Twitter: The TV Show Spoiler
Have you watched the “Red Wedding” Game of Thrones episode this week? Apparently there was a bloodbath in the last few minutes that blew fans minds. I didn’t watch the show as I’m not a fan. I attempted to watch the first season and it did nothing for me, but the reaction I was reading was startling. Shortly before 10pm on Sunday my Twitter feed exploded as people felt the need to vent on what they were watching.
The first 55 minutes of the show were played out on Twitter in less detail, but irritating nevertheless. I have a particular distaste for non-sports live tweeting of television shows. And that distaste is very strong when it’s a show that I’m looking forward to watching on DVR. It’s getting to the point where Sunday nights and Twitter are too dangerous for me. Between Mad Men and the HBO shows, it’s far too easy to get spoilers from people non-stop live tweeting episodes.
I have begged, pleaded, and gotten nasty in trying to get people to think of others. The east coast typically gets tv shows first and there seems to be a race on who can give details first. I just don’t understand why strangers need to share TV dramas live with the world. More often than not the sharing consists of “omg, I know he didn’t just kiss his sister-in-law” or similarly innane sentiments. It does get funny when viseral indignation pours out, I have to admit. It’s like listening to soap opera fans ranting about the misdeeds committed by some horribly written character.
I get tweeting sports. It’s live. Sports are a shared experience in arenas and stadiums. Watching sports by yourself is pretty boring. So I understand using Twitter for sports. I live tweet NHL games as well as NFL games. I have my Twitter lists of sportswriters/bloggers to commiserate with. News and sports to me are what makes Twitter stand out against Facebook and Google+.
But am I going to live tweet True Blood in a couple of weeks? Hell no. I’m going to be having fun watching Sookie’s lastest trauma as Eric Northman protects her from Bill (Sookie’s real life husband). Bill, as we saw in last seasons finale became the new monster leading to this season.
There is no way to get people to stop live-tweeting tv shows. I understand that genie has escaped the bottle. I’ve been met with some very nasty comments when I politely asked people to hold off for a day on the tweets. I’ve been blocked and unfollowed.
There are third party means to block some hashtags but overall they are pretty weak. Twitter needs to hire Jenny Lamere, the teenage girl who created Twivo, a hashtag blocking program. If a young lady can build a blocking program in less than one day, that tells me someone at Twitter doesn’t understand that not all of us Twitter freaks want to have our favorite shows spoiled.
