The Vine: May 26, 2010
Dear Sars,
I was out for dinner with my SO and wanted to fill him in on the finale of a reality TV show. I’d started to do that when the woman at the next table leaned over and asked me if I would not talk about it because she hadn’t seen it yet. She had it Tivo’d, she explained, she just hadn’t gotten around to viewing it. This was a Saturday night. The show had aired on Thursday night.
I said sure. But in the gargantuan silence that developed as my SO and I tried to leapfrog to another topic of conversation, I started to wonder: Was she rude to ask? Would I have been rude to continue? Is there a minimum number of days before spoilers aren’t spoilers anymore?
Sincerely,
It was the guy from Vancouver, WA!
Dear Tim Gunn,
What a timely question, with all the season/series finales airing this time of year…and also because I’ve been sitting on a related rant for several days. Okay, so.
It’s a two-part question: whether it’s okay to ask people around you to refrain from speech that you don’t want to hear for whatever reason, and whether it’s okay to expect other people to protect you from spoilers.
As to the first part, I think she’s within her rights to ask, and although she should not expect you to comply, I think it’s polite for you to change the subject once she’s expressed discomfort with hearing the results. I’ll get to the spoiler-specific part in a moment, but let’s subtract that from the equation for now — what if she’d asked you to refrain from using colorful language because she had small children with her? You wouldn’t “have to” stop, I guess, and it’s not realistic for parents to think their kids will never hear curse words, but unless you’d convened the dinner specifically to discuss the etymology of the word “horseshit”…you see what I mean. It’s a slight hassle, but a lot of polite behavior is a slight hassle. You just have to focus on the “slight” part.
As to spoilers themselves, I can’t really say it better than Mary Elizabeth Williams did for Salon last week:
It’s a reasonable courtesy not to blab the outcome of last night’s “American Idol” if it’s Thursday morning and a busy co-worker says she’s DVR’d it for later. If it’s the summer of 2007, don’t broadcast all the stuff that goes down in “Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows” to your friends who are slower readers.
But for the love of God, if you really don’t want to know about a book/movie/television show, do the rest of the world a favor and stop hanging out in the online discussion groups about it. Sure, if you live in a time zone where your favorite show has not yet aired, you could go on any of the many websites devoted to it and rage about the injustice of it all, like the poster in a “24” thread who complained, “Your East Coast arrogance that once it airs on the East Coast, it’s fair game to blog about — and ruin for us on the West Coast — is beyond stunning.” Or you maybe could restrain yourself from joining the discussion for three measly hours.
I don’t care about spoilers. I don’t seek them out; nor do they ruin my day. I ran a TV site for close to a decade, and they came with the job, to an extent, but some of my colleagues did care and avoided spoilers assiduously. I just don’t care to make that much effort. On the rare occasions when I’d really rather not know in advance, I take care to 1) watch the episode when it airs, or at least within 12 hours, and 2) avoid places on the internet where the plot twist or result is likely to pop up.
The bitching on social media about other users of social media spoiling TV shows is beyond tiresome; I don’t go out of my way to ruin surprises, by any means, but if you know people spoil shows on Twitter, you…have to stay off Twitter until you’ve watched the damn thing. You have to avoid sites devoted to arts-and-entertainment coverage. “But I wanted to read this OTHER thing, and the headline on the homepage sp–” Stop it. Please. If it’s that difficult for you to live three hours behind the first airing, move out here: problem solved. “But that’s ridiculous!” Yes. Yes, it is. Because it’s just a TV show. The angel Gabriel has not descended from above to reveal to you the date of your own death. (I…assume.)
Williams also points out, and I agree, that if the work in question relies that heavily on the element of surprise, it may not be worth your time in the first place: “[A] work is more than its outcome. Suspense is a lovely element, but it’s not the whole megillah; if it were, nobody would ever watch a Hitchcock film twice.”
Again, I don’t purposefully spoil results, and prior to airing or release is a different story entirely; I saw a movie last night that doesn’t come out ’til Friday, and you haven’t had the same opportunity, so it’s uncool for me to reveal key twists without warning. But often it is in fact my job to provide timely coverage of film and television, and if your consumption is less timely, and I have not appeared in your line of vision wearing a “SETH AARON” t-shirt and a bitchy smirk, then you need to get over it. Facebook and the IMDb will spoil you — if you haven’t watched yet, you go to those sites at your own risk. I take reasonable care around here to hide spoilish discussion after a jump, and you can ask me in conversation not to spoil you on certain things; I’ll certainly take it under advisement. But if you care that much, you watch it right away, you stay off the internet until you can, or you…stop caring that much and just enjoy the experience of the show or movie.
The internet means we can get information right away; that has a downside. Live with it.
Tags: Alfred Hitchcock American Idol etiquette Tim Gunn TV
I know it’s been said already but THANK YOU!!! Spoiler Whiners are so freakin’ annoying. Twice in the past few months on Entertainment Weekly’s website people ha ve whined in the comments about being spoiled for the end of the last season of Dexter. The episode in question aired last December, and these people only watch it on DVD and were bitching about EW having the nerve to discuss Rita dying. And EW even posted spoiler warnings in both articles, so they really had no room to complain.
I got spoiled once for a major event on Lost, because they were talking about it on Regis & Kelly the morning after an episode I missed. But did I blame Regis & Kelly for having her on, or my brother for having the show on? No. It was all on me for not avoiding it well enough.
It’s my responsibility to avoid spoilers if I want to, not everyone else’s. I know it sucks having to avoid certain websites in the interim but if it’s worth it to you than suck it up and do it and stop complaining that people are ruining things for you days or weeks or months after something airs. People who wait for the DVDs really should not expect the rest of us to never talk about the shows in public for the year it takes for the DVDs to come out.
Funny how many different so-called problems could be largely avoided by everyone just being a little more thoughtful and courteous. Well written as usual, Sars — though it was the “(I…assume.)” that made it art.
Oh, and Dr. Crowe is dead.
Then there was my fiance’s ex who got really upset, and I mean REALLY upset because he mentioned that the ship sank in Titanic.
Really.
You had me at “ex.” Hee.
@MsC, truly? Anna Karenina? Dude, if you’re that far behind in your reading, pick up the Cliff Notes and have done with the thing.
If you live in a connected culture, you are going to be exposed to a certain layer of entertainment news/info, that’s just a given. I mean, look at the picture for this post–is there a person alive over the age of ten who doesn’t know the ending? I had that shit spoiled when I was six by “Peanuts”–thanks, Lucy!
I mean, you don’t run up to someone who’s reading AK or Pride and Prejudice or whatever and scream “THE BUTLER DID IT!” But in general, if you’re literate and have access to media, the knowledge will enter your head, like it or not.
I have a friend who is a standup comedian … a bunch of us had gone to see that movie back in the 90s with Geena Davis and Michael Keaton where they play speechwriters for opposing political parties but Still They Fall In Lurve. Did not care for it. Anyway, we were coming out of the theater, past the line of people waiting to get in (for some ridiculous reason a group of us had gone on opening weekend) and he says in Extra Loud Voice, “Man, could you believe they didn’t get together in the end? I did NOT expect that.” And got many angry glares.
Like: okay, who on the face of the planet would believe that in this formula schlock that that could POSSIBLY be true… or that the ending would at all be in doubt?
That said, it was kind of a jerk move — but still funny. And I am usually very careful about spoiling people if I know that’s an issue. (I HATED hearing about the guys who went through Union Square shouting the Book 6 Harry Potter ending. I mean … come on. Who does that?)
(PS, Anna Karenina was his sled.)
I spoiled myself about Mrs. Landingham in the West Wing and I was really pissed about it! Some things I do like to be spoiled about, SciFi mostly, so that I can be prepared for scary or gory or buggy (ew!) scenes.
Case in point: Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets, chapter ARAGOG!! Warned my sister and would’ve appreciated a heads-up for myself! HATE BUGS! Even fictional ones!
A couple of years ago when Project Runway Canada Season 1 was airing, I picked up the Metro newspaper in the morning and in the section where they had promos for what would be in tomorrow’s paper, they included their interview with the contestant who was the latest boot – including their name and a picture – before the episode actually aired! It was airing that night. I was so annoyed, especially because that contestant had been a clear front-runner to win so the elmination was unexpected.
I wrote them an email complaining about the spoiler and got back an apology. I wonder if they got reamed by the station, obviously the interview would have to be done in advance in order to be published the day after the elimination, but I’m sure they weren’t supposed to release the info ahead of the airing!
I agree with Mrs F and others who find it rude of the people in the restaurant to ask you to talk about particular topics. It’s kind of presumptuous, I think. It is not socially offensive to talk about tv shows that have already aired (not the same as smoking, which carries health risks for the all in the vicinity).
I am pretty level-headed about spoilers (avoid them where possible, especially on the shows that are most important to me, but I deal with it rationally if I stumble across something I didn’t want to know).
What’s odd to me is how people talk about this 24-48 hour window of keeping your mouth shut and then it’s okay to blab it all over the place. I actually think the exact opposite. It is fine if people yammer endlessly for the first day or two (when I’m prepared to be on the alert for avoidance) – talk your heart out! Then drop it! (And by drop it, I mean no new spoilery headlines, news clips, etc.) The day after a show tends to be the most dangerous, and then it usually becomes pretty easy to avoid anything you don’t want to know, no matter how long you wait to watch it.
I have lots of “unspoiled” things on my DVR, simply because I avoided dangerous sites for about 24 hours after they aired. I wouldn’t be angry if I overheard someone in the hall mention an outcome, but the likelihood after that first day is so low that I then become free to watch that stuff whenever without having it be ruined.
Of course, I work and interact with a lot of pretty considerate people. A lot of discussions/meetings/lunches start with “I haven’t seen ______ yet” and everyone knows that show is off the table while that person is around. So, maybe I’m just fortunate.
I object to the notion that asking someone to refrain from using colorful language in front of children is equivalent to asking people to stop talking about a tv show that already aired. COME ON! Certainly someone has the right to ask – if only because “free speech, blah blah blah.” But I think it’s way ruder of her to ask strangers to halt a perfectly innocent conversation than it would have been for them to continue it. Foreign countries aside, if you really care that much, watch the show when it airs. Once it airs, it’s not a spoiler. Period.
This has been going on with sports for DECADES, and you don’t hear sports fans constantly berating people for “spoiling them” onthe outcomes of games. Sure, you get some grumbling, but by and large, they generally seem to get that if you aren’t watching the event live, you run the risk. I love Formula 1 racing. I almost never get to watch it live because the races are all over the world and are often in the middle of our night. But I don’t get mad at the local newsradio for “spoiling me” by annoucing the results before i could watch it.
As a west coaster, I tend towards the “stay off social networks if I don’t want a spoiler”. It’s not going to kill me to be unplugged from 5-11 PM my time. I mean, hell, read a book, take a walk, talk to my husband, play a game. Plenty to do that does not involve Facebook or Twitter. Plenty to do on the Internet that doesn’t involve these things, as well, if I really must be online. The only thing I can control is myself, and I can’t expect the world to bend to my whims.
If I do see a spoiler, though, I don’t freak out. I’m a little disappointed, but it’s just a TV show. I mean, I had the season finale of Dexter ruined for me, but it only made me more interested to finish up the season (and I won’t ruin it for those here, but holy hell, what a shocker!).
I just try to avoid sites that I know discuss it until I’ve seen it. If it happens to be several days later (for instance, we just got back from a stay in a cabin and caught up on two weeks of LOST last night, inc. the finale) then I know that it is really likely it’ll get spoiled for me unless I choose to hibernate under a rock. Work tends to get mad if I try to not show up because I don’t want to hear about the ending to a TV show, so you’ve got to pick your battles.
Plus, really, it’s … a TV show, and I might be disappointed if the ending is spoiled, but again, it’s not worth pitching a fit over. Perspective is key.
Heh. My husband and I were in Hawaii for the Lost finale, and we were on a plane while the episode before it aired, with no way to catch up on the penultimate episode in order to make it possible for us to actually watch the Lost finale while on vacation. We seriously just avoided all newspapers and the internet until we got home on Monday, and I started every phone conversation with “I haven’t seen the Lost finale yet so please don’t tell me anything about it, Hello?”
As soon as we got home on Monday, we sat down and started up the DVR, and didn’t turn on the computer until we’d seen it. There’s just no way to expect people to not facebook or tweet their reactions, so if you don’t want to know, stay off the internet. Yes, that sucks, but it’s the price of staying unspoiled in a connected world. The global conversation doesn’t stop because you haven’t gotten to your DVR.
Actually, let’s try this: I’ll spoil something, and you try to guess what movie/story/book/whatever I spoiled. Okay? GO:
*He thinks she’s dead so he kills himself, and then she finds out that HE’s dead and SHE kills herself.
*He’s actually just a figment of the main character’s imagination.
*He was making it up all along to convince the cops that he’s an unimportant nobody.
@Grainger:
1. Romeo and Juliet
2. I don’t know but I bet it’s obvious
3. The Usual Suspects? I’ve never seen it but I’ve heard enough about it that this sounds right.
Heh – I was spoiled for both Survivor and the Amazing Race. In fact one of them it was a certain Sarah Bunting (I’m assuming you!) who wrote the spoiling article. I forget where I tripped across the article which spoiled the outcome in the headline (so I went ahead and read about it) but I had been avoiding blogs, twitter, facebook and most sites. I remember being surprised by the site that linked to it; it certainly wasn’t one that I have EVER seen cover TV before.
My conclusion is that it isn’t enough to avoid select sites; you pretty much have to avoid all media sources, especially online, but radio and print will give things away too. Also, if it’s for something where people are going to talk about it (eg Lost!), then really it’s pretty hopeless unless you live under a rock for a few days.
I only get annoyed by spoilers if someone goes out of their way to deliberately spoil me. I remember when Star Trek Voyager ended and I hadn’t seen the last episode. I was in a group of people who were talking about it and I asked politely that they change the subject until I got a chance to see it. One obnoxious person started loudly telling me all about it. I excused myself, he followed. I even tried blocking my ears and he just got louder. I’m still annoyed about it years later.
2- Fight Club, I’m guessing.
Yeah… I don’t know. I’m also on the west coast, and possibly more spoiler-sensitive than some people think I ought to be, but it does feel frustrating to not even be able to check my email in case there are are spoilery headlines splashed across it, let alone getting on my social networks for hours on end. It’s especially hard when I’m used discussing shows in fandom-specific areas, like a TWOP thread or a mailing list (back in the day), or on Livejournal, where it’s pretty well universally-understood that you put spoilers for the most recent episode of something under a cut-tag. I feel for you international types who watch US television (though I swear that does not excuse an English person I know who hops online the instant Doctor Who finishes on Greenwich Mean Time and starts spoiling everyone, sheesh). It’s just irritating, generally, to be on a different time zone and constantly have your entertainment experience altered because of the rest of the country, like having awards shows done on tape-delay or starting at a ridiculously early hour.
Being spoiler-indifferent at best, it’s hard for me to really sympathize will the extremely spoiler-averse. I guess the ideal is the intersection of common courtesy with common sense, and you get problems when people’s definitions of those two things don’t line up. Recently there was a discussion of this on one of my library email lists because we were talking about a book’s ending, and someone compared it to the end of the last Harry Potter. Cue virtual seizure by someone who wasn’t reading the book series because she didn’t want to be spoiled for the movies. Until June 2011, I guess. And this was a librarian, for heaven’s sake. I don’t even… gah. I just get irritated at people who want both the convenience of consuming media at their leisure and the privilege of consuming it in pristine condition.
@Maren: I hear what you’re saying, and it’s probably annoying to be the party that “bears the burden” just because you happen to live on the West Coast, but…it’s a couple of hours. I have to think that if people can’t handle not checking their email or facebook for a couple of hours, we, as a society, have a larger problem.
But if you really feel that strongly about it, why not start a fandom-specific thread for West Coasters?
Re 2- does it make sense that the first thing I thought of was Jimmy Stewart & the giant invisible rabbit movie? Harvey, I think.
_Spoiler alert for LOTR_ (sort of);-)
This discussion (especially the Anna Karenina bit) reminds me of the person who some time before The Return of the King came had an icon on LiveJournal that said “December 17 Legolas Dies! – Deal with it.” I do agree that it was a wee bit evil a joke, but that person got death threats because s/he was “spoiling just because you’ve read the books you eevel highbrow!” Spoiling a book that is almost 50 years old? (Was then, that is.)
I don’t get extremely upset by spoilers, but I do try to avoid them if it’s possible without any big trouble. I might ask even a stranger to keep it down, and wouldn’t mind anybody asking me either – why not, if I can make somebody happy that easy?
A person deliberately going out of his/her way to spoil is another thing altogether – some people just get a kick out of being obnoxious, and it’s not much more you can do about it than shrug and pity that person for having to live within that narrow mind.
Just a fun thing: my partner had somehow managed to go unspoiled for Psycho all her life, and it was fabulous to watch it with her, gasping at every turn:-D
I’m getting tired of people who try to re-make the universe to suit them. I think it was extremely rude of that woman to ask that they change their conversation. Really, if it were I who was behind on a favourite show and being spoiled in a public place, I would simply have switched tables versus intruding upon another’s conversation and requesting (albeit nicely) that they cease. I take Sars’ point on politeness, but the request was ridiculous in the first place.
http://bombersbeat.mlblogs.com/archives/2010/05/nobody_talks_about_american_id.html
Even Derek Jeter understands how to avoid being spoiled.
By the way, for as long as I live, I will NEVER be over Xander’s eye.
Nor will I. I hadn’t even the slightest warning that it was coming. I can’t imagine that being spoiled for that could have made it even a particle less horrific. The end of Wash in Serenity was not easier for me to bear, being spoiled.
I don’t know – I seem to be prone to reading spoilers, because I have no patience, really. But I wouldn’t think to blame anybody else for my annoying lack of self-control.
I have a couple views on this…
A) If someone hasn’t watched X show yet(barring the east coast/west coast argument), that’s not my problem. If you’re so busy or you just haven’t gotten around to it yet, that’s all on you. I shouldn’t have to alter MY life because of what you’re doing in YOUR life.
B) With that said, I think it was okay for the person to ASK the talkers to not discuss said show, as a courtesy, but the talkers had every right to keep talking about it if they wanted to. I would have felt better if the person had asked them just to keep their voices down – that way it’s a win/win. Person doesn’t get spoiled, and talkers can keep talking.
C) But that brings me to, why are you eavesdropping in the first place? I know it’s hard to ignore some conversations because patrons can be seated very close, but if you were dining with someone else, you should be concentrating on what THEY are saying, not what the people at the next table are talking about. But if you absolutely, positively can’t NOT hear the talkers, I’m okay with person ASKING them to discuss that one thing quietly. Again, the win/win.
Although that brings me right back to A… it’s not really my fault if you haven’t watched a show yet. I’m all for being courteous if someone asks nicely, but the heart of the matter is, it’s not really my fault you’re being “put out” by my conversation.
Side note: Whenever someone makes the joke about “Soylent Green” I respond with “It’s a cookbook!” Which brings up the point – if something is REALLY old, i.e. a 1970’s (or earlier?) episode of Twilight Zone, is there such a thing as not spoiling it? If it’s been around in the collective public THAT long, is there still a rule about “Shhh, I haven’t seen that yet.”
I couldn’t agree more with Debby! Regarding TV shows, it’s not a spoiler anymore once it’s aired.
I once asked a friend of mine to tell me the big ‘twist’ of The Crying Game on the subway – and the man next to us asked if we wouldn’t mine waiting. He was going to see it that night. The man was polite, and I didn’t mind. Stuff like that? If someone cares enough to ask you and is courteous, I don’t see the harm in being courteous in response.
Sometimes spoilers can actually encourage me to watch something. I read about the “twists” for both The Sixth Sense and Fight Club before I’d seen them, and I probably wouldn’t have bothered to watch either had I not known.
The only cultural phenomenon I’ve deliberately avoided being spoiled for is the Harry Potter books. Luckily they are such a quick read that I would only have to avoid the internet for a day. (I did desperately want to go up to the people on the streetcar reading book 7 and pull a Colbert: “Hermione’s a dude!”)
As other Canadians have pointed out, not having access to Hulu and not getting some shows until months later (especially HBO shows) can be a pain in the ass, but if I’m spoiled for something, I try to look for cues leading up to the reveal. Like, the twist to The Usual Suspects blew my mind, and I’ll never experience that again, but it’s still fun to re-watch and pick out new clues I didn’t notice before.
I’m up to season 5 of The West Wing, and sometimes I like to go to TWOP to read recaps of episodes that I have just watched. I do not however get mad that in the preview for a more recent recap it says something like “President Bartlet pardons Toby” because, well the show aired in like 2006 or something. If I had really wanted to remain fully spoiler free I wouldn’t have gone to TWOP in the first place right? Ultimately I still don’t know the specifics of any of it so I will still enjoy the episode when it happens.
I have friends who are just in the first season of LOST and they’re kind of obnoxious about their intense need to remain unspoiled. I got chastised by them recently for posting something like “ZOMG Sayid!” or something similar on Facebook. Which, I didn’t tell them what it meant, I mean maybe he took his shirt off and I thought it was sexy, maybe he cut his hair, you don’t even know what freaking universe I’m referring to! You don’t even know that there may be more than one!! I maintained that I could tell them that Juliette dies and it still wouldn’t be a spoiler because OMG I still don’t know what happened on that show! Also OF course SOMETHING exciting happens to Sayid at some point, he’s a main character!! Ugh. I’m so sick of people imposing their desperate need to remain unspoiled on me that I’ve grown a little bitter.
On the other hand, I was recently at Target with my fiancé looking for an electric shaver when two employees were SHOUTING across the isles to each other the end to some new video game (Red Dead Redemption?) It was impossible not to hear them, and my fiancé was like “Well, I guess I just saved $60 on that one” he was annoyed because the game did just come out, but then ultimately agreed that even knowing the end he’d probably still buy it and play it because it’s more about the journey then the end or whatever… (I confess, I never even knew you *could* spoil a video game)
As for HP, I made that same fiancé go online and read that last chapter of the last book when it was leaked, he isn’t a reader and doesn’t expect to remain unspoiled for the movies, and usually has me tell him the plot anyway. I made him do it because I had decided the series was to depressing and that if Hagrid didn’t make it through the book I wasn’t going to read it. (I probably would have read it regardless of what he found out in that last chapter but I needed to know)
I was walking into a movie theater to see one movie and another group was walking out of “The Sixth Sense”, which I had not yet seen.
One of the guys in the group said as we were walking past, “I can’t believe that he was…..SPOILER
……dead the whole time!”
End SPOILER
I felt like running after him and screaming “SHUT UP! SHUT UP! SHUT UP!” but didn’t. I thought it was a pretty rude thing to do coming out of a movie theater and I can’t help but to think it was deliberate.
My sisters used to spoil books and movies when I was a teenager, so perhaps I’m overly sensitive.
Once I was chastised the day after Mad Men aired for posting the status update “Oh, Peggy.” My defense was that basically every episode in which Peggy appears elicits that reaction: all I concretely revealed was that Peggy was in the episode. (The chastiser came back a few days later after watching with the comment “Oh, PEGGY,” so I think I was forgiven.)
There are spoilers, and there are <<>>, you know?*
I try my best to avoid either, but am much happier to stumble across the former than the latter.
[*I agree with other commenters that post-airing, “spoiler” doesn’t really apply. But “Courtesy DVR Grace Period” doesn’t express the above thought quite so succinctly.]