Movie and TV spoilers on social media – What’s the deal?

So you’ve seen the season finale of Game of Thrones. There were just so much intense scenes that happened and you feel like you need to share it to everyone. So what’s the first thing you do? You go to Facebook and tell the whole world that the scene where (insert character name here) dies was just too unexpected and it totally blew your mind! Well, congratulations. You just spoiled all the fun for those waiting the whole day to get home just so they could watch it.

It’s not that it’s wrong to post what’s on your mind. After all, that IS your profile and you have every right to post whatever you want. But there’s this little thing called social media courtesy. I myself am a victim of this. I’m currently at season one of Game of Thrones (I know, I suck) and when I heard about what happened at the Red Wedding episode (unsurprisingly, through a friend’s status post in Facebook), my enthusiasm to watch faded ’cause I already knew what would happen and who will be killed.

In contrast, when I watch a movie and there’s a great reveal at the ending, I keep it to myself since I know the surprise is a big chunk of the story and has been intended to be enjoyed that way – when they catch you off guard. The most I’ll tell someone is, “You should watch it, you’ll like the ending” or something along those lines. That way, I just give them something to look forward to until they eventually see the movie.

The point of this short article/rant/preaching is so we could hopefully raise awareness that it doesn’t make you “cool” to spoil the raunchiest of details and take away the magic of the show just because you couldn’t contain your feelings, let alone if you just want to be a douche and brag that you’ve watched it. Spoiling or pre-empting the scenes isn’t a big thing for some people, but some consider it sacrilege and would freak out after seeing one. People might say, “then just get off the Internet!” but some of us just really couldn’t do that if checking and monitoring social media sites are part of our job descriptions.

So to those who love updating us with every movie or TV series out there, thank you but we don’t need it. We’d like to be taken by surprise as well and experience the same mindf*ck that you were experiencing before you posted that spoiler. :)