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For a long long time, I've been a spoiler-whore for tv shows, but not for movies. I pondered this weirdness for a while and figured that, for myself, tv shows (especially those which are serialized, not episodic) are like books - I want to keep reading and find out what happens next as fast as I can. A movie is two hours or so, and that's all you get, it's *over*, so I don't want to know about it. And this seemed to hold true -- I found if I knew a tv series was coming to a conclusion, I didn't want to be spoiled for the end, because that was *the end* and there would be no more.
This may or may not make sense to anyone but me. ;)
But a weird thing has happened, and I don't know what's changed. Now, for some tv shows I want to be spoiled and for some I don't. And I cannot make heads or tails of it. As far as I can parse, the shows in the spoil category vs. non-spoil category don't differ in any important ways. I've lost my bearings in tv-spoilerland. Maybe it's some kind of premature television menopause or something.
And while I never wanted to be spoiled for movies in the past, now I REALLY REALLY don't want to be spoiled for movies, which is going to be all but impossible for some of the contents of my movie post, as I'm heading into the last five weeks of this semester and there's just no way I'm not going to hear about *some* of these movies at some point. Trying to remain unspoiled for movies while, um, I don't know, *existing*, can be difficult.
As far as others' wants/needs for spoilers, I try always to be extremely respectful; I ask if someone wants spoilers and I *never* give them to those who don't (unless I do it accidentally; I always feel very bad afterwards). I always put anything that I could *imagine* someone might find spoilery under a cut when posting to lj. But it's hard, when everyone has a different line in the sands of Spoiler Beach, to know what can or cannot be said.
A perfect example happened somewhere on my flist the other day or week. A public post looked like this (I'm approximating; I don't remember it exactly):
"Ugh! I hate being spoiled on actors, and someone on my friendslist just posted who was going to play Character X's mom next month. I didn't want to know which actress they'd gotten! I wanted it to be a surprise!"
Ah, the irony. The poster is very upset about having been spoiled for casting, but has not taken into account that someone on *her* friendslist might not have wanted to know that *Character X's mother was going to make an appearance on the show*. The spoiler sands are ever shifting, and sometimes we get grains in our eyes.
What I'm trying to say is that it's mostly impossible to remain unspoiled to your Platonic Ideal of Unspoiledness. The best we can do is try to be as good as possible to one another regarding that kind of stuff, but no one is going to be perfect.
My point, and I do have one (btw this was not any of you, so no worries):
This particular case just happened to me the other day, and I'm posting it here in the hopes that maybe it will help someone else. (Really it's just to rant, but if I can rant and prevent forest fires at the same time, then bonus!)
I told someone that I hadn't seen a particular movie yet, and they said "Oh, man, it's *great*, but I figured it out halfway through." That? Completely spoiled the movie for me. I am now going into the movie knowing that there is *something to be figured out*. It skews the viewing experience from "oooh, what's going to happen next" to "what should I be looking for that could be something that turns into a twist later." Now I don't get to watch the movie; I get to watch for how they're going to trick me. I HATE THAT.
Then there was the time my neighbor, who was drunk from a party she'd just left, lent me Ender's Game and told me why it was *such a great book* by explaining how it ends.
Let us never speak of it.
This may or may not make sense to anyone but me. ;)
But a weird thing has happened, and I don't know what's changed. Now, for some tv shows I want to be spoiled and for some I don't. And I cannot make heads or tails of it. As far as I can parse, the shows in the spoil category vs. non-spoil category don't differ in any important ways. I've lost my bearings in tv-spoilerland. Maybe it's some kind of premature television menopause or something.
And while I never wanted to be spoiled for movies in the past, now I REALLY REALLY don't want to be spoiled for movies, which is going to be all but impossible for some of the contents of my movie post, as I'm heading into the last five weeks of this semester and there's just no way I'm not going to hear about *some* of these movies at some point. Trying to remain unspoiled for movies while, um, I don't know, *existing*, can be difficult.
As far as others' wants/needs for spoilers, I try always to be extremely respectful; I ask if someone wants spoilers and I *never* give them to those who don't (unless I do it accidentally; I always feel very bad afterwards). I always put anything that I could *imagine* someone might find spoilery under a cut when posting to lj. But it's hard, when everyone has a different line in the sands of Spoiler Beach, to know what can or cannot be said.
A perfect example happened somewhere on my flist the other day or week. A public post looked like this (I'm approximating; I don't remember it exactly):
"Ugh! I hate being spoiled on actors, and someone on my friendslist just posted who was going to play Character X's mom next month. I didn't want to know which actress they'd gotten! I wanted it to be a surprise!"
Ah, the irony. The poster is very upset about having been spoiled for casting, but has not taken into account that someone on *her* friendslist might not have wanted to know that *Character X's mother was going to make an appearance on the show*. The spoiler sands are ever shifting, and sometimes we get grains in our eyes.
What I'm trying to say is that it's mostly impossible to remain unspoiled to your Platonic Ideal of Unspoiledness. The best we can do is try to be as good as possible to one another regarding that kind of stuff, but no one is going to be perfect.
My point, and I do have one (btw this was not any of you, so no worries):
This particular case just happened to me the other day, and I'm posting it here in the hopes that maybe it will help someone else. (Really it's just to rant, but if I can rant and prevent forest fires at the same time, then bonus!)
I told someone that I hadn't seen a particular movie yet, and they said "Oh, man, it's *great*, but I figured it out halfway through." That? Completely spoiled the movie for me. I am now going into the movie knowing that there is *something to be figured out*. It skews the viewing experience from "oooh, what's going to happen next" to "what should I be looking for that could be something that turns into a twist later." Now I don't get to watch the movie; I get to watch for how they're going to trick me. I HATE THAT.
Then there was the time my neighbor, who was drunk from a party she'd just left, lent me Ender's Game and told me why it was *such a great book* by explaining how it ends.
Let us never speak of it.
