The politics of online spoilers

[matgb]

One of the things that always bugs me online is different peoples reactions to plot 'spoilers' for media things—unpredictable and at times downright weird, as Nick Mamatas demonstrated last month. Now me, I tend to seek them out for shows I like—before the internet I had a subscription to SFX partially for the spoiler zone section, I loved reading about shows way in advance and knowing what would happen. But then I tend to rewatch stuff I like a lot anyway. So, inspired by this old poll at nmg's, I thought I'd update it a bit.

Warning though, below the fold are some minor spoilers for recent films such as Iron Man, Harry Potter 5 and Spiderman, and also endings/character reveals for Hamlet, Sixth Sense, Citizen Kane, the Star Wars trilogy, Soylent Green and Fight Club. Nothing is revealed that isn't on this classic t-shirt but if you really are that averse, just scroll to the last question...

[Poll #1199471]

Obviously some things, like the end of a genuine mystery, are worth hiding if that's how it's written—knowing who did it never seemed to hurt my enjoyment of Columbo though, and a chunk of my reading is always history books where, y'know, I normally know the ending. It's not what happens that matters to me, it's how—I'm there for the ride, not the big splash at the bottom. You?

Comments

[strangefrontier.livejournal.com]

I have a medium level of spoilerphobia - I'm happy knowing casting details, for instance, and vague plot points, but I don't like being spoiled for whoah! moments because they're a big part of the experience for me.

Because it's so cuturally well-known and I have been watching Star Wars films since I was too wee to understand, I can't imagine what it must be like to watch ESB and find out for the first that Vader is Luke's father. That's a helluva whoah! moment. What a fucking revelation! That's the sort of thing I don't like being spoiled for. I didn't know Bruce Willis was dead or Tyler Durden was imaginary or Keyser Soze was Verbal Kint, and my first viewings of those films had much more impact than they would have done had I known the twists in advance. There's a kind of strange glee at being hoodwinked so well by the film-makers.

I'm hoping I get that sort of experience from the reveal of the final cylon's identity!