• Hey, guest user. Hope you're enjoying NeoGAF! Have you considered registering for an account? Come join us and add your take to the daily discourse.

Becoming One With Spoilers

Status
Not open for further replies.
D

Duplolas

Banned
I've basically gotten used to being spoiled on things, but honestly, it kinda feels a little better than living in fear of spoilers constantly. I actually think that the fact that I get spoiled on so much stuff that the enjoyment of actually seeing what was spoiled really isn't lessened as much as it used to.

Plus, not caring about spoilers allows you to learn more about what you like without fear of ruining your experience.

Is there anyone else out there on NeoGAF who really don't care about spoilers, regardless of how much they like something?
 
J

John Kowalski

Banned
I don't care about spoilers. You know what? I don't care if i find out that Leia is actually a spirit ghost zombie, seeing it happen on screen is still fun.
 
E

enigmatic_alex44

Whenever a game uses "middleware," I expect mediocrity. Just see how poor TLOU looks.
How do you "get used to spoilers"? Just go on media blackout or see movies opening weekend.

Takes away half the enjoyment of something to know what happens.
 
E

Eusis

Member
John Kowalski said:
I don't care about spoilers. You know what? I don't care if i find out that Leia is actually a spirit ghost zombie, seeing it happen on screen is still fun.
Click to expand...
Mother of god, does she eat Obi Wan's phantom brains!?

It's kind of dependent, but I don't worry too much now if I spoiled myself. And even some of the more anticipated things I'll be spoiling myself like crazy on if there's a justification for it, IE Evangelion 3.33 taking forever to get out here or even on blu-ray and Eva 2.22 ending on a hell of a note to leave you hanging for years over. Reading the ensuing spec probably was more substantial than the actual damn movie was.
 
Z

zeemumu

Member
It's a sled

The island was real and they're all in purgatory now

Norman's mother is a skeleton in the basement

His step mother was a ventriloquist dummy controlling his father who was also a ventriloquist dummy.

I only care about spoilers for a few things. If I question whether or not the movie or game is worth my time I'll spoil it for myself.
 
L

Llyranor

Member
As ASOIAF book reader, I have accepted that I will sooner or later get spoiled by a random meme in an unrelated thread from season 6 material. And that's okay. I mean, it's not okay, but I won't rage over it (too much).
 
B

Ben Morales

Member
I feasted on BvS spoilers and I'm still going to see it tomorrow. Hell, some of the ones I read made me want to see it more! lol
 
H

Haly

One day I realized that sadness is just another word for not enough coffee.
enigmatic_alex44 said:
Takes away half the enjoyment of something to know what happens.
Click to expand...

When you stop engaging with storytelling entertainment as exercises in pure plot, and shift your appreciation to other aspects of whatever art form you choose, particularly craftsmanship, spoilers hold very little sway over you.

For example, no one (at least I hope not) gets spoiled by music snippets. Your experience isn't ruined if you hear 15 seconds of a yet to be released album. On the contrary, your desire to listen to it might increase. This is because most people engage with music holistically, rather than assigning undue importance to any single note or bar or track. You can, though it requires practice, engage in fiction in the same way. Appreciate the gestalt, rather than miring yourself in minutiae.
 
N

NoblesseOblige

Banned
I don't care about spoilers. Only a bad piece of media can be spoiled by some 'twist' or plot point known ahead of time. And by not caring you'll actually 'spoil' less because you're not primed to be constantly on guard which just makes you more attentive to spoilers. I mean hell, I'll read an entire movie's wiki page, then forget it in a year when I finally get around to watching something. Meanwhile people throw fits because some infinitesimally small piece of information is told to them before hand and they allow themselves to be ruined to the whole experience.
 
K

Kraftwerk

Member
I dont care about spoilers, and spoil myself to a lot of things, but what annoys me is when people spoil shit for others and go "haha get a life, who cares about spoilers"
 
C

CloudyTuba

Member
I want to experience something the way is was intended to be experienced by the person who created it. This rarely involves knowing what happens ahead of time, and to argue otherwise is silly. Some things are meant to be surprises, and if it isn't a surprise, then you didn't experience it, you're just aware of it. What kind of movie would 10 Cloverfield Lane be if you already knew what happened before it started? The entire movie depends on tension that spoilers would deflate.

Depending on what it is though, I may or may not care. For instance, I didn't give the slightest shit about BvS spoilers. However, I didn't want anything about Star Wars spoiled before I saw it. Sometimes spoilers make me more interested in something.
 
A

Abstrusity

Member
Haly said:
When you stop engaging with entertainment fiction as exercises in pure plot, and shift your appreciation to other aspects of whatever art form you choose, particularly craftsmanship, spoilers hold very little sway over you.

For example, no one (at least I hope not) gets spoiled by music snippets. Your experience isn't ruined if you hear 15 seconds of a yet to be released album. On the contrary, your desire to listen to it might increase. This is because most people engage with music holistically, rather than assigning undue important to any single beat or note or album track. You can engage in fiction in the same way. Appreciate the gestalt, rather than miring yourself in minutiae.
Click to expand...

Well yes, but when you take a look at something that is at least the sum of its parts, like say...a video game, where multiple crafts come together to form a cohesive whole, it gets much harder. Yes, Nier has fantastic music, but it also has a fantastic plot, and spoiling this plot takes away from the whole. A sample from an album is one thing, but when something is all plot and setting, and the setting is self apparent, the only thing left to spoil is the plot, and spoiling the plot spoils the entertainment. Moreso, especially, when you're emotionally connected to it.
 
T

The Chef

Member
There have actually been studies showing that a group of people who were spoiled the ending of a book/movie actually enjoyed the book more as a result of being spoiled.
I'm getting to the same place you are op. I tested it out a little bit with a few things to see how I'd react. I had someone tell me the ending for a few movies and then watched them later. It absolutely 100% did not effect my enjoyment of the film. I was instead more curious how it was going to end how I knew it would.
I like spoilers 👍
 
M

MattKeil

BIGTIME TV MOGUL #2
Haly said:
When you stop engaging with storytelling entertainment as exercises in pure plot, and shift your appreciation to other aspects of whatever art form you choose, particularly craftsmanship, spoilers hold very little sway over you.

For example, no one (at least I hope not) gets spoiled by music snippets. Your experience isn't ruined if you hear 15 seconds of a yet to be released album. On the contrary, your desire to listen to it might increase. This is because most people engage with music holistically, rather than assigning undue importance to any single note or bar or track. You can, though it requires practice, engage in fiction in the same way. Appreciate the gestalt, rather than miring yourself in minutiae.
Click to expand...

This is good advice.

Abstrusity said:
Well yes, but when you take a look at something that is at least the sum of its parts, like say...a video game, where multiple crafts come together to form a cohesive whole, it gets much harder. Yes, Nier has fantastic music, but it also has a fantastic plot, and spoiling this plot takes away from the whole. A sample from an album is one thing, but when something is all plot and setting, and the setting is self apparent, the only thing left to spoil is the plot, and spoiling the plot spoils the entertainment. Moreso, especially, when you're emotionally connected to it.
Click to expand...

I don't know what to say to this except "No, it doesn't." No information about any story I have ever learned beforehand has ever ruined the story when I experienced it. Ever. At worst, it's a "well at least that would have been a surprise in this otherwise terribly told story," but that is extraordinarily rare. Any story worth hearing is more than its plot points. I don't know when exactly a significant chunk of the population started consuming narrative like it was all C-list hack whodunit mysteries, but it's really tedious at this point.
 
H

Haly

One day I realized that sadness is just another word for not enough coffee.
SillyNonsense said:
I want to experience something the way is was intended to be experienced by the person who created it.
Click to expand...

So how do you feel about DVD or BRs? What about book written for a specific time and place like Invisible Man? Do you think they no longer hold meaning because they aren't being experienced in the way the creator originally intended?

Or do you think their meaning changes with the context in which they're consumed?
Abstrusity said:
Well yes, but when you take a look at something that is at least the sum of its parts, like say...a video game, where multiple crafts come together to form a cohesive whole, it gets much harder.
Click to expand...

I certainly hope you're not implying that music isn't the sum of its parts. The musical notation, the lyrics, the studio that recorded it, the editing, each individual instrument, packaging, album art, distribution, promotion, even the device you listen to it on. It's all part of the experience of music, as much as those things you mentioned are part of the experience of Nier.

I doubt you'd ever engage with Nier if it was, for example, a script and nothing else. I doubt you'd even care. It only matters when it's part of the "game" you call Nier, but that part is only important as you make it to be. I understand it's important to you, but what each of us considers "important" can be changed by self-reflection. We have agency in this situation to not care about spoilers, or care about them less than we used to.
 
B

Branduil

Member
Haly said:
When you stop engaging with storytelling entertainment as exercises in pure plot, and shift your appreciation to other aspects of whatever art form you choose, particularly craftsmanship, spoilers hold very little sway over you.

For example, no one (at least I hope not) gets spoiled by music snippets. Your experience isn't ruined if you hear 15 seconds of a yet to be released album. On the contrary, your desire to listen to it might increase. This is because most people engage with music holistically, rather than assigning undue importance to any single note or bar or track. You can, though it requires practice, engage in fiction in the same way. Appreciate the gestalt, rather than miring yourself in minutiae.
Click to expand...

This is a good post.

The biggest problem with spoiler culture is that it signals a cultural obsession with cheap plot twists over strong characterization or meaningful themes.
 
T

The Silver

Member
Getting Heavy Rain spoiled for me years ago is what marked my turning point from terrified of spoilers to not giving a shit and realizing if something is really good it doesn't matter if its "spoiled"


It's funny Heavy Rain turned out to be a plot hole filled mess though, great tension though.
 
J

Jintor

Member
Haly said:
When you stop engaging with storytelling entertainment as exercises in pure plot, and shift your appreciation to other aspects of whatever art form you choose, particularly craftsmanship, spoilers hold very little sway over you.

For example, no one (at least I hope not) gets spoiled by music snippets. Your experience isn't ruined if you hear 15 seconds of a yet to be released album. On the contrary, your desire to listen to it might increase. This is because most people engage with music holistically, rather than assigning undue importance to any single note or bar or track. You can, though it requires practice, engage in fiction in the same way. Appreciate the gestalt, rather than miring yourself in minutiae.
Click to expand...

It's a fair way to look at it; but I still think there's something to be said for the tension of not being able to see what's coming.
 
C

CloudyTuba

Member
Haly said:
So how do you feel about DVD or BRs? What about book written for a specific time and place like Invisible Man? Do you think they no longer hold meaning because they aren't being experienced in the way the creator originally intended?

Or do you think their meaning changes with the context of how they're consumed?
Click to expand...

Taking the argument to unreasonable lengths does not prove anything. No, I don't have a time machine to alter history and make it so I was born in the right era to enjoy a certain book "as intended." Nor did I ever say that something completely loses it's meaning if the context is changed in any way. It won't be the same, though. And depending on the specific circumstances it may change your perception of it wildly.

And every director hopes that you'll see their movie in a theatre with full attention, but it's reasonable to assume that won't always be possible. And some people watch movies for the first time on their phones, which pisses directors off to no end but they know it happens. Context does matter, but you gotta be reasonable about it. I'm not saying spoilers always matter, I'm saying they can matter. I dont think The Big Lebowski will suffer much if you spoil plot details, but I think 10 Cloverfield Lane would suffer immensely.

All viewing context and factors are part of the whole that is your viewing experience, which at times can be very important and other times not as much. But to suggest that it is not a factor at all is ridiculous.
 
L

LyleLanley

Banned
I've mostly stopped caring about spoilers. It's too stressful to care and for the most part it doesn't really change how much I enjoy whatever the game or movie is.
 
F

Fandangox

Member
I think the last time I ever cared about spoilers was when I waited to play xenoblade chronichles way after release. I tried to do the same with Xenoblade X, but stopped caring and just spoiled the whole thing, for the best, the story and characters were pretty bad.

Mostly awaiting April 12 so I can know everything about Civil War

ITS ALL ABOUT THE JOURNEY MAN
 
B

Branduil

Member
Jintor said:
It's a fair way to look at it; but I still think there's something to be said for the tension of not being able to see what's coming.
Click to expand...

Sure, something. Emphasis on some. The problem I see is that spoiler culture has promoted a mindset of spoilers being the only thing. The term itself implies that a work is somehow "ruined" by knowing what happens, which is bullshit. It's only ruined if plot twists are literally the only thing a story has going for it.
 
T

tokkun

Member
Spoiler-phobia is really just the way that people in our consumer-driven culture express the fear that they are missing out on something important in life. We get older, we see time passing us by, and we worry that there are all these great things we will never get to experience. Spoilers have become such a focus of these feelings because it is easier to wrap your mind around. The idea that you are not going to ever be able to experience the feelings of total surprise you would have when consuming the media without the spoiler is something immediate and easy to understand. We build up these elaborate arguments in our heads about the importance of consuming a piece of media in a specific way, but obviously this is pretty shallow when you try to look at it from any sort of broader perspective. It only feels important because is tapping into a more elemental part of the human experience.

If you can start to consciously face your fears about missed opportunities in life you will start to become a lot less sensitive about spoilers.
 
H

Haly

One day I realized that sadness is just another word for not enough coffee.
SillyNonsense said:
Context does matter, but you gotta be reasonable about it.
Click to expand...

I think it's reasonable to be accepting of all kinds context. I don't think it's reasonable to place all your faith and trust and ardor in that one, perfect, idealized context as defined by the "creator's intent".

Our modern society puts too much emphasis on impractical ideals. The very nature of entertainment consumption is changing year over year and yet we still try to capture the innocence of engaging with a piece of fiction for the first time, like we did two, maybe three decades ago, without ever having been subjected to marketing or criticism or international discussion clubs, which is what NeoGAF is, even as we voluntarily engage with media as a collective on a level we have never before. Trying to force the past into the present isn't very reasonable at all. I don't have any issue with it, but as far as I'm concerned it's a source of anxiety you choose to make, not one that is thrust upon you.
 
D

DeadPhoenix

Member
The Chef said:
There have actually been studies showing that a group of people who were spoiled the ending of a book/movie actually enjoyed the book more as a result of being spoiled.
I'm getting to the same place you are op. I tested it out a little bit with a few things to see how I'd react. I had someone tell me the ending for a few movies and then watched them later. It absolutely 100% did not effect my enjoyment of the film. I was instead more curious how it was going to end how I knew it would.
I like spoilers ��
Click to expand...

This is the one you are talking about I believe.

Personally, the bitching and moaning about spoilers has hurt a movie experience for me more then being spoiled about something ever has. That said I'm still able to enjoy the unspoiled parts of stories/movies/games/whatever when it happens. I really just get the best both worlds.
 
P

Poodlestrike

Banned
I actively seek them out.

You can know everything about a thing going in and still love it for what it is. The joy is in the journey, not the destination.
 
C

chaislip3

Member
I knew the entire plot of The Force Awakens months in advance and it didn't affect my viewing in the slightest. In fact, I think it enhanced it since I could focus on other aspects of the film.
 
A

akira28

Member
just forget everything you see, read, or hear, unless it's something you want to commit to memory. Then movie spoilers don't matter because everything is a gray fuzz anyway.
 
J

John Kowalski

Banned
Jintor said:
It's a fair way to look at it; but I still think there's something to be said for the tension of not being able to see what's coming.
Click to expand...

There is, because there is obviously a tension to it, one whose release is a planned aspect of many things and which doesn't quite work if there is no tension in the first place.

Personally the way i think of spoilers is that me knowing the twist of a movie can't ever tell me everything that i'll learn while watching it. For example, recently i saw two movies inspired by real events, Spotlight and The Big Short. I didn't even need to read the wiki page to spoil myself, half knowing what the movies were about i could fill in the rest with a relatively rich knowledge of the themes they tackled. Like, i knew what the housing crisis was, i knew that things went sideways and turned really ugly. I also knew about the whole Boston priests thing because i had read about it a long time ago. In both cases, like when i learn a spoiler about a movie i've yet to see (for example, that in Fury Road
the second arc is basically the character turning their truck around and going back the way they came
), i take respite in knowing that what that spoiler tells me is actually very limited and probably unrepresentative of the scene in question. Truthfully, you can't be really spoiled, only, like, spoiled halfway or even less of a specific thing.

If you value going in completely blind... then yeah you're in a bind pretty much. But that sort of living is really stressful, personally.
 
P

PlatypusDude

Member
AuthenticM said:
Aerith dies
Click to expand...

Can't wait for the inevitable war to break out when the remake comes out over this fact and people arguing if it's a spoiler or not. On-Topic yeah I've pretty much given up on not spoiling anything for myself and hell I even seek out spoilers a lot of the time I personally find the foreshadowing in most works more interesting than the twist itself. That and I don't have to get worked up about stumbling on something that I don't want to if I'm the one looking for it.
 
C

CloudyTuba

Member
Haly said:
I think it's reasonable to be accepting of all kinds context. I don't think it's reasonable to place all your faith and trust and ardor chasing that one, perfect, idealized context as defined by the "creator's intent".

Our modern society puts too much emphasis on impractical ideals. The very nature of entertainment consumption is changing year over year and yet we still try to capture the innocence of engaging with a piece of fiction for the first time, like we did two, maybe three decades ago, without ever having been subjected to marketing or criticism or international discussion clubs, which is what NeoGAF is, even as we voluntarily engage with media as a collective on a level we have never before. Trying to force the past into the present isn't very reasonable at all. I don't have any issue with it, but as far as I'm concerned it's a source of anxiety you choose to make, not one that is thrust upon you.
Click to expand...

Again you take the conversation to unreasonable lengths, turning a discussion about spoilers into some irrelevant nonsense about societies impractical focus on impossible modern ideals compared to public media engagement of the 80s, and the psychology behind choosing your own anxieties.

Come on, man. Learn to keep it real. You are way fucking out there right now, stay practical.
You can appreciate a well written joke even if you already know the punchline, but it's not going to make you laugh the same way. Simple as that.

And anyone who claims to have a deep appreciation of the craft and yet doesn't understand the importance of spoilers relating to tension is fooling themselves. Like appreciating the brush strokes involved in making a painting before even taking a step back and letting it strike you. Like someone knowing all the words in the dictionary and thinking that it makes them a good writer. Go ahead and ask the content creators, the people who really understand it, what they think of you knowing their spoilers ahead of time.

Sometimes you just won't care about what the creator had in mind, and that's fine. I didn't give a shit about BvS spoilers, but it definitely affected my experience. In this case it helped because I was better prepared for the shitshow I was in for. In other cases it would do more harm than good. It's not black and white. There is no "all spoilers dont matter" like some here suggest, nor is it "all spoilers matter." Apparently people seem to only be capable of binary decisions. Business as usual.
 
R

redmetal86

Member
I only become one with spoilers when it's something that I figured was going to happen anyway, when the spoiler is so obvious that it doesn't matter to me. It's hard to avoid spoilers these days though, because there always that one chance that someone will mention a spoiler to a movie in a place that has nothing to do with it. I think I was spoiled on the twist in The Force Awakens by a comment on a Kipkay video, and this was the same week the film released.
 
Status
Not open for further replies.

Similar threads

Do you care about spoilers?
Social Opinion
43
2K
Northeastmonk replied
Sony bet big on Marvel and that might really pay off (possible spoilers)
48
4K
THE DUCK replied
God of War Valhalla Is Surprisingly Awesome
2 3 4 5
207
20K
SF Kosmo replied
I've Become A "Trekkie"
2
62
3K
Darkmakaimura replied
How do I deal with PTSD?
23
1K
Leopold replied
Top Bottom