What do you think of spoilers?

General Discussion
#1

I have to declare it. I am a spoiler lover.
Since I dislike wasting 16 or more hours of my life to watch something with a disappointing ending, I have the habit of reading reviews, recaps and comments on the last episode, to find out whether I’ll be disappointed or not, before deciding to watch a drama.
However, I want to choose when it’s important to me or not to know. Sometimes I can guess how it will go from the synopsis and by watching the first episodes, so I don’t care to know the exact details.
And of course I know that there are people who really hate spoilers. For them, the plot is everything, and they wouldn’t watch even the best made film or drama if they already knew the ending. (It’s probably the people who never rewatch a movie or read a book twice) And yes, there are dramas which are not that well-made, so the plot is the only thing that holds the viewers’ interest. Sort of like paper dishes, good for only one use, to be thrown away afterwards.
Therefore, I do flag, chastise and report those who spoil on a drama’s main page.

How about you? Are you an ardent anti-spoilerist or not?

Here is a very interesting article: a scientific study showed that people enjoy books more if they know the finale. Yes, even in crime mysteries! When they are less baffled, they can be more relaxed and enjoy.
https://ucsdnews.ucsd.edu/archive/newsrel/soc/2011_08spoilers.asp

And this one: “Spoilers don’t hurt good films”
One of the commenters wrote:

To be clear though, spoilers don’t ruin the movie itself, but “spoils” the first-time viewing experience of the movie for many of us. So, Gunn and the studies are right in a sense, as Garth said it, knowing the twists of a great film in advance does not detract from the work’s impact. A good film will hold up. Still, doesn’t mean I want to know all those twists and reveals before I see the film.
With great movies I end up owning and re-watching them for years and years, learning all the beats, musical cues & great lines by heart, but I love that first thrill of going into it blind when the theater lights go down and I’m chewing on my strawberry Twizzlers.

Here is a Quora discussion, titled: Why people hate spoilers?.

And another one, with many anti-spoiler replies.

Dear people who hate spoilers His examples involve games rather than shows but he has an interesting attitude.

Anti-spoiler article: Scientific explanation for why spoilers are so horrible

2 Likes
#2

I have a habit of reading reviews and comments as well, but usually to see what people thought of a particular scene or something that really stood out to me.

I don’t hate spoilers, except for in the Timed Comments, those are the worst. I don’t like it when people spoil something for others who really don’t want to know what is going to happen.

Other than that I quite like it when people tell me the plot of dramas or movies I haven’t watched yet. Yes, it taints your viewing experience, but on the other hand, you can focus on micro-expressions and the build up. Has the filmmaker provided ‘tells’? Or is it a completely out-of-the-blue?

I think I watch stories especially for their build-up (even if I already know what is going to happen - it saves me from having to re-watch that scene in that case since I know what to focus on). And I really love it when actors portray micro-expressions or psychological states (I’m a total nerd for those; we had to analyze films like Clockworks Orange for Abnormal psychology class) :smile_cat:.

Ah, I just thought of a series I might not want spoilers for: Black Mirror. The first-time movie experience is one of the main aspects of that show and it’s really fun to compare what you thought of the episode vs. someone else. If you know what is going to happen, that might taint you just a bit :blush:

2 Likes
#3 
                     "Whenever I see a spoiler," 
                     "I get as hot as a boiler,"
               "So please consider there is another," 
                    "Who might see it and suffer."
              "All I ask is you make use of your pointer," 
                    "And just blur out that spoiler,"
                    "Before someone becomes bitter."

:sweat_smile::sweat_smile::sweat_smile:

2 Likes
#4

I have a love and hate relationship with spoilers. As a segger you cannot prevent getting spoiled as you have to watch to be able to seg. So I don’t mind them. But when I for once watch a drama without being part of the team I hate reading spoilers.

And then it becomes a bit odd…
When there are quite a few completed drama I want to watch and marathon but I cannot pick them all I do check the ratings on dramawiki and mydramalist (To bad we cannot use Viki for that for the obvious reasons they don’t want to fix). Are they not so good I skip. When I have to much difficulties getting into a dramaplot and am not sure if I want to continue I do read some spoilers and decide if I shall continue or not…

5 Likes
#5

I hate spoilers so much :triumph: and I hate my sister (we watch dramas together) even more for accidentally spoiling almost everything I watch :triumph:

3 Likes
#6

Hey @irmar ! To be sincere, when I follow a movie or a drama that I love so much, I’m completely focus on the characters, theirs expressions, the places, objects… in order to guess how would be the next part. If I must resume all I said, I analyse all scenes in a film and if someone spoils me something, I cry. I cry, because I didn’t see the scene and it means that I didn’t see the expression of characters, I didn’t see the place and I couldn’t be sure about if all my suppositions were true or not… so now, we can say I am an anti-spoiler if they spoil me, but if it is someone else, I don’t care, I laugh…
But, honestly, I love to spoil a scene and stay quit on the important thing, because people thinks that the scene wasn’t important and they can to see the next part, because the last is just to waste their time. And then, when they see the next part and don’t understand what they watch, and they know what I didn’t say. I laugh, because I spoiled them the film in an intelligent way, I play the innocent and say “Ain’t my fault, you don’t ask me what was REALLY important in this part!”. I do that only if someone spoils me something.

1 Like
#7

I try to avoid them if I can, but sometimes summaries and plots reveal too much.

Before I start watching a drama, I always read the plot, because I know what I’m getting into and see if it would be interesting.
One time I read the plot of a K-drama on Wikipedia and it revealed in which epsiode the true identity of the male lead was revealed and what this identity was. This was kind of a big spoiler and I didn’t like this reveal. When watching the drama however and reading the timed comments, I could see exactly who hadn’t seen the Wikipage, cause many viewers were surprised about the twist.

I also don’t think a bad ending is a bad thing. If you watched a drama and 90 percent of it is good and only the last 10% is disappointing, you still enjoyed the drama for 90% of the time. That’s why I don’t like spoilers about the ending, becuase if I would decide not to watch the movie/drama because of the ending, I could miss out a good drama for most of its parts.

1 Like
#8

I hate seeing spoilers in the time comment. I wanted to ‘‘kill’’ this girl for spoiling a scene for me, so now I turn off completely the time comments.

If I see the spoiler in the page comments it doesn’t bother me, since I was the one who went there to read the comments. That was a chance I took.

I love spoilers when the drama drags and I can’t stand watching the whole episode so I ‘‘fly’’ to the comment section and get really happy with spoilers.

You can say is a love/hate feeling.

1 Like
#9

To be honest I don’t ever pay any attention to spoiler, nor do I take the time to read them.
I do my own personal judging of a drama, If there is a spoiler I rather find out on my own without someone else, two cents of words. Beside why make it bad for the next person before they even have a chance to watch whatever drama it is?What may be a spoiler for some may not be so for others. So to each it’s own to find out.

2 Likes
#10

@feyfayer @angelight313_168

You can ask the moderator to remove the timed comment spoilers if it really bothers you. If it happens to be a drama that I am a moderator for, I’m willing to remove those for a better viewing experience :slight_smile:

4 Likes
#11

@Thank you that is very nice of you.

Is not happening now bc they delete the time comments as soon as they spot curses or spoilers.
I still don’t read them out of fear of reading a spoiler while watching the drama. Not taking chances.

2 Likes
#12

Yes I don’t watch timed comments anymore, but the times I did, it was annoyance.

2 Likes
#13

Yes NIF was the biggest offender!!!

1 Like
#14

Yes, in Timed Comments it’s inadmissible, you have to be considerate. Fortunately they can be deleted (I make it a point to do so). Not so the disqus comments on the main page! There, only mass downvoting and reporting can work.

This said, there are people who shout “Spoiler, spoiler!” indignantly even if you just make a guess, even if you haven’t seen the rest of the episodes because they haven’t been aired yet.
You say, for instance:
“Now they’re arguing but they will fall in love later”
“He must be her childhood friend”
“The father surely has cancer/dementia/a heart condition. He will probably die”
“I bet she’s going to go abroad for studies without contacting him for a couple of years” or
“Now the chaebol mother will try to break their relationship”.

I mean, come on! Anyone can guess those. Sometimes these things are written in the synopsis, tagline or poster, character description etc. Sometimes you knoq because you’ve watched many k-dramas and they tend to be very predictable.
Or sometimes your guess is not correct after all!
But a guess isn’t a spoiler! A spoiler is if you have watched the drama and say what you know to those who haven’t. If none of you has seen how it will end (because it’s still airing and even the writers are not 100% sure what will happen in the next episodes), and you offer an idea, which may or may not turn out to be correct, then by no means can it be considered a spoiler.

2 Likes
#15

Thanks for the warning, I have yet to watch NIF and although I don’t turn them on, I sometimes get tempted. Not when watching that drama then :smile:

#16

Yes I completely agree with you. I’m a major guesser and I often tell my husband what I think is going to happen in an episode. Often that is exactly what happens, but sometimes his guess was right or we’re both surprised. I have nothing against those.

I also think the spoiler-culture has gone a bit haywire, calling everything you say about a movie or series a spoiler…

I was referring to are the re-watchers who deliberately spoil the plot for the viewers, especially something that wasn’t guessable yet based on the information that was presented to you till that point…

2 Likes
#17

Alternatively…you can volunteer to delete those spoilers in the timed comments for shows you love to rewatch. Ask the channel manager of said.

1 Like