Thoughts On...Spoilers

For this weeks look at an element in popular culture, I decided to discuss a very popular topic that people have been discussing, spoilers. Now spoilers have always been around in popular culture, but with today's technology, it seems nearly impossible to be Unsullied for a show, book or movie.

Well...not really in this article.

The most obvious example of the craziness surrounding spoilers I would need to talk about would be the show Game of Thrones. Now this has an interesting history, as it is based on a popular book series that has been out since the late 1990s. This means that fans of the series have known about Ned Stark, The Red/Purple Weddings and countless other events for a very long time. I didn't get into the series until the end of Season One airing (though I didn't watch it) when I had accidentally been spoiled for the death the media kept hyping.

Because I was intrigued at the subject matter, I made the mistake of going on the regular Wikipedia page instead of the show-specific wikia, where I then was spoiled for many major events in the first three books. One time I was confused about characters and wanted to know more background, which also led me to be spoiled. I don't mind them too much since I still enjoy the story, but I definitely will make sure that for the next two books I wont be. As a policy, I don't like to spoil people, as I want to experience the same shock and surprise other book readers have gone though, which is why I only talk about the show up to its current spot (episode 5).

This begs the question of how long a spoiler is actually a spoiler and when it is okay to discuss something without ruining the experience for someone else. Common "rules" dictate that anything popular, no matter how long it has been out in the public can still be spoiled. This is fine in theory but it also means people won't let you talk about Star Wars or other movies that have long been spoiled by countless pop culture references ("Luke, I am your Father). I think that a week after airing should be fair game, but sometimes sites like Yahoo news but blatant spoilers on their main headline, which isn't cool. Rule of thumb is to wait 12 hours after the show airing as facebook and twitter shouldn't have as many people talking about the show, but definitely try to avoid social media and news sites as much and as long as you can.

Now with Netflix shows that prevents serious difficulty as all of the episodes come out at once, so it's paramount to bingewatch to avoid overhearing or seeing anything discussing a crucial moment like Episode 1 of House of Cards (Season 2). I also plan on doing this with the new Orange is the New Black season 2, even though watching 13 episodes takes all weekend, but I think it's worth it.

I would say that how you watch a show, read a popular book series or watch a movie is up to you, but if you want to remain "unsullied" you may have to disconnect for just a bit so you can enjoy the experience at your leisure. Most people are pretty nice about not talking about spoilery elements around people so it's best to just let them know that you hadn't seen/watched yet. But do watch out for Internet trolls and be careful for everything you read when the popular thing gets released (ex. I got spoiled for the ending of Allegiant, by looking at the comments section talking about Harry Potter news). But if you do happen to get spoiled try to take it in stride and still enjoy the story as much as you can since some people only focus on the shocking event and ignore all the other crucial moments that truly make the book/movie/show really enjoyable.