More Fannish 50 ramble

[tellshannon815]

Combination of not having done much ramble in a couple of weeks and also the fact that Yellowjackets has now returned and I'm conscious of the fact that yellowjackets_fans needs a spoiler policy in the info made me think of the subject for ramble, and it's spoilers.

After what period of time do people think spoilers are fair game? Something I came across once in a Supernatural group on Facebook was where someone had posted something about Season 8, and someone had got annoyed with them about that because they hadn't got that far yet so for them, that was a spoiler. While I can't remember exactly when this was, it was years after Season 8 had aired, so a lot of people were saying things about how it was ridiculous to expect no spoilers to be posted for something that had aired years ago, and if they were daft enough to read a group knowing they were years behind, that was on them. And okay, that one was fair enough, but what would be an acceptable period to make sure all spoilers are behind a cut? Some go for a week, does that sound reasonable?

Something that may make a difference is whether something is airing weekly, or whether it drops all at once (so those who choose to binge it all on Day 1 get ahead of those who only have time/prefer to watch one at a time). I particularly remember it coming up with You, although it'll have happened with others for sure, where conversations were going along the lines of:

Poster 1: "I can't believe X is dead!"
Poster 2: "I can't believe you just spoiled it, I'm not there yet!"
Poster 1: "It's your own fault for reading the group when you're not caught up, just mute it, fool!"

Thing is, it's not quite as simple as just muting it, fool. I've definitely had it where one of my shows has aired in the US when it's the middle of the night in my UK time zone, and I've got up in the morning to find my phone has decided to give me a Google News alert about "Legends of Tomorrow Just Killed Off *character who was actually improved by being a ghost*". Seriously, phone, can't you just stick to the usual guff you send me about big snowstorms that never actually come, train delays in Sydney and some MPs who've never spoken in Parliament...in Kenya? (all examples of real rubbish my phone thinks I want alerts about).

Something I do think is dickish is posting spoilers for something that hasn't actually aired yet. When season 3 of From was airing, there was a fuss over some eejits having posted spoilers on Reddit for the last few episodes of the season, before they'd aired. I made the conscious choice to avoid them at the time, so I don't know for certain now how much of it was actually legit (I caught a quick glimpse of one thing, but thought at the time that what I did see looked like gibberish that could have been created if someone asked ChatGPT how the season was going to end. One thing it claimed was going to happen with one particular character didn't end up coming to pass, so I think that one was just rubbish.)

Given the choice, I'd rather it was a choice I made for myself whether I get spoiled or not. The majority of the time, it's going to be a no, and I'd rather wait to see the episodes for myself. (Stems from when I was four, and I was so excited about my advent calendar that I opened half my windows in November. Then when it got to the actual dates in December and I'd already seen the pictures, the disappointment was such that it put me off any ideas of ever hunting for Christmas and birthday presents, and this has carried on through to me choosing not to seek out spoilers for my shows as well. I can even remember one time reading someone's theory for Lost about how Locke's storyline with his father was going to end, and they were close enough to what actually happened that it almost felt like a disappointment because I knew - even though that was no one's fault. Someone guessed what was going to happen before the episode aired, they guessed right, it was one of those things. The time when someone put "We will remember you, X" actually on a cut for some icons right after the episode aired and that was how I found out X had been killed off? That was just dickish.

I think the one time I've really made an exception to that was the time loads of my shows came back from hiatus at the same time and that happened to be when I was going to Vienna for a week with family, I knew I wouldn't be able to watch anything that week due to lack of time (and as it turned out, shit wifi as well) so on that occasion I was okay with it.

Comments

[barbaratp]

Acho que como não sabemos quem irá ler o que escrevemos, o certo é sempre avisar sobre os spoilers e se possível colocar eles em um cut, senão pedir que a pessoa pule até determinada parte do texto com aquele recurso de clique aqui e a página desce rapidamente. Conheci pessoas que faziam entradas com spoilers e outra igual sem, para evitar causar algum tipo de conflito. Acho que conjecturar que alguém é idiota por estar em um grupo de algo e se deparar com spoiler é meio complicado porque tipo nem todo mundo assiste igual e em conjunto as coisas. Eu mesma não gostaria de ter spoilers de algo que ainda não vi mesmo que esse algo já exista faz algum tempo. Isso em tese não é desculpa para culpar quem desconhece algo. Para mim spoilers são assunto delicado e nada custa avisar que eles estão ali. Seja cobrindo com cut, seja deixando um simboluzinho. Meio que não custa nada não é?

[tellshannon815]

Some people can be pretty rude about it when they are called out over spoilers, but I think they should accept that others can't, or don't want to, watch something all at once without being rude about it.

[barbaratp]

Eu conheci pessoas que se achavam e viviam falando spoilers com a desculpa que se os outros não conseguiam ver ao mesmo tempo não deveriam estar ali e isso realmente é bem ridículo não é mesmo? Exemplo mais básico, América Latina. Recebemos conteúdos estrangeiros aqui muito depois da exibição original por isso eu não deveria receber um spoiler e ser culpada por ficar chateada com isso. Mas há quem fale que eu deveria aprender inglês, assistir online ou aceitar que não tenho condições de acompanhar as coisas. E eu acho isso mórbido. Eu meio que me tornei tranquila com spoilers mesmo não gosta só deles, porque tento evitar discussões e se a outra pessoa quer ser rude não será eu que vou dar mais pólvora a esse fogo.

[loganberrybunny]

The only practical experience I have of this as someone who was involved with the decision beyond my personal blogs was back when the UK MLP fandom was mostly on a web-based forum. (This was 2013 or so, before social media had really exploded.) We settled on either one or two weeks -- I can't now remember which, and the forum no longer exists so I can't check back. I thought it was reasonable, anyway.

Our policy was to time it from the US airdate, since (again this dates it a bit!) this was before box-set-dumping and episodes generally came out once a week. Virtually everyone watched the American releases via... unofficial means, me included. As such, we could be pretty confident that 99% of people who cared would have seen each episode within a few days, barring illness, holidays etc.

For classic films and shows... how long is a piece of string? Do you spoil the meaning of "Rosebud" or the final scene of Blackadder Goes Forth? Going back to my MLP example, though, absolutely nobody now bothers to be careful about Twilight becoming an alicorn at the end of S3, since it's a change that's instantly visually obvious and you'd have to basically avoid every toy shop in the world not to see it. So I suppose it's a case by case thing.

[tellshannon815]

Either using one or two weeks does sound reasonable to me.

I've definitely watched enough American releases of shows via unofficial means in my time, and therefore been able to catch up with the show within a day or two (holidays etc permitting). Where I have been spoiled anyway there is the issue of the time difference - when the show actually airs there it's stupid o'clock here and I'm asleep, then I work full time, so it's the next evening at the earliest before I can watch. That leaves enough time for Google News to send me an alert about the fact that someone was killed off, or for me to inadvertently see something on Facebook (recently I confused the dates with one show, thought it was coming back a day later than it was, so didn't worry too much about my news feed and then the first thing I saw was someone saying "Did they really have to kill off X?")

With some of the classics I think people do pick it up a lot via osmosis to be honest (for example, I've never actually seen Sixth Sense, but I've known the twist at the end for years).

[loganberrybunny]

We were lucky with MLP -- it was shown as a Saturday morning cartoon (sheesh, more age-showing!) and so the streams that showed it happened at a pleasant afternoon time in the UK.

And ditto on Sixth Sense. I can't even remember when I learnt that twist, but it was a long, long time ago.

[mxcatmoon]

This is a great subject for discussion. It seems like there has to be an amount of time that's reasonable, rather than warning for spoilers for everything, forever. Mainstream media doesn't care, so it's easy to get spoiled just by reading an article or seeing a headline.

And what exactly is considered a spoiler? Is my Torchwood icon above one? The show aired in 2008, but those who haven't watched it might not know Jack and Ianto got together. I have another icon I want to use, but I worry it's a spoiler, so I'm still waiting. That show is only a couple of years old. Sometimes I come across comments about shows while browsing social media. They aren't even shows I plan on watching, but I already know things about them just through fandom osmosis.

See now I'm worried I've spoiled someone by pointing out my Torchwood icon...

[loganberrybunny]

To be honest, as someone who knows Doctor Who but barely watched Torchwood, seeing Jack kiss basically anyone at all wouldn't really count as a spoiler to me! :P

[mxcatmoon]

You've got a point, there! 😁🤣🤣 Probably using Jack was a bad example. LOL.

[tellshannon815]

When you say the show is a couple of years old and the icon could be a spoiler, is the icon from something quite early on in the show, or is it something that's only very recently happened? I'd say if it was something from a couple of years ago, I wouldn't worry about it too much - as an example, this icon I have here is from a show about a similar age and it's from the first season. I don't worry too much about using this one - out of the people on my friends list who I know watch From, I know they've all got this far. I have held back on using one of a character who first appears part way through the most recent season though.

I've only seen bits of Torchwood, but I did know about Jack and Ianto, so I wouldn't think anything of that icon. Without having seen your other one from the show that's a couple of years old, or knowing what the show is, it's hard for me to judge how spoilery it is.

[mxcatmoon]

I think that's part of what makes the issue complicated; everyone has a different idea of what a spoiler is and how they should be handled.

After a bad experience with a show ending badly and destroying the fandom, I want spoilers now and often won't even start watching a show until after it's over and I know how it ends. I'm done with surprises. I try to be considerate of others, though. I probably won't use that icon for at least another six months, maybe a year.

[meridian_rose]

I'd prefer no spoilers in post titles and spoilers under a cut if otherwise visible so I have the choice to read or not. I've watched a lot of shows much later than their airdates and if I've seen spoilers it's usually because I've read them where I was not interested in show at time/fannish drama schadenfreude/general ramblings from fans about many shows/interviews with actors about other projects or been spoiled without meaning to by giveaway titles.

I'll occasionally seek out spoilers about characters I care about (is X dead or coming back to the show for example) but in general I'd rather not know the spoilers and I think Americans forget that in the UK we might wait months/years to legally watch the season of a show they've binged a week ago.

By the way, I've been putting off trying to get back on DW because it seems overwhelming so I'm just going back a few posts at a time. Good to see you posting and posing interesting questions with your take on things :D
(also I remember reading about the game Stray on your lands of magic post and my nephew has a copy for the PS4 so I got to play the start of it a few weeks ago and I loved it! Thank you for the recommendation :D)

[tellshannon815]

I've definitely come across spoilers when I've read things having not actually been watching the show at the time - the example that immediately comes to mind is Game of Thrones. I was late to that particular party, having started binge watching from S1 at around the time S5 started airing, but I did have people on my friends list who'd started that earlier and had posted about it, so I'd picked up some bits along the way, and I'd be introduced to a character in the pilot episode having already picked up that that character was going to die.

Since at that time I wasn't watching the show, I didn't worry too much about that one. Things like the Lost one, where I was actively watching but just hadn't got to the most recent episode yet and this fool had taken the choice away from me by putting "We will remember you, X" on the cut tag, did piss me off.

Glad you enjoyed Stray!

[goodbyebird]

I've mostly given up on the rest of the internet whenever something I deeply care about is airing or is in the cinemas. Here on DW I have full trust that those things will happen behind a cut.

[tellshannon815]

I want to be able to trust that on DW, but haven't forgotten the time on LJ where someone put the spoiler actually ON the cut (even though, thinking about it now, I can't remember that person's username, can't say whether it would come back to me if I did come across it again, but I still remember how they spoiled the death).

[mierke]

I hate spoilers. I avoid them as much as I can, which I think is partly my own responsibility for current shows, and fully my own responsibility when it comes to things that aired years and years ago. That's why I always want to finish a series completely before I dive into fic.

I've always thought the 'waiting a week' was fair for things that air weekly (I would personally extend that to a month or something for shows that drop all at once, because you can't expect everyone to watch it during that first week).

[tellshannon815]

I have found in the past that there are fans out there who do expect everyone to watch it all ASAP (the ones who put up the "I can't believe X is dead" posts and then say "it's your own fault for not muting the group"). Personally, I don't think there should be that expectation - people have full time jobs, they have plans with friends/family, holidays, want to watch other shows/do other stuff as well, they don't have time to watch one show all at once, and that is absolutely fine. I'd rather extend to a month out of those options.

[spaciireth]

I think streaming and worldwide drops has made it easier in a way for currently airing stuff, and you can say cover your spoilers for a week or two from the drop date and then after that it's fair game... older stuff I feel can be a bit tricky, because there's no way for everyone to have seen everything, so there are things that will be spoilers for people, but you can't expect people to not discuss things. I feel like it wouldn't hurt for something like a major character death to still be covered, even if it happened 20 years ago, but just "that character returned and there were hijinks" doesn't need to be.

To use an even older example, it was still a genius book but someone at work spoiled the twist in The Murder of Roger Ackroyd for me and I was quite disappointed about that. And while the person didn't necessarily know I hadn't already read it, I feel like "Don't go around announcing the twist of Agatha Christie's literary masterpiece to people you see reading her other books" probably isn't a terrible rule of thumb.