Free Spoiler Zone

I am the internet’s worst nightmare.

The other night I was listening to Marketplace on NPR (I love Kai Ryssdal, I may have mentioned this before) and I heard a fantastic commentary on the issue of spoilers. Beth Teitell made an excellent case about how we’re all setting ourselves up for spoiler disappointment while at the same time becoming more sensitive to spoilers.

I am the worst of the lot.

Just the other week I finally watched Jekyll (2007) from the BBC on Netflix. Note the year on that one. If someone had told me any of the salient plot points before I watched it, I would have been beyond infuriated, but really, it’s been around for over five years. How could they know? More importantly, why should they care?

This is typical for me. I watch movies months after they leave the theater (with rare exceptions), and I’m usually several weeks behind in my TV show watching. I’ve been known to run away from conversations I’m not even party to with my hands over my ears screaming “NO SPOILERS!” like a lunatic, and that’s just in real life. On the internet I’m far worse.

But the truth is we can’t avoid spoilers, nor can we reasonably expect to. Part of the fun of pop culture is that it’s popular (hence the “pop”), and we want to talk about it. Denying people that just so we can enjoy things on our own schedule is selfish. At the same time, expecting everyone to be able to invest their entire lives in keeping up with everything worthwhile all the time is just silly, too. It’s not like we’re still in the age of single-screen movie theaters, three TV channels, and nobody to talk to but the people in our small towns.

Therefore, I am declaring a Free Spoiler Zone.

It works like this: there is a statute of limitations on the right to declare “NO SPOILERS!” Once the statute of limitations has passed, it is incumbent on each individual to either be in the know or to guard themselves; prior to that proper decorum requires the asking of “Have you seen…” or a similar inquiry before discussing anything, as well as a reasonable warning to anyone joining the conversation. This should help alleviate the distress being caused by our over-saturated, media hyped world, and allow us all some peace.

The rules I suggest are as follows:

1. An absolute moratorium on any communications within 24 hours of an event. Don’t even talk about it; you don’t know who is in earshot. I don’t even want to hear “OMFG THAT WAS SO GOOD!” or “Meh, this week’s episode was okay.” Let me find out for myself, especially if I’m in a different time zone.

2. Barring sporting events, reality TV, or  other “real time” entertainment, any electronic communication for the first week must be preceded by the phrase “SPOILER ALERT”. If it’s real time entertainment, after 24 hours you take your chances, but please, don’t be a jerk; if you know someone TiVo’d it, don’t ruin the big game.

3. For all other TV shows, every in-person conversation must include “Have you seen…” or some other socially acceptable form of spoiler alert for one month. After that, you need to either clear out your DVR or climb out from under the rock.

4. For movies you get one month of nobody says nothing. Then all bets are off.

5. Actual news events are exempt from these rules. News should be shared.

6. Feel free to share political shows, commentary, debates, et al to your heart’s content. You deserve what you get.

While I am willing to negotiate on the length of time involved in each rule, I truly believe that following these rules will improve our lives. Everyone will have a free and fair chance to enjoy their quality entertainment without fear of having it ruined, while at the same time encouraging and enhancing the sort of interpersonal relationships we’re losing for fear of not being able to share our love of the great and diverse culture we all enjoy.

However, I am declaring one category of entertainment completely off-limits to spoilers (by special request from My Not So Humble Wife): books. I actually have to agree with her on this one, for a lot of reasons. People read at different speeds, borrow books from each other, and most of all we want to encourage more literacy, not less. Besides, I haven’t finished the Illiad yet, and I can’t wait to find out how it ends.