I don't really consider Community to be terribly spoilable in any meaningful sense.
But more to the point, while I do not go out of my way to spoil things for people, the reality of the modern world is that if you are the kind of person who actually cares about "spoilers" for mass-popular media (or locally-popular-to-your-demographic media), then you either have to always stay on top of everything or never look at the Internet.
I don't understand how people feel they have to spoil any show or book. If someone has seen it, it is very easy to hint at what you are talking about, and they will get it. And if someone hasn't seen it, they won't get it.
For example, why not just say the funniest episode is the clip show? There's no need to go further than that, because those who have seen it know what the big joke about clips shows in it is, and those who don't can still enjoy that cool idea as fresh during the show.
Then again I did say my favourite show was the Yahtzee one, and even then someone had to go and say the clever trick in that episode, even though what I liked about it so much was working out what was going to happen for the rest of the episode as soon as the door for the pizza rang.
However, giving away that a character, and which character, is going to die within a few hours of the episode being out is totally not cool. Give it until the end of the season, at least.
Statistically, maybe. Specifically? Why make that choice for me?
What I really enjoyed watching Community is not knowing what was going to happen, and when it did happen, enjoying seeing the clever twists on the normal way these things are presented in TV shows.
For example, (and a mild spoiler) I thought it was hilarious that in one episode, out of focus and in the background, a pregnant woman had a baby in the back of an SUV. Abed was obviously involved, and I guessed it might play out later in the season. And if you've watched season two, you'll know the payoff.
If someone had pointed this out to me before hand, I wouldn't have had the pleasure of seeing it myself, and wondering what was going to happen, and being surprised when they did something cleverer than I thought.
In SOME cases knowing what will happen in advance MIGHT increase my enjoyment of something, but I think a show like Community benefits from seeing it unfold for the first time without knowing. The entire show is formulated around playing with expectations, so if I know how those expectations are going to be played with, I miss that level of enjoyment.
And I'll probably go back to the start and watch all of Community again at some point, and guess what? THEN I'll know what is going to happen, and THEN I'll see it all when spoiled. But that will be my choice.
You know, If that study didn't agree with our opinions, we'd probably dismiss it as being a single, small study, with a tiny sample size, along with it being an observational study of something which was both subjective and self-reported.
I don't care so much about people spoiling a show, as I find it very easy to avoid spoilers. I simply don't read about stuff on the internet where spoilers might show up.
Unfortunately I very much enjoy chatting and discussing various topics on this forum. I find it a pity that because other people are insensitive to those who don't like spoilers, I can rarely read and enjoy all the threads about TV shows I'm not 100% caught up with, and have to avoid threads about movies until I've seen them.
Me "growing up" in this case means I just don't bother visiting the forum at all.
In my view, there are two separate enjoyments that I get from a "spoilerable" show: The initial viewing, and the dramatically ironic viewing. I won't flip out if you spoil something, but it does make a difference, because you destroy that first enjoyment.
Also, with the spoiler in question, it really has no effect on the show, except that
I happen to agree with that study, even though it is only one study. I would very much like to see more studies on the same topic. At least a few reproductions using the same method of that study, and a few using different methods.
However, my argument on spoilers is the same as it was before, and that study has nothing to do with it. I will type it again, for fun.
If a work of art is truly great, then it is unspoilable. Watchmen is good no matter how many times you read it. I enjoy reading it over and over, even though I already know it all. Cowboy Bebop, Star Wars, etc., you can't stop watching it, even if you've already seen them a jillion times. Still good every time.
If something IS spoilable, then that means the only thing it has going for it is the element of surprise. A Hitchcock movie always relies on a twist, but has a lot going for it otherwise. I can rewatch Rear Window infinity times. But there are other things in this world that only have a surprise, and have nothing else going for them. Those things can be ruined by spoilers, but they are also crappy and not worth your time.
There's also the factor of foreshadowing. How many times do I watch something and I "spoil" it for myself by figuring it out. Almost every time. How would it have been different if someone had told me beforehand? Not really different at all.
Out of courtesy I'm not going to force information on someone who doesn't want to hear it. Or lead someone into a trap they are specifically trying to avoid. But personally, I don't give a crap about spoilers. Spoil whatever you want for me. I also think that the people using all that effort to avoid spoilers would be a lot more relaxed if they weren't so concerned with it. They wouldn't have to tiptoe around the Internet, they could just walk around easily and proudly wherever they wanted.
TL;DR: I'm not going to go spoil things for people, but I don't care if something is spoiled for me. If something can be spoiled, then it wasn't worth my time in the first place. If it is worth my time, then it can't be spoiled. I will enjoy it immensely no matter what information I do or do not know about it.
The thing is, if there is some kind of plot twist or surprise and that is revealed to you beforehand, then you've lost the ability to experience it without that knowledge.
Sure, you can still watch it and enjoy it having that knowledge; indeed, it may well often be the case that the experience is better with it than without. However, you have still been denied the opportunity to have that "unspoiled" experience.
There's also the factor of foreshadowing. How many times do I watch something and I "spoil" it for myself by figuring it out. Almost every time. How would it have been different if someone had told me beforehand? Not really different at all.
If you were told, you could not have had the experience of figuring it out for yourself.
If something IS spoilable, then that means the only thing it has going for it is the element of surprise. A Hitchcock movie always relies on a twist, but has a lot going for it otherwise. I can rewatch Rear Window infinity times. But there are other things in this world that only have a surprise, and have nothing else going for them. Those things can be ruined by spoilers, but they are also crappy and not worth your time.
This is also not true. Yes, a TV episode or movie for which the only thing going for it is the surprise is probably not worthwhile. However, if it were a 1 minute YouTube video, then this no longer applies. Similarly, while a spoiler wouldn't ruin a truly great movie, it's still possible that it would ruin a particular scene of a great movie. In any case, your point is mostly irrelevant anyway, because no one is complaining about spoilers completely "ruining" something, but rather irreversibly changing the experience.
The experience may be changed, but you have no way of knowing if it's for better or for worse. Maybe it isn't better OR worse, just different. The argument that spoiling ruins it makes the same unsupportable value judgements as the argument that spoiling does not ruin it.
There's also the point to be made that spoiling doesn't actually spoil most of the time. Even though someone may tell me that so and so dies, you don't really understand it until you watch it. There is still a moment of revelation when you truly understand. You might learn some information about something in a spoiler, but you can't grok it until you've experienced it.
And who is to say what is better? Going into something with no knowledge whatsoever and learning everything as you go, or going in with some level of knowledge and achieving a complete understanding? They are both experiences you can have only once, one if you are spoiled and one if you are unspoiled.
Also, everyone is spoiled about everything ever to some extent. To be completely unspoiled, you would have to know absolutely nothing. That means no trailers, no reviews, not the poster, not the title, not the genre, not the actors, not the anything. As in, I sit you down and say you are about to watch "movie" and GO!
Even if you aren't told the twists or the endings, you learn an awful lot of information about any work of media before actually checking it out. Most people seek out such information to determine if that media is of interest to them. Yet, they only consider it a spoiler if he information pertains to twists or endings. All the other information learned about something beforehand is just accepted that it is an enhancement of the experience.
The experience may be changed, but you have no way of knowing if it's for better or for worse. Maybe it isn't better OR worse, just different. The argument that spoiling ruins it makes the same unsupportable value judgements as the argument that spoiling does not ruin it.
I agree with you there. However, the issue is that if something is spoiled, you can never have the unspoiled experience, but if it is left unspoiled, you can watch it twice and have both experiences.
And who is to say what is better? Going into something with no knowledge whatsoever and learning everything as you go, or going in with some level of knowledge and achieving a complete understanding? They are both experiences you can have only once, one if you are spoiled and one if you are unspoiled.
Even if this is the case and it's a choice between two once-only experiences, then the answer remains simple - ideally each individual would be able to decide on which experience they should have, because they know best what kind of experiences they get the most out of. However, if you spoil something for them, they no longer have the ability to make that choice.
Even if this is the case and it's a choice between two once-only experiences, then the answer remains simple - ideally each individual would be able to decide on which experience they should have, because they know best what kind of experiences they get the most out of. However, if you spoil something for them, they no longer have the ability to make that choice.
It is unknown which of the two once-only experiences is superior, if either. There is some small amount of evidence, one study, that suggests the spoiled experience is actually better.
To get the unspoiled experience you must expend great effort to avoid information, something with is extremely difficult if you are a modern Internet-using person. People around you must also walk on eggshells and be hindered conversationally.
That is a very high cost to pay to simply preserve a choice about something that is, in the grand scheme, really insignificant. Talk about fist world problems! I think everyone would be much better off just speaking freely wherever and not worry about spoilers. The people who really really want to preserve their choice should have to be the ones to purposefully go out of their way to avoid all information, or go get things as soon as they are released.
Also, nobody seems to care about spoiling old things. How is it any different? I best most people here haven't actually played Super Metroid. Shall I spoil it? It still destroys a choice. How is it OK to destroy choice when the media in question is old, but not when it is new?
It is clear, to me at least, that the people who care so much about spoilers have not thought about or investigated in any logical or well-reasoned fashion. They just take it as true based on intuitive common-sense. Few people have thought this clever plan through.
Personally, I'm not too worried about spoilers. However, despite your points, I actually don't find it that difficult to avoid being "spoiled".
Regardless, it's also not that difficult to avoid spoiling things for other people - all it takes is a warning or spoiler tags, so as a general rule I don't see why you wouldn't bother to do so.
Also, nobody seems to care about spoiling old things. How is it any different? I best most people here haven't actually played Super Metroid. Shall I spoil it? It still destroys a choice. How is it OK to destroy choice when the media in question is old, but not when it is new?
For the most part, it's because with older media it's less likely for people to intend to experience something and not have experienced it yet. Besides, I doubt you could spoil much of anything in Super Metroid.
Personally, I'm not too worried about spoilers. However, despite your points, I actually don't find it that difficult to avoid being "spoiled".
Regardless, it's also not that difficult to avoid spoiling things for other people - all it takes is a warning or spoiler tags, so as a general rule I don't see why you wouldn't bother to do so.
Also, nobody seems to care about spoiling old things. How is it any different? I best most people here haven't actually played Super Metroid. Shall I spoil it? It still destroys a choice. How is it OK to destroy choice when the media in question is old, but not when it is new?
For the most part, it's because with older media it's less likely for people to intend to experience something and not have experienced it yet. Besides, I doubt you could spoil much of anything in Super Metroid.
Super Metroid is an intentionally great example. It has a shocking twist ending, but most of the enjoyment comes from the playing of the game which is unspoilable.
To be clear at the start, I’m not writing this in argument or rebuttal to Scott, as that’s not worth my time. I understand his views on spoilers, but I don’t comprehend how anyone can truly believe them, or be happy to live by them.
Instead, I’ll explain why I like to avoid spoilers.
Emotions.
My definition of art is something created by human agency with the intention of eliciting an emotional response from the viewer/reader/listener/participant/etc. This isn’t an unassailable definition, but as an artist and professional performer it’s a pretty handy guide. It also lets me enjoy art that comes my way.
What is important to understand is that the emotional response doesn’t have to be a single kind, or even a positive kind. Joy and laughter is what most comedies aim for, but if all you get is laughs, there’s not much about it that will stick with you in the long term. That’s why comedies try to bring out other emotional responses. Romantic comedies want you to feel warm and fuzzy, others want you to feel uncomfortable in gross-out scenes. One of the strongest emotional responses I’ve had from a comedy recently was watching Bridesmaids, and one scene in which two of the bridesmaids are trying to outdo each other with speeches about the bride had me cringing. I literally had to stop the movie for a few minutes to let myself calm down. It was awesome!
Other comedies, like Groundhog Day, bring the laughs, but also bring about a sense of pathos, and even a sense dread, and makes you think about the futility of life. That, by the end, you are full of compassion and hope for the future is the genius of the movie, and why it is considered a classic.
This all seems pretty obvious, and knowing what is going to happen in advance in most comedies isn’t going to spoil much of your enjoyment. However, there are a few emotions that fiction is no longer able to instill if you know what is coming.
Surprise.
The most obvious is surprise. This is the easiest too, and done well, the least susceptible to spoilers. The movie Final Destination had trailers with scenes not from the movie itself, but featuring audience members jumping out their seats while watching the movie for the first time. I knew it was a movie about people living longer than they should, and death catching up with them one by one. Also, before seeing the movie, I’d heard conversations where people said “Holy shit! The scene with the bus is amazing!”
Great, I thought. Now I won’t be surprised. All I have to do is watch out for a bus, and then I can get ready for…
And if you’ve seen Final Destination, you’ll know how just unprepared I was for the death involving the bus. Even me telling you a bus is involved in one of the deaths isn’t going to spoil it for you, because it is so surprising. That is the genius of that movie, and why there are now a whole slew of sequels (none of which I’ve felt any urge to watch).
The only way to spoil that individual scene is to have seen the movie before. Or, in this case, to have seen that scene before. Which is why the trailer for the movie never showed that scene at all!
Unfortunately, many movie distributers aren’t this kind, and include all kinds of otherwise surprising things in their movie trailers. Which is why I avoid trailers. If I hear the movie is good, I’ll probably get round to watching it eventually. I take long flights all the time, and can fit in four movies while traveling to America or back. On cruise ships there are always recent releases playing, and at home I catch up with anything I’ve missed on DVD.
Shock.
I love to be shocked by fiction. Characters are going about their lives, or on an adventure, and suddenly something happens or is revealed, and everything changes. This could be for good, but it works far better if it is for the worst.
Unfortunately, unlike a good surprise, a shock can be spoiled if you know what is going to be revealed. Or more to the point, if you understand what is going to be revealed. The difference is subtle.
My name is Luke, so throughout life I’ve put up with people telling me they were my father, normally with a deep voice and heavy breathing. Even before I ever saw The Empire Strikes Back, people would tell me that they were my father. I understood it was a Star Wars reference, but didn’t understand what they really meant. I’d grown up with Star Wars: A New Hope, but Empire Strikes Back wasn’t shown on TV in the UK until the mid eighties, and then only at Christmas, so it was a while until I caught up with it. Then, aged about six or seven, I watched Empire Strike Back for the first time and holy shit!
Of course, I hadn’t understood the shocking reveal because I was just a stupid kid. The shock of it was no less meaningful though!
Now I’m not so much of a stupid kid. If I hear something about any story, be it a movie or TV show, I can usually work out, even before beginning to watch it, what the shocking reveal will probably be. Which is why, if possible, I try to avoid reading or hearing those spoilers.
Years ago I watched the first few seasons of Dexter, up to the end of season 3. Everyone said “Season 4 is the best, and the ending is such a shock!” But they were always sensitive not to spoil it, and I’m thankful for it. I avoided learning anything about it, and any news or discussion about anything beyond season 3.
Over the course of a few months I rewatched the first three seasons along with my girlfriend. I enjoyed them again, but in a different way, and found it fun to experience the surprising and shocking events vicariously through the person sitting next to me. We struck out into season 4, and everything was new.
Then we reached the last scene of the last episode of season 4. I knew a shock was coming, but I didn’t know what. As it turned out, it was way more shocking than anything I had thought up, and way more shocking than anything my girlfriend and I had wished for to shake things up for the characters involved. It was literally so shocking that we had to put on the first episode of season 5 immediately, just to make sure it wasn’t a dream sequence or a trick by the show producers.
And the shock stayed with me! I even had trouble sleeping that and the next few nights as I imagined something similar happening in my life.
It felt glorious. I love the fact that a TV show could make me feel something so visceral. It is one of those peak experience I crave in life. This happens so rarely with TV and movies, but I cherish it when it does, and I avoid spoilers because I want to have these experiences again in the future.
The final reason I like to avoid spoilers, and try not to spoil things for other people, is that I like to be made to feel stupid. And on the other hand, I like to be made to feel intelligent.
Great works of TV and film stand up to repeat viewing, even if there is a twist ending. A twist can be shocking or surprising, but it also works on an intellectual level. Aiming to effect someone intellectually can be part of a work of art, but if that is the sole reason, for me it falls more into the category of lesson, teaching material, political propaganda, etc. However, clever artists use the intellect of the viewer/listener to move their emotions.
So the twist is different to the shock. It relies on the viewer having come to one conclusion, and then the narrative exposing that conclusion as false, and revealing one that fits all the presented facts, and then explains so many more.
An effective twist can elicit two distinct responses. The first is “Oh, how stupid I am! I should have seen all that, but I was totally blind!”
From the buzz about The Sixth Sense, it seemed that 95% of people had this same response. And everyone loved being made to feel stupid. Being tricked, when you knowingly participate in the tricker, feels really good. This is why people enjoy magic shows. They know magic is bullshit, and that the performer is using tricks and mirrors and magnets, but they love the feeling of being fooled.
My experience with The Sixth Sense was different. Two girls had a very loud conversation right next to me, and blatantly explained the twist ending, covering many of the relevant points along the way, before I understood what they were talking about. Then I cottoned on, and groaned.
When I went to see the movie at the cinema, I enjoyed the movie well enough, and jumped at some of the shocks, but the twist had very little effect on me. Some of tricks had passed me by, but I’d caught many of the others.
I was robbed of the feeling that I was stupid. Knowing the twist spoiled that element that I could have otherwise enjoyed.
Thankfully there are plenty more twists that make me feel stupid. The Prestige worked great for me in that case, and on so many levels, because all the way through the movie they are telling you that you are being tricked, and explaining the trick right in front of your eyes, and you still miss it.
Or at least I did. And if you worked out the twist without knowing it in advance? Well, that’s the last reason I like to avoid spoilers.
Intelligence.
I like to work things out for myself. Making people feel intelligent is opposite reaction to a good twist, and by intelligent I mean the combination of mental ability and relevant knowledge or expereince. If everyone guesses the twist ending, it’s not really a twist. If nobody guesses the twist ending, it’s probably comes too much out of nowhere, isn’t set up properly, and falls more into the shock category.
However, if between 80% and 90% of people are surprised, and 10% to 20% of people say “Oh, I worked it out from this, this, and this” you’ve probably done a good job.
And the 20% of people who worked it out feel clever. Knowing that they’ve used their intellect as the artist hoped, and are rewarded by the artist by the feeling of superiority over the other 80%, even if that superiority is only knowing just that little bit more about specific trivial things.
As much as I like being in the 80% of people who get the satisfaction of being tricked by the twist, I just as much enjoy working out the twist before it arrives. Who knows if I’d have had this kind of enjoyment with The Sixth Sense? Maybe. I do know that when I watched Unbreakable, I did work out the twist, although I fell asleep before the end, and then had to wind back to see if I was right or not. And I guessed the twist in The Village too, though enjoyed that all the way through to the end.
I like to be tricked by movies, but if I was tricked every time, it might get tiresome. I understand why some people don’t like being made to feel stupid by a movie, so if it is spoiled for them they don’t have to worry about it any more. I also suspect that many people who already know a twist like to tell themselves that if they didn’t already know it, they would have worked it out themselves. To be honest, many of the twists I know in advance seem trivial to work out. But then how can I be the judge of that? The only way to really test my intelligence is to go in not knowing, and seeing how the chips fall.
So there you have it. That is why I avoid spoilers. I like to be surprised, to be shocked, to be made to feel stupid, and to be made to feel intelligent. As an artist, these emotional responses are just some of the wide range I like to elicit, and as a reviewer they are experiences I like to leave open as options for my listeners to enjoy.
I feel it just as much, or even more when I know it's coming. Doesn't matter if I was told, or if I figured it out. Actually, sometimes it's even stronger when you know it's coming because you get the additional feeling of anticipation.
My guess is that other people are the same way, but don't realize it. When asked they will tell you they enjoy things less when spoiled, but when measured the opposite may be true. The same way that doctors say they are completely uninfluenced by gifts from pharmaceutical companies, when they in fact are.
I feel it just as much, or even more when I know it's coming.
Out of interest, how exactly do you evaluate that, considering that if you have something "spoilered" for you beforehand, as you freely admit, you lack the ability to assess how you would have felt if you didn't know?
My guess is that other people are the same way, but don't realize it.
Some, perhaps even most other people, yes. However, I think it would be safe to assume that Luke has a better idea of how spoilers influence him than you do.
I disagree with Scott here, as he bases his entire position on his own personal experience (which, as we know, is atypical) and a SINGLE study.
It is admittedly just one study, and not much of one at that, but it is still more than nothing. It seems here that there is an assumption that spoilers do spoil, and that the burden of proof is on anyone who says otherwise. The way I see it in terms of evidence we still do not know if spoilers actually spoil. We have no fucking clue. Yet, everyone behaves and assumes as if they do. Based on the one study we do have, it is at least slightly more probable that they do not spoil. We should instead act either as if we do not know, or as if they do not, especially considering the fact that acting as if they do has the highest cost of working to prevent information from spreading.
I disagree with Scott here, as he bases his entire position on his own personal experience (which, as we know, is atypical) and a SINGLE study.
My favorite part of every Scott Rubin Argument is when Rym drops by just to say "Just in case any of you have forgotten, Rym and Scott are separate people and I disagree with him on this."
Comments
For example, why not just say the funniest episode is the clip show? There's no need to go further than that, because those who have seen it know what the big joke about clips shows in it is, and those who don't can still enjoy that cool idea as fresh during the show.
Then again I did say my favourite show was the Yahtzee one, and even then someone had to go and say the clever trick in that episode, even though what I liked about it so much was working out what was going to happen for the rest of the episode as soon as the door for the pizza rang.
However, giving away that a character, and which character, is going to die within a few hours of the episode being out is totally not cool. Give it until the end of the season, at least.
Actually apparently we enjoy stories more when we are spoiled...
What I really enjoyed watching Community is not knowing what was going to happen, and when it did happen, enjoying seeing the clever twists on the normal way these things are presented in TV shows.
For example, (and a mild spoiler) I thought it was hilarious that in one episode, out of focus and in the background, a pregnant woman had a baby in the back of an SUV. Abed was obviously involved, and I guessed it might play out later in the season. And if you've watched season two, you'll know the payoff.
If someone had pointed this out to me before hand, I wouldn't have had the pleasure of seeing it myself, and wondering what was going to happen, and being surprised when they did something cleverer than I thought.
In SOME cases knowing what will happen in advance MIGHT increase my enjoyment of something, but I think a show like Community benefits from seeing it unfold for the first time without knowing. The entire show is formulated around playing with expectations, so if I know how those expectations are going to be played with, I miss that level of enjoyment.
And I'll probably go back to the start and watch all of Community again at some point, and guess what? THEN I'll know what is going to happen, and THEN I'll see it all when spoiled. But that will be my choice.
Unfortunately I very much enjoy chatting and discussing various topics on this forum. I find it a pity that because other people are insensitive to those who don't like spoilers, I can rarely read and enjoy all the threads about TV shows I'm not 100% caught up with, and have to avoid threads about movies until I've seen them.
Me "growing up" in this case means I just don't bother visiting the forum at all.
Also, with the spoiler in question, it really has no effect on the show, except that
However, my argument on spoilers is the same as it was before, and that study has nothing to do with it. I will type it again, for fun.
If a work of art is truly great, then it is unspoilable. Watchmen is good no matter how many times you read it. I enjoy reading it over and over, even though I already know it all. Cowboy Bebop, Star Wars, etc., you can't stop watching it, even if you've already seen them a jillion times. Still good every time.
If something IS spoilable, then that means the only thing it has going for it is the element of surprise. A Hitchcock movie always relies on a twist, but has a lot going for it otherwise. I can rewatch Rear Window infinity times. But there are other things in this world that only have a surprise, and have nothing else going for them. Those things can be ruined by spoilers, but they are also crappy and not worth your time.
There's also the factor of foreshadowing. How many times do I watch something and I "spoil" it for myself by figuring it out. Almost every time. How would it have been different if someone had told me beforehand? Not really different at all.
Out of courtesy I'm not going to force information on someone who doesn't want to hear it. Or lead someone into a trap they are specifically trying to avoid. But personally, I don't give a crap about spoilers. Spoil whatever you want for me. I also think that the people using all that effort to avoid spoilers would be a lot more relaxed if they weren't so concerned with it. They wouldn't have to tiptoe around the Internet, they could just walk around easily and proudly wherever they wanted.
TL;DR: I'm not going to go spoil things for people, but I don't care if something is spoiled for me. If something can be spoiled, then it wasn't worth my time in the first place. If it is worth my time, then it can't be spoiled. I will enjoy it immensely no matter what information I do or do not know about it.
Sure, you can still watch it and enjoy it having that knowledge; indeed, it may well often be the case that the experience is better with it than without. However, you have still been denied the opportunity to have that "unspoiled" experience. If you were told, you could not have had the experience of figuring it out for yourself. This is also not true. Yes, a TV episode or movie for which the only thing going for it is the surprise is probably not worthwhile. However, if it were a 1 minute YouTube video, then this no longer applies. Similarly, while a spoiler wouldn't ruin a truly great movie, it's still possible that it would ruin a particular scene of a great movie.
In any case, your point is mostly irrelevant anyway, because no one is complaining about spoilers completely "ruining" something, but rather irreversibly changing the experience.
There's also the point to be made that spoiling doesn't actually spoil most of the time. Even though someone may tell me that so and so dies, you don't really understand it until you watch it. There is still a moment of revelation when you truly understand. You might learn some information about something in a spoiler, but you can't grok it until you've experienced it.
And who is to say what is better? Going into something with no knowledge whatsoever and learning everything as you go, or going in with some level of knowledge and achieving a complete understanding? They are both experiences you can have only once, one if you are spoiled and one if you are unspoiled.
Also, everyone is spoiled about everything ever to some extent. To be completely unspoiled, you would have to know absolutely nothing. That means no trailers, no reviews, not the poster, not the title, not the genre, not the actors, not the anything. As in, I sit you down and say you are about to watch "movie" and GO!
Even if you aren't told the twists or the endings, you learn an awful lot of information about any work of media before actually checking it out. Most people seek out such information to determine if that media is of interest to them. Yet, they only consider it a spoiler if he information pertains to twists or endings. All the other information learned about something beforehand is just accepted that it is an enhancement of the experience.
I'm pretty confident spoilers don't spoil.
To get the unspoiled experience you must expend great effort to avoid information, something with is extremely difficult if you are a modern Internet-using person. People around you must also walk on eggshells and be hindered conversationally.
That is a very high cost to pay to simply preserve a choice about something that is, in the grand scheme, really insignificant. Talk about fist world problems! I think everyone would be much better off just speaking freely wherever and not worry about spoilers. The people who really really want to preserve their choice should have to be the ones to purposefully go out of their way to avoid all information, or go get things as soon as they are released.
Also, nobody seems to care about spoiling old things. How is it any different? I best most people here haven't actually played Super Metroid. Shall I spoil it? It still destroys a choice. How is it OK to destroy choice when the media in question is old, but not when it is new?
It is clear, to me at least, that the people who care so much about spoilers have not thought about or investigated in any logical or well-reasoned fashion. They just take it as true based on intuitive common-sense. Few people have thought this clever plan through.
Regardless, it's also not that difficult to avoid spoiling things for other people - all it takes is a warning or spoiler tags, so as a general rule I don't see why you wouldn't bother to do so. For the most part, it's because with older media it's less likely for people to intend to experience something and not have experienced it yet. Besides, I doubt you could spoil much of anything in Super Metroid.
To be clear at the start, I’m not writing this in argument or rebuttal to Scott, as that’s not worth my time. I understand his views on spoilers, but I don’t comprehend how anyone can truly believe them, or be happy to live by them.
Instead, I’ll explain why I like to avoid spoilers.
Emotions.
My definition of art is something created by human agency with the intention of eliciting an emotional response from the viewer/reader/listener/participant/etc. This isn’t an unassailable definition, but as an artist and professional performer it’s a pretty handy guide. It also lets me enjoy art that comes my way.
What is important to understand is that the emotional response doesn’t have to be a single kind, or even a positive kind. Joy and laughter is what most comedies aim for, but if all you get is laughs, there’s not much about it that will stick with you in the long term. That’s why comedies try to bring out other emotional responses. Romantic comedies want you to feel warm and fuzzy, others want you to feel uncomfortable in gross-out scenes. One of the strongest emotional responses I’ve had from a comedy recently was watching Bridesmaids, and one scene in which two of the bridesmaids are trying to outdo each other with speeches about the bride had me cringing. I literally had to stop the movie for a few minutes to let myself calm down. It was awesome!
Other comedies, like Groundhog Day, bring the laughs, but also bring about a sense of pathos, and even a sense dread, and makes you think about the futility of life. That, by the end, you are full of compassion and hope for the future is the genius of the movie, and why it is considered a classic.
This all seems pretty obvious, and knowing what is going to happen in advance in most comedies isn’t going to spoil much of your enjoyment. However, there are a few emotions that fiction is no longer able to instill if you know what is coming.
Surprise.
The most obvious is surprise. This is the easiest too, and done well, the least susceptible to spoilers. The movie Final Destination had trailers with scenes not from the movie itself, but featuring audience members jumping out their seats while watching the movie for the first time. I knew it was a movie about people living longer than they should, and death catching up with them one by one. Also, before seeing the movie, I’d heard conversations where people said “Holy shit! The scene with the bus is amazing!”
Great, I thought. Now I won’t be surprised. All I have to do is watch out for a bus, and then I can get ready for…
And if you’ve seen Final Destination, you’ll know how just unprepared I was for the death involving the bus. Even me telling you a bus is involved in one of the deaths isn’t going to spoil it for you, because it is so surprising. That is the genius of that movie, and why there are now a whole slew of sequels (none of which I’ve felt any urge to watch).
The only way to spoil that individual scene is to have seen the movie before. Or, in this case, to have seen that scene before. Which is why the trailer for the movie never showed that scene at all!
Unfortunately, many movie distributers aren’t this kind, and include all kinds of otherwise surprising things in their movie trailers. Which is why I avoid trailers. If I hear the movie is good, I’ll probably get round to watching it eventually. I take long flights all the time, and can fit in four movies while traveling to America or back. On cruise ships there are always recent releases playing, and at home I catch up with anything I’ve missed on DVD.
Shock.
I love to be shocked by fiction. Characters are going about their lives, or on an adventure, and suddenly something happens or is revealed, and everything changes. This could be for good, but it works far better if it is for the worst.
Unfortunately, unlike a good surprise, a shock can be spoiled if you know what is going to be revealed. Or more to the point, if you understand what is going to be revealed. The difference is subtle.
My name is Luke, so throughout life I’ve put up with people telling me they were my father, normally with a deep voice and heavy breathing. Even before I ever saw The Empire Strikes Back, people would tell me that they were my father. I understood it was a Star Wars reference, but didn’t understand what they really meant. I’d grown up with Star Wars: A New Hope, but Empire Strikes Back wasn’t shown on TV in the UK until the mid eighties, and then only at Christmas, so it was a while until I caught up with it. Then, aged about six or seven, I watched Empire Strike Back for the first time and holy shit!
Of course, I hadn’t understood the shocking reveal because I was just a stupid kid. The shock of it was no less meaningful though!
Now I’m not so much of a stupid kid. If I hear something about any story, be it a movie or TV show, I can usually work out, even before beginning to watch it, what the shocking reveal will probably be. Which is why, if possible, I try to avoid reading or hearing those spoilers.
Years ago I watched the first few seasons of Dexter, up to the end of season 3. Everyone said “Season 4 is the best, and the ending is such a shock!” But they were always sensitive not to spoil it, and I’m thankful for it. I avoided learning anything about it, and any news or discussion about anything beyond season 3.
Over the course of a few months I rewatched the first three seasons along with my girlfriend. I enjoyed them again, but in a different way, and found it fun to experience the surprising and shocking events vicariously through the person sitting next to me. We struck out into season 4, and everything was new.
Then we reached the last scene of the last episode of season 4. I knew a shock was coming, but I didn’t know what. As it turned out, it was way more shocking than anything I had thought up, and way more shocking than anything my girlfriend and I had wished for to shake things up for the characters involved. It was literally so shocking that we had to put on the first episode of season 5 immediately, just to make sure it wasn’t a dream sequence or a trick by the show producers.
And the shock stayed with me! I even had trouble sleeping that and the next few nights as I imagined something similar happening in my life.
It felt glorious. I love the fact that a TV show could make me feel something so visceral. It is one of those peak experience I crave in life. This happens so rarely with TV and movies, but I cherish it when it does, and I avoid spoilers because I want to have these experiences again in the future.
Stupidity.
The final reason I like to avoid spoilers, and try not to spoil things for other people, is that I like to be made to feel stupid. And on the other hand, I like to be made to feel intelligent.
Great works of TV and film stand up to repeat viewing, even if there is a twist ending. A twist can be shocking or surprising, but it also works on an intellectual level. Aiming to effect someone intellectually can be part of a work of art, but if that is the sole reason, for me it falls more into the category of lesson, teaching material, political propaganda, etc. However, clever artists use the intellect of the viewer/listener to move their emotions.
So the twist is different to the shock. It relies on the viewer having come to one conclusion, and then the narrative exposing that conclusion as false, and revealing one that fits all the presented facts, and then explains so many more.
An effective twist can elicit two distinct responses. The first is “Oh, how stupid I am! I should have seen all that, but I was totally blind!”
From the buzz about The Sixth Sense, it seemed that 95% of people had this same response. And everyone loved being made to feel stupid. Being tricked, when you knowingly participate in the tricker, feels really good. This is why people enjoy magic shows. They know magic is bullshit, and that the performer is using tricks and mirrors and magnets, but they love the feeling of being fooled.
My experience with The Sixth Sense was different. Two girls had a very loud conversation right next to me, and blatantly explained the twist ending, covering many of the relevant points along the way, before I understood what they were talking about. Then I cottoned on, and groaned.
When I went to see the movie at the cinema, I enjoyed the movie well enough, and jumped at some of the shocks, but the twist had very little effect on me. Some of tricks had passed me by, but I’d caught many of the others.
I was robbed of the feeling that I was stupid. Knowing the twist spoiled that element that I could have otherwise enjoyed.
Thankfully there are plenty more twists that make me feel stupid. The Prestige worked great for me in that case, and on so many levels, because all the way through the movie they are telling you that you are being tricked, and explaining the trick right in front of your eyes, and you still miss it.
Or at least I did. And if you worked out the twist without knowing it in advance? Well, that’s the last reason I like to avoid spoilers.
Intelligence.
I like to work things out for myself. Making people feel intelligent is opposite reaction to a good twist, and by intelligent I mean the combination of mental ability and relevant knowledge or expereince. If everyone guesses the twist ending, it’s not really a twist. If nobody guesses the twist ending, it’s probably comes too much out of nowhere, isn’t set up properly, and falls more into the shock category.
However, if between 80% and 90% of people are surprised, and 10% to 20% of people say “Oh, I worked it out from this, this, and this” you’ve probably done a good job.
And the 20% of people who worked it out feel clever. Knowing that they’ve used their intellect as the artist hoped, and are rewarded by the artist by the feeling of superiority over the other 80%, even if that superiority is only knowing just that little bit more about specific trivial things.
As much as I like being in the 80% of people who get the satisfaction of being tricked by the twist, I just as much enjoy working out the twist before it arrives. Who knows if I’d have had this kind of enjoyment with The Sixth Sense? Maybe. I do know that when I watched Unbreakable, I did work out the twist, although I fell asleep before the end, and then had to wind back to see if I was right or not. And I guessed the twist in The Village too, though enjoyed that all the way through to the end.
I like to be tricked by movies, but if I was tricked every time, it might get tiresome. I understand why some people don’t like being made to feel stupid by a movie, so if it is spoiled for them they don’t have to worry about it any more. I also suspect that many people who already know a twist like to tell themselves that if they didn’t already know it, they would have worked it out themselves. To be honest, many of the twists I know in advance seem trivial to work out. But then how can I be the judge of that? The only way to really test my intelligence is to go in not knowing, and seeing how the chips fall.
So there you have it. That is why I avoid spoilers. I like to be surprised, to be shocked, to be made to feel stupid, and to be made to feel intelligent. As an artist, these emotional responses are just some of the wide range I like to elicit, and as a reviewer they are experiences I like to leave open as options for my listeners to enjoy.
My guess is that other people are the same way, but don't realize it. When asked they will tell you they enjoy things less when spoiled, but when measured the opposite may be true. The same way that doctors say they are completely uninfluenced by gifts from pharmaceutical companies, when they in fact are.