It’s the most wonderful time of the year! No, not back to school. Not, not the pumpkining (but, yay!). I am talking about the New TV Season! Buh-bye, reruns, helloooooo new episodes of everything. Sure, I can’t remember how half of my shows ended last season but who cares? My stories are back!
But you guys…we need to talk about social media spoilers, and how everyone freaks out about them.
As you know, I live on the West Coast, where everything airs on TV three hours later than the East Coast. Before 2006 or 2007, this delay wasn’t really a big deal. But then social media became huge, and people started posting about shows as they happened. And ohhhhh man, did this burn me up. I would tweet at people, “That episode of Lost hasn’t even aired on the West Coast yet!” (But you know, in caps lock and with a lot of exclamation points, so they knew I was really angry). Like, thanks for telling me what’s in the hatch, jerks.
Except, who is really at fault here? The people using social media to, you know, be social? Or the dumb-dumb who keeps going on social media three hours before her show airs?
I think we all have to agree that the burden of not being spoiled lies on the person who is, for whatever reason, watching the show later. I can’t (and shouldn’t) prevent people from talking about the latest episode of Grey’s Anatomy on Facebook, but I can easily avoid Facebook for a few hours. The night the Mad Men series finale aired, our cable went out, preventing us from watching the episode until the next day. Mike and I had to not only avoid social media, we had to avoid ALL media, since every talk show and news program was discussing the finale. It CAN be done! (I was so productive that day, I passed like 10 levels on Candy Crush).
That being said, those who have seen shows should do their best to not be Spoiler Spoilersons. For example:
~Do not post on someone’s Facebook wall, “OMG let me know when you get to the part in Nashville when Reyna’s car crashes!” Because they will get an email notification about your post and want to punch you.
~Do not text your friend with a selfie of you crying with the caption, “My face when I heard the news about Betty.” Because they haven’t heard the news about Betty yet!
~Do not answer the question, “Did you see last night’s Big Bang Theory?” with, “YES, can you believe it ended with Leonard and Penny DOING THAT SPOILERY THING?” Because a simple Yes or No was all I was going for, Mom.
Ready to watch her stories.
Spoiler alert: spoilers are still going to happen, unless you are some kind of magical unicorn who can watch every show live. But let’s all chill about social media spoiling our shows – if you go on Facebook or Twitter before an episode airs, you are knowingly running the risk of exposing yourself to spoilers.
You should also probably avoid talking to my mom.
Jana from Germany says:
Try living in Germany where all shows come with a year (!) time difference, because they absolutly have to dub them. I hate dubbing and I hate dubbed shows and I want to watch them the same time you do. I would love only 3 hours of time difference.
Kris says:
Grass is always greener–East Coast sports fans have trouble watching many of their teams play in championships. Mostly baseball…it’s really difficult to stay up to midnight night after night for 3-4 weeks when the games start at 8:30 here and run more than 3 hours. It’s especially annoying when neither team is from the West Coast, and we still have to wait that long for the games to start. Sorry, I’d rather the young fans get to see the teams play than a minority of transplants who left the area.
And my mom does the same thing to me.
Heather says:
The later start for sports was hard for me when I lived in NYC, especially baseball – the Dodgers usually started at 7:30pm on the WEST coast – so 10:30 on the east!
Nancy Smego says:
I have lived in Central Time Zone and Pacific. Good and bad. It’s tough when your eastern time zone friends blab. Sigh. But you’re right about the sports thing….it’s hard to watch my Seahawks play in NY.
Shea says:
The worst is when you’re talking about an episode that aired weeks (or even years!) ago, and someone says, “Hey! Spoiler alert!” I know people get behind on their DVRs or binge watch old shows on Netflix, blahblahblah, but you can’t expect people to never ever talk about a TV show for all time so as not to spoil it. If you can’t get it together to watch with a week or so, you forfeit your spoiler complaint rights…
Rebecca says:
I’m lucky because none of my friends share spoilers on Facebook but I have a Yahoo email and, for a while, they would put spoilers right up on the homepage. Not a picture of the show and a “spoiler alert” caption, but a picture of the characters and a caption that was about as subtle as “CAN YOU BELIEVE _____ HAPPENED?”
Not cool.
Becca says:
haha – I hadn’t heard the news about Betty, yet.
Anna says:
Yessss! Don’t be a jerk about being inconsiderate, but holy cow are people super entitled about not being spoiled when they choose to watch shows later than they’ve aired! The people moaning about the Emmy’s spoiling shows that have been off the air for MONTHS was the worst! It’s the emmy’s! It’s for television geeks! Also, people treat spoilers as if the entire show is worth the surprise at the end – I know people who complain about spoilers about season five of game of thrones when they haven’t even started! As if all those hours were JUST so you can be shocked at 30 seconds at the end. So juvenile! I remember watching season 2 or 3 of Dexter knowing the “big surprise” ending – I barely understood the context when I heard it initially, and then as I was watching it was still surprising and emotional! Sorry for the tirade, but spoiler babies make me so annoyed!
Lisa F. says:
I traded cable for a Roku when I moved into my new apartment two years ago. I never watch anything on the night it airs anymore, almost to the point where I’m not sure when my favorite shows are on anymore! For that reason, I make a conscious choice to avoid social media — or I don’t, and it’s my fault if I get spoiled.
Emily says:
I was talking to my mom when I was in college and didn’t have HBO. There had been speculation about a character dying on Six Feet Under, and I told her who my guess was. She goes, “No, it was so-and-so.” WTF?! This was in 2005 and I’m still mad.
Heather says:
LOL I would still be bitter about that, too!
Stacey says:
I hope Annie doesn’t post any spoilers of Octonauts. I love the Creature Report break down and would hate to have this season ruined for me. BTW, yes, I do feel a little awkward recognizing that was was she was watching.
Heather says:
This made me laugh out loud. But don’t worry – I’ll make sure she doesn’t tell anyone about the status of the Octonauts saving the day.
Anna says:
The NFL store gave me a spoiler this weekend. I had recently ordered some shirts from there, so they decided to go ahead and let me know in the subject line of an email that the Steelers had won their game this week when I was waiting to watch it with my husband. I thought I would be safe checking my email! I quickly unsubscribed from that list.
Glenda says:
I live on the West Coast too, but I go on Twitter just to read the winners of award shows and see the pictures on the red carpet. I’m also fine if someone’s read the book or seen the movie before me, and share… regardless if I am going to watch or read I still will. And when I don’t want a spoiler I stay away from twitter
Katrina says:
Because of my kids’ schedules and the teens’ late night homework and running them around from place to place, even in the evening hours… I cannot watch anything until it’s on Netflix. I know!! I definitely miss out on the fun with that. But, it is what it is. I have never really been too bothered by the “spoilers” until Derek died on Grey’s. And I was like….WHAT???? NOOOOO! and I had to wait, like six month or so until I saw that episode on Netflix. And by then the moment was over. I hated that I couldn’t be a part of that huge happening in “real time” — ah well.
You mentioned LOST. Please tell me I’m not the only one who hated the ending and didn’t really get it at all. What the heck? Someone explain that to me. Please. They were all just in some kind of purgatory? what? Ugh…such a let down.
Heather says:
I totally understand that – I don’t watch a lot of things in “real time” and I only have to deal with two kids’ schedules! But yeah, that “community watch” is pretty fun…I have binge watched a few shows and I’ve been sad to miss out on the real-time discussions about how some shows ended.
And no – definitely not the only one who hated the ending. I felt like it was such a cop-out!
Lissa says:
As one who has yet to watch the current Greys season…..thanks for spoiling it in this post about spoiling. Would it be so hard to speak in abstract terms vs Derek dying?
miriam says:
Passed 10 levels of candy crush, thank you for a good laugh this morning…
As an aside, during the Emmys this weekend, two of the entertainment trade publications put the name of the winner(s) in the email headline..seriously!
Mara says:
Want to know what’s worse than the 3-hour East Coast/West Coast difference? I lived in Asia for a while, so the airing of the episode on the East Coast coincided with the middle of the night. Consequently, for every episode of every TV show ever, I would have to avoid spoilers for an entire DAY until the episode aired for me in the evening. Eventually I had to just pick and choose which 1-2 shows to avoid spoilers for because damn, I’m no saint and I can’t avoid social media all day, every day.
Heather says:
Ugh, that’s so hard!
Rachel says:
LOL at “(I was so productive that day, I passed like 10 levels on Candy Crush).”
Peggy says:
i was going to leave this exact comment! this made me lol too!
rachel says:
What is candy crush??
Heather says:
It is maybe one of the most addictive game apps out there. DO NOT DOWNLOAD IT. IT’S TOO LATE FOR ME. SAVE YOURSELF.
Toni says:
I too love the Candy Crush comment!!!
Meghan says:
Heather your children are beautiful. My daughter Piper is currently fighting her battle with prematurity. She is 8 weeks old and was born at 27 weeks. You can read her story at http://www.gofund.me/pipergracewilliams Can you recommend any particular preemie services/books that really helped you when your Maddie was in the NICU or shortly after. I am so sorry for your loss and so happy for your precious Annie and James
Heather says:
Oh Meghan, your Piper is such a beautiful little fighter! When we were in the NICU, I really leaned on the March of Dimes. There wasn’t a lot else available to me, but now I highly suggest http://handtohold.org/. It’s really amazing. Does your NICU have a support group? The NICU we were at didn’t at the time, but does now.
Heather says:
Also, PLEASE let me know if there is anything I can do for you!!
Kat says:
Haha, social media does make it hard. But we’re on the other side of the world and have to wait months for shows sometimes! So many people pirate stuff because the internet is full of spoilers well before we’re legally able to watch it.
Jordan says:
Funny spoiler story:
So a couple years ago I was reading the Divergent Series. I read the first two pretty fast, but the last one was slower (if you’ve read them you know what I’m talking about) so it took me a couple months to slog through it (before I then nearly through it against the wall at Starbucks. THE ENDING OMG).
ANYWAY. I reccomended the series to a friend. This friend read the ENTIRE series in a 2 week time-span over our Thanksgiving break. She’d assumed I had finished Allegiant already (since, y’know, I had been reading it forever). She texted me, “OMG I cannot believe “MASSIVE SPOILER HERE.” when I hadn’t got to that part.
The funniest part was that I’d JUST had a conversation with a friend whom hadn’t finished the book either and had gotten the EXACT SAME SPOILER from a website. She said she didn’t want to finish the book cause of it. Then I got the same spoiler from another friend. It was hilarious.
I normally would have been annoyed/mad, but I just laughed. And laughed and laughed. i texted my friend and she was SO upset and apologetic. It was just purely ironic to me. i then decided to put the book down and pick it back up after finals, in January, and put the spoiler I received at the back of my mind. Until I got to that part, hence the wanting to pummel the book against the wall.
Jordan says:
oh, and let’s not forget the time a friend spoiled Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince for me. I was a junior in HS and had never read HP before. I WAS PISSED. Her response: “you should have read it before now!!”
true, but still. *sobs quietly*
Annalisa says:
Eh. I actually don’t care if I get spoiled. Then again, I’m one of those people who sometimes has to skip to the last page of the book while only having read up to the middle of the book to figure out if it’s worth reading to the end (and no, I’m not ashamed of it… I’m just too good at predicting stuff).
Kirsty says:
I agree with the first commenter… Living in France means we can be up to a year behind (more for some shows). It’s not possible to just “stay off social media”, so almost every show is “spoiled” for me. Mad Men isn’t even shown here, so I have to wait for the DVD… The last 7 episodes still aren’t available, so yes, it’s really annoying knowing pretty much everything that happens…
I know it’s my own “fault” for living here, but if people in the US could at least put a warning that their post contains spoilers that would help. I don’t much use Twitter because of the impossibility of avoiding spoilers…
Wendy Constantinoff says:
Terrestrial tv station channel 5 here in UK is years behind showing NCIS (all versions) I have to avoid social media posts so I don’t know what is currently happening. But NCIS original New Orleans and LA are on tonight so I can do some catching up
Rachel says:
I watch Masterchef AU, but have to download it because it makes Masterchef US look like infants trying to cook (they don’t air it here), and they run 4 episodes a week. That’s 4 hours of my life that I have to plan for. I have to completely unfollow anyone associated with Masterchef on instagram for months because you know someone is going to say something or post a picture of “the final dish.” Luckily there are no ads or news about it around here.
Molly says:
When the final Harry Potter book came out, my dad put us all on media lockdown and read to us for an entire weekend straight so that we would finish it in time to go back to school on Monday. I think I even came home from college for the weekend. He had read them all aloud to us as kids and we had to finish the trend. I thought he was absurd until I snuck off during a break and ended up on the ABC News homepage and accidentally read a spoiler. He was totally right. The one I am still mad about is the time I had started watching the HIMYM series finale (20 minutes after the show ended) and when I posted that I was going to start watching a friend spoiled the ending for me. I was livid. And then I was livid because the ending was SO BAD and I was glad she spoiled it so I knew when to start yelling at my TV.