Spoiler Warning: No Surprise B*tch

Published in

The Isthmus

5 min readMay 13, 2016

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[/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text]Just like that time the Internet was so done with that freaking blue and black dress (or was it white and gold?), there is a growing divide in frustration on where movie and TV show spoilers stand in popular culture. There’s those who love surprises and then those who read the synopsis before they watch a movie. So does a big plot-twist-reveal have no place in democracy? Are rumour leaks, reviews, conspiracy theories and teaser trailers that give away the whole damn movie a blessing and a curse? That’s a secret I will tell xoxo

Spoilation Nation

We are great storytellers. We say before we think. We chime in the conversation. We process our feelings about prime-time twists. What we don’t do is consider the psychology behind the spoiler. Our social value and gratification seems to be synonymous with everyone knowing what we’re watching, but the art of spoiling is more complex than we realise.

Okay we get it, so preserving the traditional movie going/show-watching experience is outdated. With the osmosis of self identity to look cool and be that expert in the know comes a huge outcry for vengeance. Fan reviews are trusted, but the backlash that comes with it is immense. Expect to cop a stream of abuse when you share that Sunday night Game of Thrones (NO SPOILERS) that actually contains no shortage of surprise and shocking revelations.[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][vc_video link=”https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KfU2N7KJWYQ" el_width=”50" el_aspect=”235" align=”center”][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text]A 2011 study at the University of California San Diego (USCD) by Nicholas Christenfield and Jonathan Leavitt found that the competitive nature of insider status, the same way gossip and telling secrets might be exclusive, was a motivation behind spoiling and the ‘I beat you to it’ mentality. On the flipside, there’s huge demand for spoilers as a form of respect for the storyteller and genre itself. While fandoms spoil out of love, you could imagine this got particularly ugly in fan-wars between the 2 camps of Game of Thrones fans — readers of the books and non-readers. Christenfield and Leavitt’s experimental study has been the real page-turner though, reassuring us that spoilers don’t actually spoil the story, but rather enhance our enjoyment![/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column]

[/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text]Subjects in the study preferred the spoiled versions of 12 classic books over the unspoiled.

“Stories are a universal element of human culture, the backbone of the billion dollar entertainment industry, narratives are incredibly important, but their success doesn’t seem to hinge on simple suspense.”

[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text]Ever wondered whether you were in the minority of people who actually enjoy spoilers? Well thanks to the UCSD study, research has shed light on the 5 reasons why you genuinely love a good spoiler:

You’re a squirmer in your seat, a total wuss and hater of suspense.

Leavitt says that it is cognitively easier and more comfortable to process information when the story is spoiled, as it allows you to focus on a deeper story. The people who flicked to the last page of the book were presented with better intuition and less state of anxiety about the plot. Today Wikipedia can alleviate those feelings of burden and admonition that you can no longer take to help us make sense of the story.

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