We all know the feeling: you’re minding your own business, patiently waiting for your chance to see the most anticipated movie of the year, only to have an unassuming Facebook status ruin the ending. There’s almost no way to describe the sinking feeling in your chest, the sudden ebb of excitement, the new sense of hopelessness. Even after you’ve closed the tab and tried to erase the words now burned into your retinas, you can’t forget that crucial plot point someone else spoiled out of spite.
But even though this feeling is, sadly, universal, it is usually widely avoidable. Most have the common courtesy to type a quick “spoiler alert” before divulging important information, making it your fault if you decide to keep reading. They warned you; you just didn’t listen.
Unfortunately, it seems implied that “spoiler alerts” come with a subconscious expiration date, one nobody seems to agree upon nor remember. At what point does the end of your favorite movie open for discussion? A year after release? Two years? Five? Ten? Does divulging these crucial plot points still make you responsible for any film-watching experiences you might have inadvertently ruined? These are the questions that only seem answerable on a case-by-case basis, making each post, each status, even each conversation, a guessing game.
It’s undeniable that the boy in my sixth-grade class who saw me reading Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince only days after it had been released must have taken some kind of sadistic glee in announcing that “Dumbledore dies!” Now, however, nine years after the book, its movie adaptation, and its successor have been released, those words don’t evoke the same jaw-dropping reaction. I can almost ensure that the majority of this article’s readership has read, seen, or heard this same spoiler at least once over the course of their lifetime.
There are just some plot twists – “Dumbledore dies” included – that have already passed into the realm of cultural literacy. Everyone knows Bruce Willis is a ghost. Everyone knows what “Rosebud” means. These are the easy examples – where cinema’s most loved moments have devolved into the common vernacular enough that you never have to worry about ruining it.
But The Sixth Sense and Silence of the Lambs are in the minority – most content we enjoy falls into an unexplored gray area. There’s no hard fast rules that dictate, as a Glen Tickle article describes, the “shelf-life” of a spoiler alert. Our guarantee to freedom of speech ensures you the right to ruin to your heart’s content, whether the movie was released last week or last year. Hopefully, though, basic human decency will prevent this.
What constitutes a spoiler? In the end, this is open to interpretation. The same way we use logic to riddle our way out of Rubik cubes and traffic, we need to puzzle our way through what deserves the marking of “spoiler alert.” Even though you should be expected to wait a reasonable amount of time after the film’s release or a TV show premiere you can’t be expected to limit yourself forever. As long as you’re considerate, they can’t fault you for discussing what you love. As long as you ask yourself, “Does sharing this impede their ability to fully enjoy it?” then you’re doing your best to show consideration towards fellow fans.
In short, be smart when you spoil. Don’t spoil that movie everyone wants to see in your Facebook status. Don’t be the prepubescent pipsqueak who ruined Harry Potter for his cuter and nicer classmate. Let people enjoy things at their own pace, as long as it doesn’t prevent you from engaging with what you love to its full capacity.
