I really hate spoilers sometimes.  I really do.  I want to be surprised then something important comes along.

Sometime last year before checking my mail, I saw a link to an article with the headline "Shocking TV deaths this season" obviously, I wouldn't click on that article because I wouldn't want anything spoiled for me, but whoever inconsiderate vispwoshton who wrote that article set the preview picture as a side character from a TV show I really, really wanted to watch, and thus I became cognizant of the fact that that character dies.  Now that I am finally watching the show, I have the annoying nagging knowledge in the back of my mind that this character is going to die, and I have had it ever since they first appeared, and I hate this.  I really hate this.

Also, I had wanted to watch Frozen unspoiled.  I wanted it to be as fresh as possible when I watched it, so I went to great trouble to avoid even seeing a trailer for it, and I never ever listened to the songs because I wanted to hear them first in the context of the film.
However, thanks to some vispwoshton on Twitter, my efforts were wasted, and an important plot point was spoiled, which is a shame, because I really was looking forward to how fresh it was going to be.

However, there is an interesting point I would like to bring up, and that is one which I think was made by Joseph Delage who helps with Marble Hornets.
Joseph Delage thinks that there is little merit to a story if what matters most is relying upon plot twists that can easily be spoiled, and that a really good story is still really good even if you know everything that is going to happen, or something like that, which is a very interesting viewpoint, though not something I entirely agree with.

My own stories, and especially Riigo-Faloo often relies upon several easily spoiled plot twists.  And sometimes double plot twists in which one originally thinks one thing but then it twists around to some great reveal but then there's another twist later and you realize you were kinda wrong about the first twist and it's really like the original idea and the first twist are almost true simultaneously.

There are certain times when having a twist spoiled for me makes me feel hurt inside, as if a certain enjoyment I could have had were stolen from me, and at certain times I feel as if I would rather suffer some sort of physical pain rather than the annoyance of a spoiler.

I used to run a secret blog on Tumblr, one about a delightfully obscure subject which makes absolutely no sense, and I had a great fun time running this blog because I was entirely separated from anything else I had previously done and went about making really, really funny things for that blog.
However, due to the fact that Tumblr is so full of spoilers, I've been trying to stay away from it, and by extension my fun little blog, which managed to quickly gain very large amounts of followers despite being unconnected to my relative popularity as a brickfilmer.  And that saddens me.

It's kind of funny that this is coming from someone involved with Marble Hornets, considering the last thirty episodes or so have focused on teasing character reveals instead of moving the story along in a meaningful way.

In general there are a lot of spoilers which come from social media where people want to discuss something but it's difficult to do so without spoiling it for someone who isn't up to date.
The problem could probably be easily mostly rectified if more sites had certain precautions to be easily set up as so they could be avoided.
Many people on Tumblr tag their posts #spoilers, but this doesn't do anything to hide it from anyone, it just clumps is into a category for if someone were to deliberately seek out spoilers for anything.  What would be nice is to have something across many sites where a post could be tagged as something like #Frozen spoilers and the post would only show a preview that warns of the spoilers and from where they originate, but you could easily click to bypass the warning to reveal the post.
Of course, many people mightn't use it correctly, but I do wish sites would implement such a thing.  I'm glad BiM has a spoiler hider, though.

I follow many people on Twitter who have the habit of live-tweeting every My Little Pony episode, but I usually watch every episode on TV as it airs, so that's not much of a problem.  I also usually watch Once Upon a Time the night it comes on, the only other show I watch the day it airs.  Of course, this one rare night last season I didn't watch in time had to be the only time where an acquaintance of mine spoiled it for me on Facebook.

It's pretty easy to capitalize a spoiler warning at the top of a Facebook status at least.  I do that sometimes, and I wish more people would at least try.

I've stopped going on Tumblr because its full of Game of Thrones spoilers. The whole point of Game of Thrones is that at any moment a major character might die. Its a perfect example of 'The Sword of Damocles' theory, and this theory is ruined when someone tells you precisely when the sword is going to fall and cut your head and balls off.

And anyone who says "its your fault for not watching it" - screw you! I've only just finished the third season because I have other stuff to do! I'm reminded of that episode of Dexter's Laboratory where Dexter can't keep up with all these television shows everyones talking about, so he invents a device that makes him know everything about television, but in the process it turns his brain into pop-culture spewing mush.

I also avoid movie trailers these days, because stuff like The Amazing Spiderman 2 trailer give away half of the plot already (we know that the guy from Chronicle is going to turn into the Green Goblin, and we know that Electro's popping up. That's literally the first and second act summarised)

Although, I've been just as bad. I constantly spoil the ending to The Chronicles of Narnia because its quite possibly the worst ending ever - and its the reason your never going to see a film version of The Final Battle. Its one of those things thats so bad I need to tell everyone I know about it.

Last edited by Max Butcher (May 14, 2014 (12:40pm))

A friend of mine tried to argue that there is a spoiler period by talking about Star Wars. The first three came out long before me or any of my friends were born, and yet a lot of plot points we grew up knowing purely because they had become so ingrained in popular culture.

I then pointed out that when I finally saw Return of the Jedi around the age of nine or ten, I had not been spoiled for the ending at all. The whole thing came to me completely fresh, unlike The Empire Strikes Back. The same goes for the first three Indiana Jones films. While watching Raiders of the Lost Ark, I had no idea about

I saw Raiders on my 11th birthday, in 2007. Raiders came out in 1981, 14 years before I was even born, let alone saw the thing.

My point is that spoiler periods depend on who you're talking to, and not the subject matter. If you intend to see something, then its spoiler period has not expired. If you already know the spoiler or don't mind being spoiled, when then the spoiler period has expired. My anecdote about Indiana Jones proves that time is irrelevant to a spoiler period.

"Nothing goes down 'less I'm involved. No nuggets. No onion rings. No nothin'. A cheeseburger gets sold in the park, I want in! You got fat while we starved on the streets...now it's my turn!" -Harley Morenstein

I'm a huge fan of Narnia, especially the Silver Chair, I've even been in a Narnia play, but the Last Battle stunk worse than a treasure stealing magical unicorn.
It was really bad.  Really bad compared to the rest of it all.  It wasn't climactic enough, though it did have some interesting concepts and descriptions, but it still stunk.

I never had Star Wars spoiled for me because I first watched Star Wars at such a young age that I cannot remember first watching it.  I feel as if I were born already knowing everything that happens in the original trilogy.
Of course, that might be counted as a sort of spoiler, because I will never ever know what it would be like to first watch Empire and understand the significance of the twist as it is revealed.

The Lord of the Rings on the other hand ties Star Wars as my favourite film and I remember first watching it.  But for Lord of the Rings I was already very familiar with the plot.  I hadn't read the book, but I had heard the Hobbit on audio book and my family had basically informed me of the entire plot and how almost everything happens.  In fact, like Star Wars I was told most of the plot of the Lord of the Rings before being old enough to be annoyed that it was spoiled.  Somehow knowing everything didn't at all cause detriment to my viewing of the trilogy.  Something about the nature of the story made me feel like it was more about enjoying the journey even if I already knew all that happened, which is probably one of the reasons it has such a great re-watch value for me.

Fair enough. I won't further this discussion, other than to link you to this (admittedly rather long) response to the criticisms of Pullman. Though I get the impression both of us have made up our minds!

Interestingly, the guy who wrote this also wrote 'Planet Narnia', which reveals a secret code behind the books- each related to one of the Medieval heavenly bodies.

It depends on what it is. If it is some show I've never herd of before, no I don't care about spoilers. But if it's a film series like the Marvel films YES don't tell me how it ends!!!!!!! But I will probably know everything that would spoil Star Wars episode 7 three months before the film comes out.

The internet always knows...