Spoilers in Media: A Non-Issue

Spoiler Alert: This article is going to be all about those irritating individuals who base their entire, banal personality around the phrase "Wait, wait, wait, wait, no spoilers!"

I dislike these types of people quite a lot, not because they don't like spoilers but because they base their entire personality off of things that only adolescents find endearing most of the time. There is such a thing as endearing youthful spirit, but there are certain bandwagons I'd sooner wish to see run you over than have you jump on and attempt to look down upon me from.

I'm absolutely the type to go out of my way to watch something just to talk to these types of people, and at the end of all their whining they realize my spoilers didn't change a damn thing for them. That is to say, for the movies, games, and other forms of media that are actually worth the money they spent on them to begin with.

I will admit, as is always the case, there are exceptions I am willing to make as it concerns crying about spoiler reveals. These situations in which spoilers are totally inappropriate are very few, and even further between, and I want that to be clear. 99.9% of the time, spoilers are absolutely appropriate and the reveal of them will not diminish the novel experience of ingesting new media.

The only case I can think of, the one situation I can find when I dig in to my own mind, where spoilers will ruin your experience is in video games! Not so much plot spoilers, the plot will still be novel to you regardless of spoilers, but the game-play can be spoiled. If you're the type to read a game walk-through, essentially a spoiler on how to beat a game, then your sense of accomplishment and victory will be severely diminished compared to someone who discovered how to beat a difficult game organically.

The sort of individual who often whines about spoilers are the same type who like to turn to me and ask, "Why can't you ever see the positive in anything?!" to which I ask why you can't see the positive in spoilers, already knowing their answer for myself. When someone comes up and wants to discuss a spoiler, because they are excited about what they just decided to ingest, I'm not going to stomp on their hopes and dreams; I'm going to let them discuss whatever it is they want to with me. Why would I let them do this, though?

I let them do this because I haven't ingested what they are about to discuss for the first time, and I'm open to novel experiences in every form. Your inability to separate the experience of an explanation of a spoiler, from the actual ingestion of the material you think it spoils, is no one else's fault but your own. If you don't want to have spoilers ruin things for you, learn to immerse in every new experience on a deeper level.

The incessant whining about spoilers makes me cringe, my skin crawls when someone moans and tries to diminish the expression of others, and all they need to do to stop their crying is learn to separate themselves from what I'd describe as "jumping the shark" with their personality. No one should be obligated to keep quiet because of your lack of ability to immerse in novel content, but you'd hand your freedom of expression over to corporations just because you have no other facet of your being that interests your friends.

Listen up, ignorant corporate "don't spoil it for me" slave, the act of crying for no spoilers alone is a tool in the corporate marketing bag. The more conflict they can engender around their products, the more free attention and marketing you provide for them. Even worse is giving them the power to limit the rights of others at will.

The type of people to want to limit the freedom of expression of others are the same type to be easily manipulated, and that manipulation can be seen in forums, blog posts, and all social media alike. The definition of "spoiler" is not a legal one, allowing for corporations to remove anything posted online that they deem to be inappropriate. More often than not, these removals are unjust and for the sake of removing honest criticism.

I stopped writing reviews for money because my shtick was reviewing things with very positive attention, despite being absolutely terrible, such as the over-saturated market of indie video games. These development companies would go out of their way to abuse software like Youtube algorithms for the removal of my reviews from their algorithms, though by remove I mean "inorganically hide" them so only I could realistically find them despite a "public" status on the reviews and their associated URL.

Luckily I did away with those days of writing reviews before it did any serious damage to my alias's reputation, removing the reviews myself altogether, but nonetheless having my freedom of expression limited for the sake of others' needs to jump on banal bandwagons was irritating.

First and foremost if spoilers bother you, you need to learn how to immerse yourself in things deeper than surface level. Spoilers are only as deep as the voice hitting your eardrums with them, and if you knew how to enjoy things on a deeper level then you could do better than just whining about how "spoilers ruin it"; you could spit in the face of spoilers and never let them limit your experience again! How do you do this, though?

Well for one thing, learn to immerse yourself in the beauty that is the spoiler, by realizing it is someone expressing their interests, feelings, and how the product affected them on a deeper level. Spoilers are a chance for you to get to know someone else, and bond over a common interest or defend the product you think they are ruining! The next step is to learn how to dissociate from spoilers through product immersion.

I assume, because it is so often the case, that plot spoilers are what bother you the most. Well, your shallow enjoyment of a product, limiting your interest to solely the plot, is the real issue here. With most products you have the environment, production quality, plot holes, loopholes, character development, environmental consequences, possible sequels, many story arcs and possible story offshoots, fan fiction....

I could go on all day with the many different facets of most products to which "spoilers" could apply, and no amount of spoilers could ever ruin my enjoyment of a product because I truly seek to immerse myself in the product. I mean, anything worth complaining over is worth immersing in further than the plot, right? I sure do hope so, because if it isn't then your complaints are just to hear your own voice.