Spoilers! Ooooh we all hate them. Just that one word can get people to stick their fingers in their ears and shout "Lalalala! I can't hear you!". No one wants to have something spoiled for them, especially something you become emotionally invested in. It used to be that you could just avoid websites that you would know would contain spoilers, that isn't enough. If you're on Facebook and Twitter you run the risk of following or being friends with someone that may spoil something inadvertently.
DVR and Netflix make it possible now to be watching a show that may have run its entire course for the first time, leaving yourself open to something that you may view as a spoiler but someone who watched the show feel is nothing more than common knowledge. Where is the line! Well I'll tell you. This is near and dear to me because it is my personal experience, this is the reason for me writing this new blog.
I just started watching Doctor Who, in fact I just finished season 3. While writing on Facebook about how much I enjoyed a particular episode someone that I am friends with posted a comment to my status. The comment was perfectly harmless for someone who has seen the show and to be honest the statute of limitations had come and gone for something to be a spoiler. Meaning Bruce Willis being dead the whole time is no longer a spoiler, it is just plain common knowledge and if you don't know that by now it is your own damned fault anyway. Now the reason why I consider this to be a spoiler is because he posted it to my status.
Posting something about a movie or a TV show as a comment on someone's status or as a tweet, hey @LegitimateGeek can you believe ________, is a spoiler. Especially considering that if you are following or friends with that person you are more than likely aware that they are watching that particular piece of entertainment. I just said I finished watching this episode which means that I am just on that episode, my knowledge of this particular television universe does not expand passed this point in time.
How could anything said about what comes next, even if it is just to say "wait till you see what happens to _____" not be a spoiler? Though you've said nothing directly and given away nothing concrete you've now opened up my mind to something it cannot as of yet know, nor does it want to know because it wants to find it out for itself. It would have been perfectly harmless posted as your own status or as your own tweet, but once you've directed it towards someone you've committed the mortal sin of spoil.
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| Your place in hell is between the 4th and 5th layers. Not entirely certain though. |
