Statute of limitations on spoiling an episode (with an icon)?

[tzikeh]

I want to make an icon that would spoil the finale to The Sopranos. Thing is, is it too soon to use it? What's a fair amount of time to wait on something like that? I have no problem using a cut tag for something that might spoil someone. I'm happy to cut away out of the "better safe" rule for anything I'd consider a *significant* spoiler for someone who hasn't seen a show; it's just a few keystrokes. But the question becomes more complex when it's about an icon. And then you stir in the fact that it's a series finale, and ...

There are no rules in fandom -- heck, there's hardly consensus in fandom. But there *are* opinions. Can I have yours?

ETA: Spoiler icon idea in comments.

Comments

[thebratqueen.livejournal.com]

The ending's been covered on the news already. OTOH they use headlines to make it clear that spoilers are coming up.

Could depend on how specific the joke is? The Daily Show managed to do one where if you knew the ending you got the joke but if you didn't you wouldn't have been spoiled.

[tzikeh.livejournal.com]

The ending's been covered on the news already.

I'm with you on that one; the trouble is I know many people, throughout fandom, who actively avoid the news and magazines and such, because they're that concerned about being spoiled. And I really hate to spoil people when they really don't want to be spoiled.

And I didn't see that Daily Show episode, but now I really want to. :D When did it air? (I can kind of guess the nature of the joke, since it's the kind of joke I'd like to make too.)

[thebratqueen.livejournal.com]

I can't remember if it was Mon or Tues. I watched both eps yesterday on my TiVo so it blurs together.

[cereta.livejournal.com]

You know, I've got this long post brewing in my head about how shifts in media (in particular the fact that movies and tv are becoming more like books and plays, things you can experience for the first time years after their first arrival) might complicate notions of cultural literacy (does the avoidance of spoilers limit how we can form common cultural references off of fictional texts?). Someday, I'll even write it ;).

Which does not answer your immediate question. Me, I might wait a bit, although it would probably ultimately be dictated by how invested I was in not spoiling. I'd say as landmarks, either a month for the information to disseminate, or if you want to be really cautious, after the DVDs of the final season are out. At that point, I don't think people can reasonably expect protection from spoilers if they wait to watch. That was sort of my feeling when I was watching Alias - that if I didn't rent the final season DVDs right away, I had no right to complain about being spoiled for something I had every opportunity to see.

[aerynvala.livejournal.com]

does the avoidance of spoilers limit how we can form common cultural references off of fictional texts?). Someday, I'll even write it

Oh please do! I actually would love to read that because this past finale season I kind of felt something along those lines.

[cricketk.livejournal.com]

There may well be people who are invested in the fandom, who don't live in the USA who are (for some strange legal reason) not downloading.

I guess it depends where you want to use it - locked post in your own LJ? On a post in a public forum? I think context will matter.

[elynross.livejournal.com]

Given that we used to say, what, a week for spoiler space on lists? Usually? I think Lucy's month after is minimally reasonable; I wouldn't whine myself if I got spoiled for something that had aired over a week before, even with my own time delaying of almost everything -- but that's only with regard to an American audience.

So it does depend on how far you want to go to protect others, and how widely you want to do so; most of those in SG and SGA fandoms kept things behind cut tags and concealed until the eps had aired here, this season (those that have), since they aired months ago in Canada (and the UK, I think) and traditionally there were sometimes split communities for airings in different countries, pre LJ.

But there's also the point that some things are timely, in that if you wait until everyone possible has had a chance to see things, then the time for the point/joke/whatever in question is past. Even a month seems a long time to wait, in this case, because it won't have the same *pop* that it would now.

And ultimately I don't think there's any way to avoid potentially spoiling someone, you know? *g*

[morgandawn.livejournal.com]

a week as a min.

month would be nice (but hey if you're a fan of the show, you gotta get around to seeing it within a month right? and if you're not that much of a fan....)

I do appreciate it when those eps that air in Canada first hold back on their squee - so if the air dates are within month or so this would also help.

[elynross.livejournal.com]

but hey if you're a fan of the show, you gotta get around to seeing it within a month right?

Or you've given up whinging rights if you get spoiled for it, I think. *g* Although that doesn't truly address the non-American audiences.

And yes -- there were slips that I heard about, but most people were/are really good!

[morgandawn.livejournal.com]

yes, I always feel very bad when we forget about the rest of the world. or mistake Canada for the US.

[elynross.livejournal.com]

It's kind of funny, to me, in a schadenfreudly way, that more often now non-US places are getting things first, and US fans are throwing tantrums about getting spoiled -- welcome to what non-Americans have endured for YEARS, you know? It's a whole different fannish world, in some ways. I mean, there were always non-Americans on lists, but I think many of us are more aware of it now, and it really can impact how we relate fannishly.

[nomadicwriter]

What's amusing/fascinating to me is that with an American show, everybody automatically cut-tags it until a few weeks after the US airdate, whereas with a show that airs first in the UK or Canada... everybody automatically cut-tags it until a few weeks after the US airdate. It doesn't matter where a show originates or the nationality of the poster, fandom as a whole has just absorbed the idea that the US airing is the one that 'counts'. We all have spoiler Stockholm syndrome!

[elynross.livejournal.com]

Oh, huh, I'd never made that connection. *rolls eyes* You're absolutely right!

[nomadicwriter]

Well, if you want to be fair to us non-downloading international fans, 18 months would be a reasonable time. ;) But you don't actually need to worry about being fair to us, because we have all learned to be at peace with the certainty of being spoiled for the US shows we follow. Either you live with knowing the details of the season 2 finale before you've got to episode six, or you don't get to join internet fandom. So those of us who do still hang around are fully okay with being spoiled. Hence I'd say go with the consensus here, which seems to be one month.

[chalcedony.livejournal.com]

Really, is there anyone left who doesn't know? Even I know how it ended, and I've never watched the show. Of course here (see icon), they replayed the last five minutes on the 11 o'clock news Sunday night.

[ratcreature]

Well, I never watched the Sopranos and I'm neither invested in the series nor did I click on cut tags, and I have no clue what happened. So it is entirely possible to not be aware of it. It's not like I read or watch US news. So if I was a Soprano fan and without the inclination or technical means for illegal downloads, and waited to be able to buy the DVD release to watch it, I wouldn't know of any spoilers.

[tzikeh.livejournal.com]

Yes, but there are people (disproportionately so, in fandom) who avoid the news and so on because they really don't want to be spoiled.

Sigh.

[ratcreature]

I would have been angry if someone spoiled me for Serenity in a major way, which I saw he first day it came into theaters here, but that was still some months after it came out in the US. I really appreciated that people on my flist stuck with spoiler cuts.

I think with major spoilers the most considerate strategy is to wait until everyone who is really invested is able to get to it, I think for tv series a DVD release is a good marker, and then throw in two or three weeks as a grace period. I mean, with books like the new HP everyone who's really into it will get the English version and pretty much read the book right away, because you can only avoid news and talk completely for so long, but I still wouldn't spoil outside a cut for at least several weeks to be on the safe side, and avoid book seven spoilers in German forums before the German translation comes out in autumn, in case that there are people who don't read the English ones.

[aerynvala.livejournal.com]

It aired this past Sunday right? If it were me, I'd wait til this Sunday at the absolute most.

[marycrawford.livejournal.com]

I'm not interested in the Sopranos, but as a non-US fan, I admittedly get pissed off when people post spoilers in the oddest places (I got spoiled for a Heroes development through a vid announcement) and then say "oh, but I thought everyone had seen that already!!1"

I don't know what happened in the Sopranos finale, but I got the impression that it was very surprising, and, well, it's the finale. I'd wait a year, at least. Probably not a Popular Fannish Opinion, but there you go.

[cleversimon.livejournal.com]

I'm curious; what's the icon you want to make?

(<span style="background:black;color:black;">Ghetto-spoiler-tag it if you need to, heh.</span>

[tzikeh.livejournal.com]

span style thingy didn't work, so I just edited the post to indicate that the spoiler icon idea would be here.

Obviously, the finished icon wouldn't have been thrown together in five minutes, like this one, but this is what I was thinking:

[cleversimon.livejournal.com]

HAHAHAHAHAHAHA. Very nice.

[pun.livejournal.com]

That's cute. I like it.

The end of The Sopranos really has been extremely widely covered and talked about. I would think that anyone in the U.S. who seriously wanted to see it and seriously didn't want to be spoiled would have to see it by the end of this weekend. Outside the U.S. the question of access gets trickier.

I don't really have a strong opinion. I tend to think that if I don't go out of my way to watch a show within a week or two after it airs, then I really can't be surprised if I get spoiled, even when that show airs in another country. However, torrenting is a way of life for me, and I know that it isn't an option for everyone.

So, what an unhelpful comment, ay?

[greywingnut.livejournal.com]

First, see my icon for context.

As a general rule for TV shows, I'd say one week; for major spoilers or special circumstances like season/series finales, two weeks. Long enough to give folks a chance to see the ep in question, but not so long that it loses its cultural currency (in a couple senses of the word).

Plus, given the wide dissemination of this particular spoiler (hell, Morning Edition spoiled it Monday morning minutes after saying they weren't going to spoil it), I think you're probably in the clear.

I was way behind on both Heroes and Lost this season (watched 16 hours of Lost over three days last week). I knew I was in danger of being spoiled, but I felt that I had only myself to blame if it happened.

[thefannishwaldo.livejournal.com]

Last summer I had the same question... so I ran a poll.

http://thefannishwaldo.livejournal.com/367077.html if you want to see the results. :)

[thefourthvine.livejournal.com]

First, know that I actively seek spoilers for any fandom I'm in (and, FYI - I have no interest in the Sopranos and certainly wasn't seeking out spoilers, but I'm still spoiled for the ending, and was by Monday morning). That said - if the spoiler in the icon is really obvious and really major, I'd say you need to wait until the DVDs are out. That's fair, I think; at that point, spoilers are often included in reviews and so on, so it'd be hard to stay unspoiled no matter where you were.

For something like this, that has been spoiled up and down (and where the icon is not as spoiler-y as, say, an icon of someone getting killed), I'd say give the non-US fans (basically, anyone in the US who has the slightest interest in this, or just, you know, reads the news is already spoiled) at least a month to download it. (Non-downloaders who don't live in the US are pretty much doomed, is my understanding; there's just no way to insulate them from spoilers unless you cut tag into eternity. Of course, I was once a member of a mailing list where we voted to keep spoiler-spacing for books that had been continually in publication for 70 years, and which we all joined the list to discuss and thus had presumably read. So. Obviously some people would not agree with me.)

For perspective - I see anime icons all the time that spoil for shows that haven't been released in the US yet, or are being released but are still in the early episodes. The attitude seems to be, either you get the fansubs or you get spoiled, because we certainly can't wait for US licensees to get off their butts and release official versions, and that seems fair to me.