are a common feature of certain genre and presumably part of the pleasure most people take from them. Even outside genre, geez, do people agree The Godfather was a good film? I hope? Is there a tenser scene that Michael arriving at the hospital to find his father unprotected, the goons on their way, and no way to summon help that will arrive in time? Would you want to take away that experience of plot points (which also deeply informs Michael's character development) from a viewer?
Yes, obviously, there is a limit to the period in which one can expect people to take care in discussing spoilers. The Godfather blew past it a few decades ago. For me, I aim for about a month, tops. And I think most people who don't like spoilers don't look for much more than that. Of course there are people who, jokingly or not, take it too far. But, geez, it's just a question of balancing some competing interests in a way that's fair to everyone, which is something that grownups not trapped in a mindset of absolute rights to always do everything just the way they want ought to be able to understand.
posted by praemunire at 8:49 AM on April 29, 2019 [5 favorites]
First time in my life I've ever been accused of being in a group excessively favoring ignorance!
Of course, I don't really approach any piece of media from the position of pure ignorance, as I usually have a general knowledge of its genre, the other kind of work the creator does, the cultural context as a whole, whatever trailers have come out, etc. But I like to build my understanding of a specific piece for the first time as I go along experiencing it. Then I can circle back and read what everybody else has to say.
I find this sniffiness about mere plot quite weird from a site that just like a week ago was all too happy to be up in arms about the snobbery of literary fiction versus genre. Plot twists within an established framework are a common feature of certain genre and presumably part of the pleasure most people take from them. Even outside genre, geez, do people agree The Godfather was a good film? I hope? Is there a tenser scene that Michael arriving at the hospital to find his father unprotected, the goons on their way, and no way to summon help that will arrive in time? Would you want to take away that experience of plot points (which also deeply informs Michael's character development) from a viewer?
Yes, obviously, there is a limit to the period in which one can expect people to take care in discussing spoilers. The Godfather blew past it a few decades ago. For me, I aim for about a month, tops. And I think most people who don't like spoilers don't look for much more than that. Of course there are people who, jokingly or not, take it too far. But, geez, it's just a question of balancing some competing interests in a way that's fair to everyone, which is something that grownups not trapped in a mindset of absolute rights to always do everything just the way they want ought to be able to understand.
posted by praemunire at 8:49 AM on April 29, 2019 [5 favorites]
And... how, exactly, do we tell the difference, especially in the first few days/weeks after the arrival of new media?
In my mind, deliberately spoiling something is going out of your way to deliberately inform people about the spoiler when you know they won't want to know. Telling your co-worker how the movie ends when they just told you they're seeing it tonight. Jumping into a 'no-spoilers' discussion about something and spoiling it anyway. Baiting and switching by pretending you aren't going to spoil something then doing it. I would also count gleefully posting the ending of an event movie on social media in big, bold, unmissable fonts within the first few weeks of release.
Just talking about a cultural product -- even in a public space like social media -- isn't deliberately spoiling it for people. It might mean people see spoilers, and it's kind to open your posting with a clear indication of what you're talking about so they can skip it, but it's not the same as deliberately trying to mess with people.
posted by jacquilynne at 8:55 AM on April 29, 2019 [7 favorites]
In my mind, deliberately spoiling something is going out of your way to deliberately inform people about the spoiler when you know they won't want to know. Telling your co-worker how the movie ends when they just told you they're seeing it tonight. Jumping into a 'no-spoilers' discussion about something and spoiling it anyway. Baiting and switching by pretending you aren't going to spoil something then doing it. I would also count gleefully posting the ending of an event movie on social media in big, bold, unmissable fonts within the first few weeks of release.
Just talking about a cultural product -- even in a public space like social media -- isn't deliberately spoiling it for people. It might mean people see spoilers, and it's kind to open your posting with a clear indication of what you're talking about so they can skip it, but it's not the same as deliberately trying to mess with people.
posted by jacquilynne at 8:55 AM on April 29, 2019 [7 favorites]
I agree that it is strange to dismiss spoilers because of some idea that plot is pedestrian or less important than other aspects of storytelling. My own argument is somewhat different: whether or not I am surprised by the plot is less important (and less interesting) than whether the story has led me to empathize with a character who is surprised by the plot. And that empathy is generally strengthened, not weakened, by knowing more about the story.
posted by Nothing at 9:00 AM on April 29, 2019 [1 favorite]
posted by Nothing at 9:00 AM on April 29, 2019 [1 favorite]
I'm deaf and I have other health things that make going to a theater and seeing movies a chore, at best.
If I want to see a movie, I have to wait until it is released on some streaming service or DVD or makes it to cable, weeks or months after it was released.
Given how the backlog of movies just becomes gigantic, I end up reading reviews to pick and choose what looks the most interesting and what I would most enjoy.
Spoilers are just a part of moving watching for me.
A movie of quality will be a movie that can withstand its surprises being spoiled. We all know what happens at the end of Casablanca (I won't spoil it for you :P), but as Roger Ebert noted in his Great Movies review of when Bogart and Bergman first lay eyes on each other in the film, "[I]ndeed, the more you see it the more the whole film gains resonance." And of the film overall, "Seeing the film over and over again, year after year, I find it never grows over-familiar. It plays like a favorite musical album; the more I know it, the more I like it."
If Endgame is as great an MCU movie as everyone is saying, it will hold up, spoilers or no spoilers.
posted by Fukiyama at 9:04 AM on April 29, 2019 [3 favorites]
If I want to see a movie, I have to wait until it is released on some streaming service or DVD or makes it to cable, weeks or months after it was released.
Given how the backlog of movies just becomes gigantic, I end up reading reviews to pick and choose what looks the most interesting and what I would most enjoy.
Spoilers are just a part of moving watching for me.
A movie of quality will be a movie that can withstand its surprises being spoiled. We all know what happens at the end of Casablanca (I won't spoil it for you :P), but as Roger Ebert noted in his Great Movies review of when Bogart and Bergman first lay eyes on each other in the film, "[I]ndeed, the more you see it the more the whole film gains resonance." And of the film overall, "Seeing the film over and over again, year after year, I find it never grows over-familiar. It plays like a favorite musical album; the more I know it, the more I like it."
If Endgame is as great an MCU movie as everyone is saying, it will hold up, spoilers or no spoilers.
posted by Fukiyama at 9:04 AM on April 29, 2019 [3 favorites]
For me personally, if I'm really engaged emotionally with a story, even if I know what happens, even if I've seen it before, it doesn't ruin the work for me. In fact, I'll still find myself rooting for a character to make a different decision or to somehow survive or whatever, even if I know exactly what happens next.
The other thing for me personally is that if I'm really invested in a work, I often find myself getting stressed out by not knowing what the outcome will be. In a written work, this is less of an issue, because I read quickly, and I can adjust my reading place accordingly.
But in a TV show or movie, sometimes I purposefully spoil myself just so I can stop stressing and focus on enjoying what I'm watching.
On the other hand, sometimes I spoil myself just because I have poor impulse control, and I'm like, oh well maybe I'll just glance through the first couple comments on fanfare or just look at the wiki entry for a second and then...oops massively spoiled a plot point for myself. But in that case, I have no one to blame but myself.
posted by litera scripta manet at 9:06 AM on April 29, 2019
The other thing for me personally is that if I'm really invested in a work, I often find myself getting stressed out by not knowing what the outcome will be. In a written work, this is less of an issue, because I read quickly, and I can adjust my reading place accordingly.
But in a TV show or movie, sometimes I purposefully spoil myself just so I can stop stressing and focus on enjoying what I'm watching.
On the other hand, sometimes I spoil myself just because I have poor impulse control, and I'm like, oh well maybe I'll just glance through the first couple comments on fanfare or just look at the wiki entry for a second and then...oops massively spoiled a plot point for myself. But in that case, I have no one to blame but myself.
posted by litera scripta manet at 9:06 AM on April 29, 2019
I sometimes spoil things for myself by second-screening while I binge watch. I often google actors and actresses from a show I'm watching, because I want to see what else they've been in or check and see if I do remember them from seeing them in something else and that occasionally turns out wrong. I'll sometimes get a news result that says "X fired from show Y, see how the character died!" or, as happened to me yesterday, the IMDB habit of listing characters by all possible names will spoil something for me, because I'm not supposed to know that X, who appears to just be a normal, cranky old woman, is actually a [spoiler] and that information is revealed in the alternate character names.
posted by jacquilynne at 9:14 AM on April 29, 2019 [1 favorite]
posted by jacquilynne at 9:14 AM on April 29, 2019 [1 favorite]
Oof, a lot of sneering in this thread, as if "no one is allowed to talk about any elements of any film in public, ever," and "I would prefer to experience plot twists in the course of watching the new movie that contains them" are equivalent positions!
There are a lot of people who use spoilers as a way to publicly brag about going to midnight shows when movies open, and if some of you have not experienced this phenomenon, then great, but asking for the opening weekend of a movie as space for people to not give away every minor detail on every possible website and social media platform without any using any tags or warnings is not really that outrageous.
I also think that if we were discussing, for example, "Us" instead of "Endgame", this discussion might look a little different-- of course a plot can still be enjoyable when you know the twists, but it is often enjoyable in a different way, and people are not fundamentally selfish or stupid for wanting to see a movie once as a mystery and subsequent times with foreknowledge of what is coming. When Jordan Peele crafts his movies, they are designed to contain multiple revelations of new information, some of which undo previous twists, all of which are even more enjoyable on a rewatch. Does anyone here want to sniff at him being so pedestrian for crafting movies in that way? Or is it just viewers who are viewed as immature for wanting to see the movie according to his plan the first time?
I know it's an intractable Ask/Guess dichotomy where everyone in one camp thinks the people in the other one are impossibly bad and wrong, but geez. Maybe people get different things out of media than you, and that is okay. My friends who don't care about spoilers sometimes ask me to tell them what happens in movies, and I tell them, because if they don't care then fine! But treating that position as morally and artistically superior is, uh. A choice.
Also conflating "a movie that came out three days ago" with "literature that is hundreds of years old" seems disingenuous at best.
posted by a fiendish thingy at 9:32 AM on April 29, 2019 [14 favorites]
There are a lot of people who use spoilers as a way to publicly brag about going to midnight shows when movies open, and if some of you have not experienced this phenomenon, then great, but asking for the opening weekend of a movie as space for people to not give away every minor detail on every possible website and social media platform without any using any tags or warnings is not really that outrageous.
I also think that if we were discussing, for example, "Us" instead of "Endgame", this discussion might look a little different-- of course a plot can still be enjoyable when you know the twists, but it is often enjoyable in a different way, and people are not fundamentally selfish or stupid for wanting to see a movie once as a mystery and subsequent times with foreknowledge of what is coming. When Jordan Peele crafts his movies, they are designed to contain multiple revelations of new information, some of which undo previous twists, all of which are even more enjoyable on a rewatch. Does anyone here want to sniff at him being so pedestrian for crafting movies in that way? Or is it just viewers who are viewed as immature for wanting to see the movie according to his plan the first time?
I know it's an intractable Ask/Guess dichotomy where everyone in one camp thinks the people in the other one are impossibly bad and wrong, but geez. Maybe people get different things out of media than you, and that is okay. My friends who don't care about spoilers sometimes ask me to tell them what happens in movies, and I tell them, because if they don't care then fine! But treating that position as morally and artistically superior is, uh. A choice.
Also conflating "a movie that came out three days ago" with "literature that is hundreds of years old" seems disingenuous at best.
posted by a fiendish thingy at 9:32 AM on April 29, 2019 [14 favorites]
Pride and Prejudice? It would be a spoiler, at least back before all romance novels worked this way, to tell people that Darcy isn't actually an asshole and that he and Elizabeth marry in the end. Knowing that going in would have to reduce the effect of the novel on the reader.
I think this gets to the point that over-arching plot points aren't really spoilable (outside of big twist endings). It's reasonable to assume a happy ending for Darcy and Lizzie, and it's reasonable to assume that Thanos will lose in Endgame. But there are steps along the way that make the story better, the spoiling of which would dampen someone's enjoyment. In Pride and Prejudice, for example, the important thing is what Darcy does for Lizzie's family (not going any more specific than that) - knowing that going in would be worse than knowing that they ultimately end up together.
That said, it's a wonderful and rare gift to experience a cultural moment with no advance knowledge. I saw The Matrix within three days of its premiere, without (I think) even having seen a trailer. My recollection was that I'd only seen newspaper ads (it was 1999, remember) that said "What Is The Matrix?" and that was enough to spark my interest. The big reveal after the red pill/blue pill scene was an absolute shock, and the movie was so much more enjoyable than it would have been if I'd known the premise going in.
posted by Ben Trismegistus at 9:34 AM on April 29, 2019
I think this gets to the point that over-arching plot points aren't really spoilable (outside of big twist endings). It's reasonable to assume a happy ending for Darcy and Lizzie, and it's reasonable to assume that Thanos will lose in Endgame. But there are steps along the way that make the story better, the spoiling of which would dampen someone's enjoyment. In Pride and Prejudice, for example, the important thing is what Darcy does for Lizzie's family (not going any more specific than that) - knowing that going in would be worse than knowing that they ultimately end up together.
That said, it's a wonderful and rare gift to experience a cultural moment with no advance knowledge. I saw The Matrix within three days of its premiere, without (I think) even having seen a trailer. My recollection was that I'd only seen newspaper ads (it was 1999, remember) that said "What Is The Matrix?" and that was enough to spark my interest. The big reveal after the red pill/blue pill scene was an absolute shock, and the movie was so much more enjoyable than it would have been if I'd known the premise going in.
posted by Ben Trismegistus at 9:34 AM on April 29, 2019
Perhaps of some interest here is the world of opera, which seems to have much the opposite attitude. Viewers are more or less expected to know the plot going in (or at least, it doesn't matter if they do), to the point that the synopsis is printed in the program you receive going in. And part of that may be that most of the major works are centuries old, but I think that doesn't fully account for that attitude.
And even if you didn't know the plot going in, if you can't figure out the "twist" in Il Trovatore, when you're told in the first ten minutes that a) the Count (the villain) had a brother who died in infancy - burned beyond recognition, and b) the heroine has fallen in love with the mysterious Troubadour who's been hanging around - I don't know what to tell you.
posted by DevilsAdvocate at 9:36 AM on April 29, 2019 [4 favorites]
And even if you didn't know the plot going in, if you can't figure out the "twist" in Il Trovatore, when you're told in the first ten minutes that a) the Count (the villain) had a brother who died in infancy - burned beyond recognition, and b) the heroine has fallen in love with the mysterious Troubadour who's been hanging around - I don't know what to tell you.
posted by DevilsAdvocate at 9:36 AM on April 29, 2019 [4 favorites]
I think the thing with Opera is that people happily go see operas in languages they do not speak, which are then sung in such a way that even if you do, you can't understand all the words, so revealing the plot in advance is somewhat necessary for anyone to have any idea what the hell is going on.
posted by jacquilynne at 9:43 AM on April 29, 2019 [8 favorites]
posted by jacquilynne at 9:43 AM on April 29, 2019 [8 favorites]
Perhaps of some interest here is the world of opera, which seems to have much the opposite attitude. Viewers are more or less expected to know the plot going in (or at least, it doesn't matter if they do), to the point that the synopsis is printed in the program you receive going in. And part of that may be that most of the major works are centuries old, but I think that doesn't fully account for that attitude.
You could argue (and I say this as a former opera singer) that this is one of the reasons why opera has failed to spark much of an interest with recent generations. No one cares about the stories.
posted by Ben Trismegistus at 9:46 AM on April 29, 2019
You could argue (and I say this as a former opera singer) that this is one of the reasons why opera has failed to spark much of an interest with recent generations. No one cares about the stories.
posted by Ben Trismegistus at 9:46 AM on April 29, 2019
As another opera goer (and employee), the increasing use of subtitles and surtitles at least helps people follow along with the story on stage, even if you don't read the plot synopsis.
posted by SansPoint at 9:47 AM on April 29, 2019 [2 favorites]
posted by SansPoint at 9:47 AM on April 29, 2019 [2 favorites]
I know it's an intractable Ask/Guess dichotomy where everyone in one camp thinks the people in the other one are impossibly bad and wrong, but geez.
Only if you come into this discussion assuming everyone else is acting in bad faith and unwilling to make reasonable accommodations for the various needs and interests involved.
posted by GenderNullPointerException at 10:11 AM on April 29, 2019 [1 favorite]
Only if you come into this discussion assuming everyone else is acting in bad faith and unwilling to make reasonable accommodations for the various needs and interests involved.
posted by GenderNullPointerException at 10:11 AM on April 29, 2019 [1 favorite]
So I read the synopsis for Tosca before I saw it a couple years ago, and my favorite opera house has a very nice supertitles display, but I was still shocked at how sudden the ending was. Just because I knew what was coming didn't make it lose its effect at all. (And I think I get to see at least two productions semi-locally in the next year. So psyched! But it's hard to believe any production will be as awesome as Central City 2016.)
The production staff do a fun (optional) intro/Q&A session before most performances and there were definitely jokes about spoilers for Il Trovatore last year. I know I'm not getting the same things out of any opera performance that my fellow opera fans who've seen or heard these operas a million times have, but there's a lot to be said for going in with very little preparation. I'm only getting that experience once (and it's not even mostly about the plot events for opera.)
posted by asperity at 10:18 AM on April 29, 2019 [2 favorites]
The production staff do a fun (optional) intro/Q&A session before most performances and there were definitely jokes about spoilers for Il Trovatore last year. I know I'm not getting the same things out of any opera performance that my fellow opera fans who've seen or heard these operas a million times have, but there's a lot to be said for going in with very little preparation. I'm only getting that experience once (and it's not even mostly about the plot events for opera.)
posted by asperity at 10:18 AM on April 29, 2019 [2 favorites]
Spoilers are by far the thing that make me feel the most alienated from the rest of the human race. Every year the anti-spoiler sentiment gets stronger, and applies to more things. And I just don't care. It does not affect my enjoyment one bit. I respect it. But I don't get it.
Half the human race is jumping up and down to agree with you, so if this makes you feel alienated there’s probably something else going on.
posted by the agents of KAOS at 10:29 AM on April 29, 2019 [1 favorite]
Half the human race is jumping up and down to agree with you, so if this makes you feel alienated there’s probably something else going on.
posted by the agents of KAOS at 10:29 AM on April 29, 2019 [1 favorite]
Also conflating "a movie that came out three days ago" with "literature that is hundreds of years old" seems disingenuous at best.
Way upthread, there were some anecdotes about people who don't want to be "spoiled" for anything, and who conflate "you told me that Snape dies, you jerk" with "but now Moby Dick is spoiled because someone talked about the ending in casual conversation!!!"
I think that mefites in general are on the same page about not spoiling recent stuff, not spoiling stuff that is well-known for having a significant twist and not spoiling older stuff if they know that someone specifically doesn't want it spoiled, but the discourse of "spoilers" has expanded so much and become so internet-moralized that it's perfectly possible to hector people about spoiling Pride and Prejudice, or to hector people for "spoilers" like "Snape teaches Harry Occlumency with mixed success" that are simply plot points. And that this reflects a weirdly consumerist, "novelty is the primary value of fiction across time and space" mentality.
posted by Frowner at 10:30 AM on April 29, 2019 [4 favorites]
Way upthread, there were some anecdotes about people who don't want to be "spoiled" for anything, and who conflate "you told me that Snape dies, you jerk" with "but now Moby Dick is spoiled because someone talked about the ending in casual conversation!!!"
I think that mefites in general are on the same page about not spoiling recent stuff, not spoiling stuff that is well-known for having a significant twist and not spoiling older stuff if they know that someone specifically doesn't want it spoiled, but the discourse of "spoilers" has expanded so much and become so internet-moralized that it's perfectly possible to hector people about spoiling Pride and Prejudice, or to hector people for "spoilers" like "Snape teaches Harry Occlumency with mixed success" that are simply plot points. And that this reflects a weirdly consumerist, "novelty is the primary value of fiction across time and space" mentality.
posted by Frowner at 10:30 AM on April 29, 2019 [4 favorites]
Half the human race is jumping up and down to agree with you
Did the other half get Snappeninged?
posted by hanov3r at 10:37 AM on April 29, 2019
Did the other half get Snappeninged?
posted by hanov3r at 10:37 AM on April 29, 2019
One of the better things about going to post on dreamwidth again is that there's a such thing as a cut, so I can blather all I want about anything and people can choose whether or not they want to see what I say. And if it's on twitter or facebook, I can give specific people a link.
I generally try to avoid spoilers, but there is definitely a point where I do get annoyed about having to avoid discussing anything about any media ever without a waiver, and it does get difficult to talk about media. For example there's a moment in The Good Place where Eleanor and Tahani decide after realizing that they're into the same person to try to become friends instead of fight each other. Now, this is not the moment in the good place that people are typically worried about spoiling: it's not something that has a huge impact on the greater plot and even with that information, someone doesn't know when it's going to happen until maybe two minutes before it actually does. But I know someone who has gotten visibly upset for me mentioning that in front of her because she was planning to watch The Good Place and now it's spoiled. Sometimes when talking about books and movies I might want to compare them to other books and movies, and that might require me to reference what has happened on them - I don't want to spoil significant plot points, but 'Natasha eats soup' should not have any impact on whether or not you are able to enjoy a movie.
posted by dinty_moore at 10:45 AM on April 29, 2019 [4 favorites]
I generally try to avoid spoilers, but there is definitely a point where I do get annoyed about having to avoid discussing anything about any media ever without a waiver, and it does get difficult to talk about media. For example there's a moment in The Good Place where Eleanor and Tahani decide after realizing that they're into the same person to try to become friends instead of fight each other. Now, this is not the moment in the good place that people are typically worried about spoiling: it's not something that has a huge impact on the greater plot and even with that information, someone doesn't know when it's going to happen until maybe two minutes before it actually does. But I know someone who has gotten visibly upset for me mentioning that in front of her because she was planning to watch The Good Place and now it's spoiled. Sometimes when talking about books and movies I might want to compare them to other books and movies, and that might require me to reference what has happened on them - I don't want to spoil significant plot points, but 'Natasha eats soup' should not have any impact on whether or not you are able to enjoy a movie.
posted by dinty_moore at 10:45 AM on April 29, 2019 [4 favorites]
I deliberately spoil things for myself. About an hour before I saw Game of Thrones last night I spoiled it for myself. Having surprises is fun and all, but I’m mostly interested in what the literal actions are vs “this character kills this character” or whatever. I guess the story and the actual action taking place on screen are more important to me than the surprise.
posted by gucci mane at 10:48 AM on April 29, 2019
posted by gucci mane at 10:48 AM on April 29, 2019
Personal data point about Moby Dick and spoilers: when I read it, I had no idea there was going to be one chapter purely about the biology of whales, and another chapter purely about the tools and technology of whaling.
That makes it sound like a Neal Stephenson novel. Maybe I should read Moby Dick after all. Except now you've spoiled it... :)
I think some movies and books can't be "spoiled" by spoilers, while in other cases it's better to have a surprise plot twist that actually is a surprise. My general preference is not to know very much in advance -- give me a general sense of "would I like this subject matter and its tone?" -- but don't tell me the story. It's a nice contrast to our oversharing, overhyped, BREAKING NEWS culture.
posted by Foosnark at 10:50 AM on April 29, 2019 [1 favorite]
That makes it sound like a Neal Stephenson novel. Maybe I should read Moby Dick after all. Except now you've spoiled it... :)
I think some movies and books can't be "spoiled" by spoilers, while in other cases it's better to have a surprise plot twist that actually is a surprise. My general preference is not to know very much in advance -- give me a general sense of "would I like this subject matter and its tone?" -- but don't tell me the story. It's a nice contrast to our oversharing, overhyped, BREAKING NEWS culture.
posted by Foosnark at 10:50 AM on April 29, 2019 [1 favorite]
No one cares about the stories.
That's because they're just about uniformly terrible.
posted by praemunire at 10:51 AM on April 29, 2019 [1 favorite]
That's because they're just about uniformly terrible.
posted by praemunire at 10:51 AM on April 29, 2019 [1 favorite]
With the neonazis and MRAs staking their claims to pop culture like Star Wars, Star Trek, comics, and The Matrix, I don't think it's a good time to hedge further on feminist and queer reads.
posted by GenderNullPointerException at 10:56 AM on April 29, 2019 [1 favorite]
posted by GenderNullPointerException at 10:56 AM on April 29, 2019 [1 favorite]
Speaking of Game of Thrones there was an amazing phenomenon on Twitter yesterday where some of the very same people complaining about Endgame spoilers were live-tweeting GOT like it was a sports event, despite the fact that not everyone gets the east coast HBO feed. I am really fascinated by this collective unconscious agreement on what media is OK to discuss immediately and what isn't.
posted by muddgirl at 11:15 AM on April 29, 2019 [4 favorites]
posted by muddgirl at 11:15 AM on April 29, 2019 [4 favorites]
Or in the opposite direction, are there works sufficiently explicit about their subsequent events that they could not be meaningfully spoiled?
Maybe, but even then there are outliers. I managed to watch Hamilton with someone who, at the end of the first act, did not know that Hamilton dies at the end (she was not from the US, and missed/forgot about the 'damn fool who shot him' line by the intermission). It was a fantastic experience.
posted by dinty_moore at 11:16 AM on April 29, 2019 [2 favorites]
Maybe, but even then there are outliers. I managed to watch Hamilton with someone who, at the end of the first act, did not know that Hamilton dies at the end (she was not from the US, and missed/forgot about the 'damn fool who shot him' line by the intermission). It was a fantastic experience.
posted by dinty_moore at 11:16 AM on April 29, 2019 [2 favorites]
I am really fascinated by this collective unconscious agreement on what media is OK to discuss immediately and what isn't.
I don't think it has anything to do with the media in question. It's much more a matter of easy access to live-tweeting / live-blogging whilst sitting on your couch. I'm sure those people WOULD have live-tweeted Endgame, were they able to get away with using their phone in the theater.
posted by hanov3r at 11:18 AM on April 29, 2019
I don't think it has anything to do with the media in question. It's much more a matter of easy access to live-tweeting / live-blogging whilst sitting on your couch. I'm sure those people WOULD have live-tweeted Endgame, were they able to get away with using their phone in the theater.
posted by hanov3r at 11:18 AM on April 29, 2019
I do as much as I can to understand plots for operas, but that's because the artform (generally) works differently.
Opera tends to be, more than many other forms of media, about the emotional underpinnings, the relationships between the characters. And that's easier to connect with if you understand what is going on.
Though of course opera is an ancient form that has changed much over the years, and some of my most memorable experiences have been with works I didn't know (often because they were brand new) allowing for that wonder.
posted by mountmccabe at 11:25 AM on April 29, 2019 [2 favorites]
Opera tends to be, more than many other forms of media, about the emotional underpinnings, the relationships between the characters. And that's easier to connect with if you understand what is going on.
Though of course opera is an ancient form that has changed much over the years, and some of my most memorable experiences have been with works I didn't know (often because they were brand new) allowing for that wonder.
posted by mountmccabe at 11:25 AM on April 29, 2019 [2 favorites]
I don't think it has anything to do with the media in question. It's much more a matter of easy access to live-tweeting / live-blogging whilst sitting on your couch. I'm sure those people WOULD have live-tweeted Endgame, were they able to get away with using their phone in the theater.
This posits that people don't consider live-tweeting to be the same thing as after-the-fact spoilers, which would be another interesting facet of modern consumer culture. What is the difference, in your mind?
posted by muddgirl at 11:25 AM on April 29, 2019
This posits that people don't consider live-tweeting to be the same thing as after-the-fact spoilers, which would be another interesting facet of modern consumer culture. What is the difference, in your mind?
posted by muddgirl at 11:25 AM on April 29, 2019
What is the difference, in your mind?
I don't particularly see a difference, and I say that as someone who has live-tweeted or live-Facebooked a thing or two (usually my Oscar impressions). Live-tweeting CAN be avoided, sometimes more easily than drive-by spoilings, but it's still spoiling.
I guess what I was trying to get at is that the people live-tweeting GoT are (probably) only upset about things that spoil THEM and would, if they could, happily live-tweet a cinema experience without worrying about spoiling others.
posted by hanov3r at 11:33 AM on April 29, 2019 [1 favorite]
I don't particularly see a difference, and I say that as someone who has live-tweeted or live-Facebooked a thing or two (usually my Oscar impressions). Live-tweeting CAN be avoided, sometimes more easily than drive-by spoilings, but it's still spoiling.
I guess what I was trying to get at is that the people live-tweeting GoT are (probably) only upset about things that spoil THEM and would, if they could, happily live-tweet a cinema experience without worrying about spoiling others.
posted by hanov3r at 11:33 AM on April 29, 2019 [1 favorite]
I generally don’t care about spoilers most of the time, and I try to respect that some people do. If we are having a serious critical discussion, the hardline spoiler-averse need to absent themselves.
My two favorite spoiler stories:
One of the GoT actors recounted encountering a fan who said “I can’t wait for your death scene; it’s awesome!” And the actor was “I didn’t know I was dying so soon; I avoided reading the books.” He had his death spoiled!
Soylent Green is based on Harry Harrison’s Make Room, Make Room. Harrison sold the rights and was not involved with the production. His first experience was in the theater, where, when they reached the climactic line (not an element of the book), Harrison shouted “What the fuck!?!” I guess that was a non-spoiler story.
posted by GenjiandProust at 11:49 AM on April 29, 2019 [7 favorites]
My two favorite spoiler stories:
One of the GoT actors recounted encountering a fan who said “I can’t wait for your death scene; it’s awesome!” And the actor was “I didn’t know I was dying so soon; I avoided reading the books.” He had his death spoiled!
Soylent Green is based on Harry Harrison’s Make Room, Make Room. Harrison sold the rights and was not involved with the production. His first experience was in the theater, where, when they reached the climactic line (not an element of the book), Harrison shouted “What the fuck!?!” I guess that was a non-spoiler story.
posted by GenjiandProust at 11:49 AM on April 29, 2019 [7 favorites]
I emphatically do not agree with the idea that "oh, Marvel movies are so formulaic that you can't get upset about spoilers." I mean, sure, I know how it's likely to end -- the good guys will probably prevail, to some extent. There will be heartache and struggle along the way, of course. But I don't know HOW it will all happen, and I want to go into that movie with as much of a clean slate as I can, so I can enjoy seeing how it all works out. Let people enjoy things! Even if you don't think those things are artistically worthy, or whatever! Just... let people enjoy things.
posted by sarcasticah at 11:51 AM on April 29, 2019 [4 favorites]
posted by sarcasticah at 11:51 AM on April 29, 2019 [4 favorites]
I still don't buy the argument that sophisticated or literate readers are not bothered by spoilers.
The reason is that, even if one's interest, curiosity, or pleasure comes from analysis of a filmic or written text, it is precisely about the pleasure of making a discovery: a new connection or understanding of the story and/or the author or genre. But that's just meta-reading. If I spoiled that process of discovery then that level of reading would also be pointless.
So in the effort to distinguish between cheap suspense from artistic merit, the argument employs a subtle conceit about why art is wonderful.
It's even in the scientific process. Scientists work because of curiosity and discovery. That's what a spoiler fundamentally is, it's part of the human experience.
posted by polymodus at 1:31 PM on April 29, 2019 [5 favorites]
The reason is that, even if one's interest, curiosity, or pleasure comes from analysis of a filmic or written text, it is precisely about the pleasure of making a discovery: a new connection or understanding of the story and/or the author or genre. But that's just meta-reading. If I spoiled that process of discovery then that level of reading would also be pointless.
So in the effort to distinguish between cheap suspense from artistic merit, the argument employs a subtle conceit about why art is wonderful.
It's even in the scientific process. Scientists work because of curiosity and discovery. That's what a spoiler fundamentally is, it's part of the human experience.
posted by polymodus at 1:31 PM on April 29, 2019 [5 favorites]
I was just complaining to a friend how Slate effectively spoiled a major Endgame movie point in the freaking title of its review. I'm one of those people who likes to go into movies with as little advance notice as possible, even avoiding trailers if possible. But at the end of the day I consider it more my responsibility to avoid spoiler prone situations, and not the rest of the world's responsibility to avoid discussing current films.
posted by xigxag at 2:01 PM on April 29, 2019
posted by xigxag at 2:01 PM on April 29, 2019
Maybe, but even then there are outliers. I managed to watch Hamilton with someone who, at the end of the first act, did not know that Hamilton dies at the end (she was not from the US, and missed/forgot about the 'damn fool who shot him' line by the intermission). It was a fantastic experience.
I’m seeing it next week and I didn’t know he died 🤣
But I generally consider anything based on historical reality to be a spoiler free-for-all, since the authors are (presumably) assuming the audience knows the broad outline of events already and created the show with that in mind.
I think the difference between Game of Thrones and Endgame is that people still have a "simultaneous event" attitude towards TV. You assume that everyone who cares will watch it when it "airs", and since people know about timezones, they can pretty reasonably stay off Twitter for three hours if they want to avoid spoilers. Whereas movies are not generally considered a simultaneous experience, partly because it would be literally impossible for everyone to see it opening day, let alone in the first showing.
posted by the agents of KAOS at 2:27 PM on April 29, 2019 [1 favorite]
"I’m seeing it next week and I didn’t know he died"
When Mini McGee was 5 years old, I was reading the Chernow biography of Washington, and he noticed this and got very agitated.
"Mom, I don't think you should read that book," he said.
"Why not?"
"I think it has a sad story ending and then you'll be sad."
"Why is that?"
"Well ..." he said, looking uncomfortable. He dropped his voice to a whisper: "George Washington DIED."
I appreciate his spoiler sensitivity as well as his profound conviction that I didn't already know Washington was dead.
posted by Eyebrows McGee at 2:57 PM on April 29, 2019 [9 favorites]
When Mini McGee was 5 years old, I was reading the Chernow biography of Washington, and he noticed this and got very agitated.
"Mom, I don't think you should read that book," he said.
"Why not?"
"I think it has a sad story ending and then you'll be sad."
"Why is that?"
"Well ..." he said, looking uncomfortable. He dropped his voice to a whisper: "George Washington DIED."
I appreciate his spoiler sensitivity as well as his profound conviction that I didn't already know Washington was dead.
posted by Eyebrows McGee at 2:57 PM on April 29, 2019 [9 favorites]
The three-part code of conduct in the article is... not terrible. But I find it bizarre that the author laughingly violates #1 on his own list, repeatedly, for no purpose. Revealing various plot points doesn't make it a better article; it just shows that his code of conduct thing is a dishonest attempt at policing people that bother him.
Also using J.K. Rowling as an example of someone who told a character their future arc to inform their performances is incredibly hilarious given how many times she has taken to retconning characters. I can't come up with any examples because it's such a joke (and I haven't read the books or watched the movies).
That being said, that anecdote about Brie Larson arriving to record a line in the dark is really bizarre. It makes me think of Season 4 of Arrested Development, aka the season that convinced me it wasn't worth watching any of that show again. (Though to be fair it seems like the bizarre shoot one person at a time thing was about not coordinating busy schedules rather than trying to avoid spoilers, but a similar result).
posted by mountmccabe at 3:00 PM on April 29, 2019 [1 favorite]
Also using J.K. Rowling as an example of someone who told a character their future arc to inform their performances is incredibly hilarious given how many times she has taken to retconning characters. I can't come up with any examples because it's such a joke (and I haven't read the books or watched the movies).
That being said, that anecdote about Brie Larson arriving to record a line in the dark is really bizarre. It makes me think of Season 4 of Arrested Development, aka the season that convinced me it wasn't worth watching any of that show again. (Though to be fair it seems like the bizarre shoot one person at a time thing was about not coordinating busy schedules rather than trying to avoid spoilers, but a similar result).
posted by mountmccabe at 3:00 PM on April 29, 2019 [1 favorite]
That's not the ending. The ending is that the Rebels have assembled a fleet and are going to try to attack the Empire again. That reveal happens well before the ending.
Star Wars has no ending. It continues ever on, and for that reason NO SPOILERS... FOREVER.
posted by JamesBay at 3:17 PM on April 29, 2019
Star Wars has no ending. It continues ever on, and for that reason NO SPOILERS... FOREVER.
posted by JamesBay at 3:17 PM on April 29, 2019
And assuming that a technical article about Gone With the Wind will feature "no spoilers" is precisely the problem I have with "no spoilers" culture. The movie is 70+ years old.
posted by JamesBay at 3:18 PM on April 29, 2019 [1 favorite]
posted by JamesBay at 3:18 PM on April 29, 2019 [1 favorite]
I'm still angry about John Dies at the End.
posted by rifflesby at 3:44 PM on April 29, 2019 [5 favorites]
posted by rifflesby at 3:44 PM on April 29, 2019 [5 favorites]
"If I tell you a spoiler for a piece of media, I've destroyed your ability to experience it as the author intended."
Assuming, of course, the author didn't believe it would be spoiled, and wrote accordingly.
Sussing out authors' intentions, without an explicit statement, is a mug's game.
posted by aurelian at 3:45 PM on April 29, 2019 [2 favorites]
Assuming, of course, the author didn't believe it would be spoiled, and wrote accordingly.
Sussing out authors' intentions, without an explicit statement, is a mug's game.
posted by aurelian at 3:45 PM on April 29, 2019 [2 favorites]
From the article's spoiler commandments:
If you are spoiled accidentally, through someone not being a dick, and especially if the thing you have been spoiled on has been out for longer than a week (for movies) or a month (for TV shows), accept that it’s on you. Don’t get mad at them if they didn’t know what they were doing.
Shouldn't the timeline be the other way around? I would say a week for TV and a month for a movie. Movies open at different times (in a time span of weeks, not hours, as is the case for TV shows), and even if you are going to see the movie in theaters, not everyone is able to go in opening weekend. Whereas for a TV show that you are actively following, a lot of people will see it within the week after it airs.
I'm not even saying whether or not these are correct timelines, but it just seemed like a weird decision to have a longer time span for TV shows than for movies.
posted by litera scripta manet at 3:57 PM on April 29, 2019
If you are spoiled accidentally, through someone not being a dick, and especially if the thing you have been spoiled on has been out for longer than a week (for movies) or a month (for TV shows), accept that it’s on you. Don’t get mad at them if they didn’t know what they were doing.
Shouldn't the timeline be the other way around? I would say a week for TV and a month for a movie. Movies open at different times (in a time span of weeks, not hours, as is the case for TV shows), and even if you are going to see the movie in theaters, not everyone is able to go in opening weekend. Whereas for a TV show that you are actively following, a lot of people will see it within the week after it airs.
I'm not even saying whether or not these are correct timelines, but it just seemed like a weird decision to have a longer time span for TV shows than for movies.
posted by litera scripta manet at 3:57 PM on April 29, 2019
Having considered this a bit more, I think the fundamental problem is that we're being asked to weigh up the desires of the author, who is dead, with the desires of our social groups, who are alive but can have unrealistic expectations. So there's not so much a line as a field, that is different for everyone.
This was easier back when everyone was on forums because the expectation was that you'd take discussion of a work to a new thread, where you could construct arguments without having to EBG13 ivgny cynaxf bs lbhe nethzrag. The etiquette was easier to navigate. This was obliterated by social media, where the expectation is that all one's friends are on the same feed and it's open season. Some people really really really want to riff (or have a critical response). Some people desperately want to have their own experience with the work. Both of them want to still be able to talk to each other.
I don't think this is resolvable outside of everyone getting off of social media, which is part of the reason why I think everyone should get off social media.
Given that this is an etiquette question, the golden rule of etiquette is to make others comfortable. That would suggest that as a work comes out, it's on you to keep your riffing to your goddamn self for the comfort of those around you. Similarly, if you want to be unspoiled, you can't then demand critical evaluations of works avoid spoilers. Reading a critical evaluation of a work is inherently going to colour your reaction to the work; it's unreasonable to demand critics hamstring their ability to argue their point for your comfort.
posted by Merus at 5:18 PM on April 29, 2019 [2 favorites]
This was easier back when everyone was on forums because the expectation was that you'd take discussion of a work to a new thread, where you could construct arguments without having to EBG13 ivgny cynaxf bs lbhe nethzrag. The etiquette was easier to navigate. This was obliterated by social media, where the expectation is that all one's friends are on the same feed and it's open season. Some people really really really want to riff (or have a critical response). Some people desperately want to have their own experience with the work. Both of them want to still be able to talk to each other.
I don't think this is resolvable outside of everyone getting off of social media, which is part of the reason why I think everyone should get off social media.
Given that this is an etiquette question, the golden rule of etiquette is to make others comfortable. That would suggest that as a work comes out, it's on you to keep your riffing to your goddamn self for the comfort of those around you. Similarly, if you want to be unspoiled, you can't then demand critical evaluations of works avoid spoilers. Reading a critical evaluation of a work is inherently going to colour your reaction to the work; it's unreasonable to demand critics hamstring their ability to argue their point for your comfort.
posted by Merus at 5:18 PM on April 29, 2019 [2 favorites]
I really feel like there are very few people seriously arguing that critical evaluations should cease in order to avoid spoilers. Discussion is great! It's all in how it's handled. "Spoilers below" works very well on the internet. In an actual academic setting -- there was one person in one example who was pissed off that Moby Dick was "spoiled" for her. I think it's funny that "pls no spoilers" has, over the course of this thread, morphed into an anti-intellectual exercise that silences discourse on media. Let's take a step back and reevaluate what the actual problem is.
Anyway, I will reiterate that I am a stupid reader and movie viewer, and these plots are not obvious to me. So this whole separate issue of "why worry about spoilers if you can OBVIOUSLY guess the ending?" To which I will again state that I am a stupid person, and I probably did not guess the ending or major plot points, which is why spoilers bug me.
posted by shapes that haunt the dusk at 6:28 PM on April 29, 2019 [4 favorites]
Anyway, I will reiterate that I am a stupid reader and movie viewer, and these plots are not obvious to me. So this whole separate issue of "why worry about spoilers if you can OBVIOUSLY guess the ending?" To which I will again state that I am a stupid person, and I probably did not guess the ending or major plot points, which is why spoilers bug me.
posted by shapes that haunt the dusk at 6:28 PM on April 29, 2019 [4 favorites]
Assuming, of course, the author didn't believe it would be spoiled, and wrote accordingly.
I saw Us recently, and liked it. Initially you don't know what's going on, and then, by the end, you do, because Jordan Peele has made deliberate choices about how and when to reveal each plot bit. It's also so tense & scary that I actually almost cried several times because I didn't know if I was about to watch a character I liked die or not.
Concealing & revealing plot to manipulate audience emotions is a tool in the storyteller's toolbox; for some their primary tool. If you're positing the existence of a storyteller who decides they're not interested at all in making deliberate plot revelation choices because some of the audience has probably read spoilers, then I don't know what conversation we're having anymore, or why we're having it?
Seriously, I feel like there's a critical mass of people in this thread edging towards arguing that authorial pacing choices are completely irrelevant & nothing would be lost if every movie started with a 45-second rundown of all its major plot points.
This makes me feel like I'm on whatever the non-ableist-language version of crazy pills is called & I'm screaming into a weird void where everyone agrees that not wanting to know what happens in my TV shows before I watch them means I hate all human cognition?
posted by taquito sunrise at 10:25 PM on April 29, 2019 [2 favorites]
I saw Us recently, and liked it. Initially you don't know what's going on, and then, by the end, you do, because Jordan Peele has made deliberate choices about how and when to reveal each plot bit. It's also so tense & scary that I actually almost cried several times because I didn't know if I was about to watch a character I liked die or not.
Concealing & revealing plot to manipulate audience emotions is a tool in the storyteller's toolbox; for some their primary tool. If you're positing the existence of a storyteller who decides they're not interested at all in making deliberate plot revelation choices because some of the audience has probably read spoilers, then I don't know what conversation we're having anymore, or why we're having it?
Seriously, I feel like there's a critical mass of people in this thread edging towards arguing that authorial pacing choices are completely irrelevant & nothing would be lost if every movie started with a 45-second rundown of all its major plot points.
This makes me feel like I'm on whatever the non-ableist-language version of crazy pills is called & I'm screaming into a weird void where everyone agrees that not wanting to know what happens in my TV shows before I watch them means I hate all human cognition?
posted by taquito sunrise at 10:25 PM on April 29, 2019 [2 favorites]
Spoilers suck. They hurt me. They degrade my experience. Please don't.
I get there's a whole argument about the activities of studios, the expected half-life of being careful about spoilers, it's not the destination it's the journey etc., etc. But at the core is the question Are spoilers bad? and there are plenty of people who seem to think it's okay to decrease my enjoyment because my own experience is invalid.
This infuriated me when that "spoilers actually increase your enjoyment" study did the rounds and it's infuriating me all over again. There's just nothing to replace the visceral, emotional reaction to a new and powerful story. If it's a good one, I'll read/watch it again and pay more attention to the journey, but that's an intellectual enjoyment, where the first is an emotional one. And spoilers will degrade my emotional enjoyment of a thing.
So I would appreciate it if people the world over would stop saying what I should or shouldn't feel. Spoilers suck.
posted by spinn at 2:04 AM on April 30, 2019 [3 favorites]
I get there's a whole argument about the activities of studios, the expected half-life of being careful about spoilers, it's not the destination it's the journey etc., etc. But at the core is the question Are spoilers bad? and there are plenty of people who seem to think it's okay to decrease my enjoyment because my own experience is invalid.
This infuriated me when that "spoilers actually increase your enjoyment" study did the rounds and it's infuriating me all over again. There's just nothing to replace the visceral, emotional reaction to a new and powerful story. If it's a good one, I'll read/watch it again and pay more attention to the journey, but that's an intellectual enjoyment, where the first is an emotional one. And spoilers will degrade my emotional enjoyment of a thing.
So I would appreciate it if people the world over would stop saying what I should or shouldn't feel. Spoilers suck.
posted by spinn at 2:04 AM on April 30, 2019 [3 favorites]
Seriously, I feel like there's a critical mass of people in this thread edging towards arguing that authorial pacing choices are completely irrelevant & nothing would be lost if every movie started with a 45-second rundown of all its major plot points.
I feel like this escalated rhetoric and slippery slope is why I have grown to really dislike discussion of spoiler warnings. For the most part, most people who don't mind spoilers are using warnings as appropriate to the work, context, and audience. Most people who do mind spoilers are reasonably chill about accidental leaks. And while there's room for discussion about how to do that better, dialing it down a bit would be appreciated.
posted by GenderNullPointerException at 6:00 AM on April 30, 2019 [4 favorites]
I feel like this escalated rhetoric and slippery slope is why I have grown to really dislike discussion of spoiler warnings. For the most part, most people who don't mind spoilers are using warnings as appropriate to the work, context, and audience. Most people who do mind spoilers are reasonably chill about accidental leaks. And while there's room for discussion about how to do that better, dialing it down a bit would be appreciated.
posted by GenderNullPointerException at 6:00 AM on April 30, 2019 [4 favorites]
I'll be back in here later, but I'm gonna leave this here. (Colbert on spoilers...not actually spoiling anything.)
Here's the thing: you can't stop the world from spoiling you. Period. If you must stay lily white innocent until you see the thing, it is on you entirely to stay innocent.
For example, I was super swamped from Thursday to Sunday and did not have time to see the three hour Endgame until Sunday night. It was on me to not find out shit if I didn't want to. I actually managed it, but I don't do social media. And really, it's on me to have to cope with the consequences because I can't control other people.
posted by jenfullmoon at 7:38 AM on April 30, 2019
Here's the thing: you can't stop the world from spoiling you. Period. If you must stay lily white innocent until you see the thing, it is on you entirely to stay innocent.
For example, I was super swamped from Thursday to Sunday and did not have time to see the three hour Endgame until Sunday night. It was on me to not find out shit if I didn't want to. I actually managed it, but I don't do social media. And really, it's on me to have to cope with the consequences because I can't control other people.
posted by jenfullmoon at 7:38 AM on April 30, 2019
Strong agree with GenderNullPointerException.
My approach to media consumption is...not super critical, if I'm being honest. I watch even the most cliche movies and read even the most cliche books like I'm on a lazy river - sure, I might have a sense of where they're taking me, but I'm happy to close my eyes and enjoy the ride. I think there's another brand of people that spend the entire time paying attention to the meta-story, predicting next moves, etc. but honestly, that ruins it for me - I find myself preoccupied with whether the prediction pans out (or where the known plot point happens) rather than letting the story just happen. It's the same reason I also don't like watching a movie where I've read the book or even watching trailers if I can avoid it (watching a movie with zero advance knowledge of the story is so fun!). I don't even like reading FanFare threads on shows like The Good Place anymore because the speculation is so often spot-on that it takes away some of the surprise that the show otherwise gives me. I resent some of the implications above that this makes me somehow less intellectual or less able to predict what happens - I'm sure I could, but it's a consumption preference, that's all.
At the same time, I'm a reasonable human who understands that people discuss plots and sometimes that means I'll find out what happen anyways. I haven't seen many classic movies and I do hope to/plan to in the future but obviously I'm not so entitled that I wouldn't expect people to discuss them in the meantime (although it'd be a boring conversation if they were discussing it with someone who hadn't seen it.) At the same time, in real-life convos, I generally find that people are happy to check in about how familiar another person is with the media in question before starting a whole conversation about it. I guess that's harder to do on the internet.
posted by mosst at 7:44 AM on April 30, 2019
My approach to media consumption is...not super critical, if I'm being honest. I watch even the most cliche movies and read even the most cliche books like I'm on a lazy river - sure, I might have a sense of where they're taking me, but I'm happy to close my eyes and enjoy the ride. I think there's another brand of people that spend the entire time paying attention to the meta-story, predicting next moves, etc. but honestly, that ruins it for me - I find myself preoccupied with whether the prediction pans out (or where the known plot point happens) rather than letting the story just happen. It's the same reason I also don't like watching a movie where I've read the book or even watching trailers if I can avoid it (watching a movie with zero advance knowledge of the story is so fun!). I don't even like reading FanFare threads on shows like The Good Place anymore because the speculation is so often spot-on that it takes away some of the surprise that the show otherwise gives me. I resent some of the implications above that this makes me somehow less intellectual or less able to predict what happens - I'm sure I could, but it's a consumption preference, that's all.
At the same time, I'm a reasonable human who understands that people discuss plots and sometimes that means I'll find out what happen anyways. I haven't seen many classic movies and I do hope to/plan to in the future but obviously I'm not so entitled that I wouldn't expect people to discuss them in the meantime (although it'd be a boring conversation if they were discussing it with someone who hadn't seen it.) At the same time, in real-life convos, I generally find that people are happy to check in about how familiar another person is with the media in question before starting a whole conversation about it. I guess that's harder to do on the internet.
posted by mosst at 7:44 AM on April 30, 2019
The worst spoiler of my life was The Yellow Wallpaper. Not that anyone told me what it was about but that I was assigned it in fourth or fifth grade (gifted kids school). And I completely missed the point. When I was about 25 and not woke but try to hit the snooze bar, my undergrad advisor described this mindblowing story to me complete with a full plot summary.
It took me a while, but then I realized I'd already read the story and entirely missed the point. Still love to go back and read it but I'd have liked to get to it when I was old enough to appreciate.
The second worst was the trailer for Fury Road because I've been in the theater with people who had no idea there was going to be a flamethrower guitar.
posted by stet at 11:07 AM on April 30, 2019
It took me a while, but then I realized I'd already read the story and entirely missed the point. Still love to go back and read it but I'd have liked to get to it when I was old enough to appreciate.
The second worst was the trailer for Fury Road because I've been in the theater with people who had no idea there was going to be a flamethrower guitar.
posted by stet at 11:07 AM on April 30, 2019
I'm a no spoilers person. I don't even read reviews/blurbs if possible. For two main reasons, first off because I want to experience stuff for myself. Without anyone's interpretations or viewpoints. I want my opinion to be my opinion, and if I go watch a film that I've read a review of then I'll have that reviewers opinion come with me. And although I might not agree with them it'll still be there, colouring my experience.
Also, I love that feeling of watching, or reading, a story or characters develop. And if I know what some of the beats in that story are in advance I miss that. I don't want to know in advance. If I appreciate something then yes I will reread or rewatch, multiple times on occasion. And knowing the ending doesn't ruin any of those subsequent viewings, and books in particular can often be more rewarding the second or third time. But I still want my first viewing to be my first.
So I avoided social media for Endgame & Game of Thrones, which I watch on a Monday, and I expect, in general conversation not to have plot points of anything revealed. But if I go read an article about the theme of x in Endgame, then I do presume that'll have spoilers and that's okay and as it should be. Just make sure people can't stumble over the spoiler accidentally, make it obvious from the outset you'll be talking details and specifics and leave it up to the individual to make that decision for themselves.
posted by Fence at 11:29 AM on April 30, 2019
Also, I love that feeling of watching, or reading, a story or characters develop. And if I know what some of the beats in that story are in advance I miss that. I don't want to know in advance. If I appreciate something then yes I will reread or rewatch, multiple times on occasion. And knowing the ending doesn't ruin any of those subsequent viewings, and books in particular can often be more rewarding the second or third time. But I still want my first viewing to be my first.
So I avoided social media for Endgame & Game of Thrones, which I watch on a Monday, and I expect, in general conversation not to have plot points of anything revealed. But if I go read an article about the theme of x in Endgame, then I do presume that'll have spoilers and that's okay and as it should be. Just make sure people can't stumble over the spoiler accidentally, make it obvious from the outset you'll be talking details and specifics and leave it up to the individual to make that decision for themselves.
posted by Fence at 11:29 AM on April 30, 2019
For the most part, most people who don't mind spoilers are using warnings as appropriate to the work, context, and audience.
This is moot. Context work and audience implies a narrative, so people do in fact mind spoilers, it's just a different set of spoilers. It's analogous to the question of who gets to define the notion of safe space and what happens in practice is the privileged group doesn't recognize in its criticism it is performing and exercising a safe space of its own, etc. So an analysis of narrative at the critical level bringing in audience, author, context has to account for this.
posted by polymodus at 12:29 PM on April 30, 2019
This is moot. Context work and audience implies a narrative, so people do in fact mind spoilers, it's just a different set of spoilers. It's analogous to the question of who gets to define the notion of safe space and what happens in practice is the privileged group doesn't recognize in its criticism it is performing and exercising a safe space of its own, etc. So an analysis of narrative at the critical level bringing in audience, author, context has to account for this.
posted by polymodus at 12:29 PM on April 30, 2019
This is moot. Context work and audience implies a narrative, so people do in fact mind spoilers, it's just a different set of spoilers. It's analogous to the question of who gets to define the notion of safe space and what happens in practice is the privileged group doesn't recognize in its criticism it is performing and exercising a safe space of its own, etc. So an analysis of narrative at the critical level bringing in audience, author, context has to account for this.
This seems like it doesn't get us any forwarder - if literally everything is a spoiler of some kind to someone because it ruins the thrill of, eg, discovering that Emily Dickinson was actually writing about sex if someone tells you that Emily Dickinson was actually writing about sex rather than you inferring this yourself or arriving at the conclusion in seminar, then "spoiler" is such a universal term as to be useless and we have to use other criteria to determine when it's acceptable to talk about a work.
So the question seems once again to be "what advantages and disadvantages are there to 'spoiling' something", given that works exist in time and there's a difference between spoiling a movie that came out last week and spoiling a novel that appeared in 1832. What is enabled by "spoilers" and how does that weigh against what is lost, and how does this vary with setting and work?
posted by Frowner at 1:15 PM on April 30, 2019 [2 favorites]
This seems like it doesn't get us any forwarder - if literally everything is a spoiler of some kind to someone because it ruins the thrill of, eg, discovering that Emily Dickinson was actually writing about sex if someone tells you that Emily Dickinson was actually writing about sex rather than you inferring this yourself or arriving at the conclusion in seminar, then "spoiler" is such a universal term as to be useless and we have to use other criteria to determine when it's acceptable to talk about a work.
So the question seems once again to be "what advantages and disadvantages are there to 'spoiling' something", given that works exist in time and there's a difference between spoiling a movie that came out last week and spoiling a novel that appeared in 1832. What is enabled by "spoilers" and how does that weigh against what is lost, and how does this vary with setting and work?
posted by Frowner at 1:15 PM on April 30, 2019 [2 favorites]
And how has spoiler discourse changed over time, and why? Part of it's the internet, obviously, but a lot of it is the consolidation of the film and publishing industries.
posted by Frowner at 1:17 PM on April 30, 2019
posted by Frowner at 1:17 PM on April 30, 2019
And how has spoiler discourse changed over time, and why?
Before today I had never seen anyone complain about being spoiled when talking about a story they had already read.
posted by ActingTheGoat at 1:31 PM on April 30, 2019 [2 favorites]
Before today I had never seen anyone complain about being spoiled when talking about a story they had already read.
posted by ActingTheGoat at 1:31 PM on April 30, 2019 [2 favorites]
This is moot. Context work and audience implies a narrative,...
With all due respect, trying to condescend at me with entry-level theory for my vocation doesn't make for a productive post. If you want to ground this in practice and design, we can have a conversation. But that needs to start from an agreement that we both want to create discussions that accommodate both spoiler-adverse and spoiler-needing audiences.
posted by GenderNullPointerException at 3:13 PM on April 30, 2019 [1 favorite]
With all due respect, trying to condescend at me with entry-level theory for my vocation doesn't make for a productive post. If you want to ground this in practice and design, we can have a conversation. But that needs to start from an agreement that we both want to create discussions that accommodate both spoiler-adverse and spoiler-needing audiences.
posted by GenderNullPointerException at 3:13 PM on April 30, 2019 [1 favorite]
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