BlogHer - Do you like to be spoiled? - Comments

You are right!

PositivelyAnna — Thu, 16 Jul 2009 21:26:15 -0500

If we are going to discuss, lets discuss! No point in trying to really delve into any story if you can't talk about the ending. If you were writing a post about a story that I didn't know they ending of I would avoid the post.

I LOVE a good story. Would I have not read Harry Potter if I knew what happened at the end, probably not. Will I avoid literary genius like Sophie's Choice because I know what she choses. No. But I think we can both agree that spoiling the ending does take away some of the magic of a great story.

Anna B

http://positivelyanna.blogspot.com/

Spoiler alerts

sassymonkey — Wed, 15 Jul 2009 08:40:11 -0500

I find they work in the title of a blog post, assuming the very first sentence isn't a spoiler. Or if there aren't any spoilers in the first paragraph really. But spoiler alerts don't work for me at all on Twitter. Or even emails.

Most of the time spoilers don't bother me, unless it's something that I've really been looking forward to such as a Harry Potter release. (And I still think it was really mean of the New York Times to have published the spoilers before the book was released.)

Sassymonkey and Sassymonkey Reads.

I've seen a lot of tweets like that

sassymonkey — Wed, 15 Jul 2009 07:52:56 -0500

They always tend to make me shake my head a little.

Like you I don't mind if I'm told the end of something by accident. But if someone tells me the end on purpose I tend to get very, very cranky.

Sassymonkey and Sassymonkey Reads.

trailers

mashadutoit — Tue, 14 Jul 2009 15:22:45 -0500

I know! What is it with that. So many trailers are like mini sumaries of the movie. You really dont need to see the film. Often that's just as well though as I know what to avoid.

Spoilers rarely bother me

Maria Niles — Tue, 14 Jul 2009 15:16:10 -0500

Sometimes I will even seek them out or read the endings of books first.

I have the tagline "Consider this a permanent spoiler alert" at the top of my pop culture blog because I don't want to have to censor myself with every possible situation for all time. Because anything you write can end up being a spoiler for someone. For instance, with the Sixth Sense without ever seeing the twist revealed directly, I was able to guess it just from the ambient discussion. I still enjoyed the film when I finally saw it but I understand how it could spoil it for many.

I was glad I didn't follow American Idol this season, though, because without even trying, just by being on the internet, I saw the winner announced 5 times before it aired here. The most egregious was the news headlines linked in my email inbox that named the winner in the headline as soon as it was announced on the east coast. Truly sad that logging on to email can result in getting a spoiler. So I've learned that if I really don't want a spoiler, unfortunately it means avoiding the internet.

I do make an effort to avoid revealing specifics on twitter but, other than while something is airing on television, or before a book or film is released, I think it is the responsibility of the person who doesn't want to be spoiled to make an effort to avoid them. Don't want to be spoiled for Harry Potter, Twilight or something sitting on your TIVO? Don't read posts about them until you read or watch. Plus I find that "spoiler alert" at the start of the sentence when you are revealing the spoiler doesn't help me because I've already started reading the spoiler before it registers and would stop me. There are just too many genies out there that it is futile to demand they be put back in their bottles.

BlogHer Contributing Editor
PopConsumer
Beyond Help

Exactly what I mean

sassymonkey — Tue, 14 Jul 2009 14:57:24 -0500

This is just more proof you know! ;-)

Sassymonkey and Sassymonkey Reads.

You Mean Besides The Fact That...

Megan Smith — Tue, 14 Jul 2009 14:24:59 -0500

You mean besides the fact that they're written by Satan!

Megan
BlogHer Contributing Editor, TV/Online Video

Megan's Minute

I wonder how long until

sassymonkey — Tue, 14 Jul 2009 14:22:17 -0500

We see that cited as one of the reasons why Harry Potter books and movies should be banned from schools and libraries?

Sassymonkey and Sassymonkey Reads.

I did, too actually

Honeybeast — Tue, 14 Jul 2009 14:17:25 -0500

Had a couple seconds of "that's horrible, but how did he avoid the book?" before catching the tiny tag on the post.

I Had To Read It Twice

Megan Smith — Tue, 14 Jul 2009 14:14:12 -0500

I had to read it twice to see it was a comedy post. These days you just never know.

Megan
BlogHer Contributing Editor, TV/Online Video

Megan's Minute

And then of course there's this

Honeybeast — Tue, 14 Jul 2009 14:10:33 -0500

It's a "comedy post" though a lot of people on Twitter today believed it: Man Commits Suicide after Harry Potter Spoilers
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/andy-borowitz/man-commits-suicide-after_b_...

Spoil Me

Laurie_Halo Secretarial — Tue, 14 Jul 2009 12:03:26 -0500

I don't mind spoilers, but if I had a particular concern, I'd definitely consider it"my" problem, not every other person on the internet's problem.

I saw a tweet the other day where someone said she'd unfollow people who posted about Big Brother before she had a chance to watch it. I kind of thought she should just turn off Twitter if she didn't want to see any spoilers!

I don't like to be told the end of a movie or book, but if I find out by accident I don't hold it against the person who let the info out!

Laurie, mom of 3 boys and

blogger about my VA business and my life as a work at home mom!

And these days

Honeybeast — Tue, 14 Jul 2009 11:26:34 -0500

Not to get all Andy Rooney on the subject, but I swear coming attractions these days reveal everything about a movie.

One of the most evil T-shirts I have ever seen reveals all the endings of all the most classic twisty films. Ouch.

The Problem With Coming Attractions

Megan Smith — Tue, 14 Jul 2009 11:19:31 -0500

The problem with coming attractions is if I've seen them, as I'm watching the episode, I can always tell what's going to happen because I remember a particular scene in the promos. Can't stand that.

Or how about the movie trailers that tell you the whole movie? Many times I've sat there saying, why am I going to see this movie? You just told me the whole plot, including the ending!

And finally one comment on reviews. I did a review of "Drop Dead Diva" the other day, but before I watched the screener I hadn't read any of the publicity notes. I actually thought it might be a reality show so I really went into it cold.

Because of that I was pleasantly surprised at what happens in the beginning of the episode to set up what turned out to be a comedy/drama. However, when writing the review I felt I had to say what happened in those first few minutes exactly because it does set up the show.

I assume that if someone is reading the review they want to know what the show's premise is. And in that particular case, I felt it was my job to tell them.

But of course I don't then tell all the rest of the plot points in the entire episode. It's an interesting dilemma.

Megan
BlogHer Contributing Editor, TV/Online Video

Megan's Minute

It is indeed

sassymonkey — Tue, 14 Jul 2009 08:46:47 -0500

And I hadn't heard of Cold Comfort Farm at all until I started seeing jokes about it on book blogs. Something to do with, "There's no butter in hell!" I'm sure it will make more sense and be far more amusing once I've actually read it.

I think the inertia is because there are just so. many. books. out there and more and more just keep being published. For me, when someone tells me directly that I need to read a book or when I see many people being amused by it on book blogs, it increased the need to read value much more than a standard book review. Everyone one knows we have limited book reading time so when they tell me I *need* to read something I pay attention. It may still take me a long time to read it but that's a whole other thing isn't it?

Hmm I think I'll have to schedule a rereading post soon. We seem to have some avid rereaders (myself included).

Sassymonkey and Sassymonkey Reads.

Do you like to be spoiled?

sassymonkey — Mon, 13 Jul 2009 17:11:27 -0500

Spoilers - you either love them and seek them out with a passion or you scream and flee at the mere mention of them. Be they for books, movies or television shows people have either a love them or loath them attitude. I've been thinking about spoilers a lot lately. In particular I've been wonder this - is there a statue of limitations on spoilers? And isn't it mostly our own job to avoid them?

Perhaps one of the downfalls of living in a global world is that there isn't really always a lot of surprise. Take sweeps or season finales on television for example, or perhaps just a normal night of Must See TV. It never fails that at least one place on the internet I'll see someone on the west coast decry the east coasters that liveblog/twitter/whatever their reactions to what they are seeing. Personally I just accept that as a matter of course. If I don't want to know what's going on I simply put on my internet blinders (despite the fact that I live on the east coast many of my friends and my family live on Newfoundland and Atlantic time so they still get stuff before me).

But what about books, particularly those big summer book releases? It's been two years since the final Harry Potter book was published. I set my alarm so that I could get up at midnight to buy it and then stay up late and read it. In actuality I went and bought it, read two chapters and then promptly fell asleep. When I got up the next morning I studiously avoided everything on the internet except my email. My email was safe as no one who emails me was likely to have finished it before I would. After I checked my email I ran out to a local bakery, where again I was pretty sure I'd be safe as it was 8am on a Saturday morning and the book had not yet been released in French (I was living in Montreal at the time). I did see a couple of people there reading it, but no one was very far. Once I got home I settled in with my pastries and coffee and read until I was finished. Then it was safe to go on the internet again. When I finished I purposefully wrote posts here on BlogHer.com and on my personal blog that did not contain spoilers and asked readers to do the same. I've never gone back and discussed what happened in the books. It's been two years since then. If I were to write an in-depth post about what did and did not happen, would I be spoiling things? If I were to say here, "Bob Smith died" would I be spoiling something? (Note: to my knowledge there is no character named Bob Smith in the Harry Potter series).

What about Twilight? The final book in the series came out last summer. Contributing Editor Nordette recently wrote a post here called Twilight And The Return of Courtly Love. In that post she revealed some things that happened in the final book. After a member pointed this out Nordette amended the title to contain "potential spoiler." A year after publication would you have thought to do this?

Dan Brown's much anticipated The Lost Symbol is being released this fall. Since I'm on a list of survey participants for one of Canada's largest bookstore chains I know that they are considering holding a midnight party for it. I'm fully expecting spoiler alerts and spoiler watches from everyone when it comes out.

In one sense I was lucky I hadn't already been spoiled when I sat down to read that final Harry Potter since The New York Times had so notoriously spoiled it for many people when they managed to get their hands on a copy early and reviewed it with major spoilers prior to the release. In my opinion, it was just plain mean. I purchased the final book in the Twilight series because I was trying to avoid spoilers. And well, I won't be reading Dan Brown's newest but I know my best friend is going to be running around with her fingers stuck in her ears telling everyone not to tell her what happens, while simultaneously trying to find out from me what I've heard about it. (Don't worry, I won't tell her anything.) Likewise when Suzanne Collins' Catching Fire comes out it will be awhile before my library has it (and there are advance copies already out there) so I'll be running around with my fingers in my ears too. At I will be when I don't stop to ask people, "Was it good? Don't tell me what happened, but was it good?"

But what I find perhaps perplexing about myself is this - while I LOATHE book spoilers I rather love television ones. I'll even seek them out or order my friends to tell me what happened if I missed an episode. Or I'll just go read the Television Without Pity forums. Sometimes I'll even go and read spoiler websites. It doesn't really make any sense to me. The best I can figure it is that books for me are an experience, and when I experience them for the first time I really want to do it without knowing what's going to happen. That's what has me rushing through the final chapters of many books because I must know what happens immediately, and then I end up and going back and rereading the final chapters a time or two (well, only if it's a particularly good book). When it comes to television I'm a pretty fickle viewer. I rebel against having to schedule my downtime (I know, I know, Tivo, PVR, etc, - meh). So when I'm looking up spoilers I'm actually looking for reason to watch the show.

Robin at Romancing the Blog likes to be spoiled.

I don’t remember the last time I made it through a book without skipping ahead. Sometimes it’s a peek at the ending, but often it’s a leafing back and further, an impatience with what’s going on now and a need to have my curiosity satisfied or my questions answered right now. So is it any surprise that I have no problem with spoilers in book reviews?

On the other side of the fence, Literary Feline does not like spoilers, but she once asked to be with amusing results.

The only time I am okay with hearing or reading a book spoiler is when I ask for it. And in this instance, I truly wanted to know what the outcome would be. I put forth the question to two of my online reading groups:
I was wondering if anyone here has read Homer's Odyssey and would be willing to e-mail me and spoil the ending?
I went on to explain that I was considering reading it, but that there are certain types of animal-focused books I would rather not read, particularly if the animal dies in the end.

If you want to avoid spoilers Helen Thornber says stay away from Twitter.

But despite my aversion to spoilers I don’t think you can blame people for tweeting them. If you want to remain in ignorance then the question is what do you want to do more? To tweet? or to have some Twitter free time and be surprised? It is just another method in a long line of media allowing people to comment and chat about what is happening on TV and in movies as they hit our screens.

So what about you, do you like to be spoiled?

Contributing Editor Sassymonkey also blogs at Sassymonkey and Sassymonkey Reads.