In any television show, movie, or book, as the plot unfolds, there are dips and dives so deep that the audience is blind to what lies ahead. If you’re like me, you find this to be absolutely terrifying. Your deep-seated fear of the unknown may cause you to act in a fashion with which any literary guru, film buff, or Netflix queen would be appalled: you read spoilers.
Now I know what some of our readers may be thinking: “Spoilers?! How could you ever fully enjoy something when you already know what’s going to happen next??” I hear you, and I fully understand where you’re coming from. Even I have to admit that, on occasion, I delve a little too far into the dark realm of spoilers that is the Internet. However, for the most part, spoilers are something I grew up believing in and I don’t think I could ever rid myself of.
One of the first times I sought out spoilers was in middle school when I would watch America’s Next Top Model with my mom and my sister. At the beginning of each episode, knowing that it had already aired on the East Coast (I grew up in California), I would look up who was going to be eliminated. By doing this, it was if I knew a secret that my mom and sister did not and it made me feel special, like I held the key to a piece of information unknown to others. Now, of course, they would also discover what I knew in forty-five minutes, but I was too impatient to wait. I wanted to analyze the model’s performance throughout the episode to discover exactly why she would be the one to be sent home that week.
As I grew up and was immersed in the world of social media, it became increasingly difficult to avoid spoilers (even if I wanted to). Many of my friends watched the TV show Grey’s Anatomy and posted many sad tweets when a certain character passed away. At the time, I had no interest in the show, and when I started to watch it my senior year, I couldn’t quite remember which character it was. I had originally intended not to spoil it for myself, but as I fell in love with the show and its characters, I knew that if I didn’t find out it would lead to a much deeper heartbreak than if I was prepared to see one of my favorite characters die. But after reading one spoiler I couldn’t stop, and I discovered several other characters who would pass away, characters who would get married to others, characters who would get divorced from others, natural disasters, and major plot twists that would occur over the course of the show. I couldn’t stop myself! I was a little disappointed by my detective skills, as I probably should have left some plot points to be surprised by, but I soon discovered that it was much easier to talk to others about the show when I already knew what was going to happen. Many people when talking about a show cannot remember in which season certain events occur, so they run the risk of spoiling it for others. However, by being aware of what was to come, I was able to have conversations about the show without fearing that someone else would ruin it for me. I was my own destructor, and it would be no one’s fault but my own.
I know that many people may still disagree with me and think that spoilers ruin the magic of an unfolding plot; but, for those of us who are impatient, analytical, and incredibly curious, spoilers allow us to see the future in a way that we can’t in real life. There are enough surprises, twists, and turns in our everyday lives that it’s alright to want to uncover the unknown of the fictional world every once in a while.