love-hate relationship with spoiler alerts

I have something to admit, I have a slight guilty pleasure of loving spoiler alerts. A lot of people hate spoiler alerts and think they ruin the show, movie, or book it's about, I can't explain it though, they put me at an ease. I think it might be because I'm incredibly nosy and absolutely hate surprises. I can't entirely explain my thought process on why spoiler alerts interest me so much, but they just do. Now that being said, I try my hardest to never spoil anything for other people, as I know other people absolutely hate them. Instead, I just heavily try to influence them to watch or read whatever it is as soon as possible because I really just want to talk about it. Before I get started I wanted to shout out Chai Chats for having me on their podcast this week, it comes out on Monday from 6-7 PM, and we even talk a little bit about spoilers.

This being said, I don't always love spoiler alerts, or sometimes, at least, I'm grateful I never got a spoiler alert. Sometimes you just need that first-hand experience with no preparedness, and honestly, that's usually when I wish I could rewatch something for the first time ever again. But that's where the love-hate relationship with spoiler alerts comes into play. Now I won't be revealing any big spoilers, at least not any that are considerably recent. There are so many iconic spoilers that have dominated the movie industry for a long time, like Avengers Endgame, the amount of people that I know that got incredibly pressed about the spoilers for this is insane, but I honestly went out of my way to go find out what happened before even watching it. More recently, a show with spoilers that I enjoyed was Yellowjackets.

Scene from Yellowjackets (2021-Current)

Yellowjackets was a show that I started binge-watching last semester, so I had two seasons to catch up on. If anyone has seen it or knows about it, you know there's plenty of spoilers to be given. The clip of the scene shown above is a continuously looked at scene from the beginning of the show that isn't revealed until season 3. However, I started watching when season 3 was still coming out with its weekly episodes. I would watch it somewhat on time but that wasn't to avoid spoilers, it was because of the anticipation that I had for a week straight. For the first two seasons, though, I knew every death or every possible scene that would have a spoiler.

Now, Yellowjackets is a more serious example of spoiler alerts. There are plenty of other examples, for instance, this summer when Love Island was incredibly popular, I watched a couple of episodes since I had watched the previous season, but I got too busy to ever finish it. That being said I still knew who won, who was voted off, and all the major drama and that's mainly due to spoilers. See spoilers, let me stay involved in knowing what happens without having to watch it due to being so busy. This was kind of refreshing, I didn't have to worry about trying to find a time to watch these nearly daily episodes on time, I could just know the spoilers and stay caught up enough to know everything major that happened.

Then there are other types of spoilers like Spider-Man: No Way Home, when Andrew Garfield and Tobey Maguire made their appearance, which was slightly predictable but still an insane concept considering all three Spider-Men were in one movie. Truth be told, I honestly have zero memory of if I ever actually watched the movie or not. That's the thing, though, there are some movies or shows that I haven't seen or sometimes books I haven't read, and I have no desire to watch or read them simply because I already know what happens.

That isn't always the case, it just has happened at times. Sometimes it's not a desire for it all, it's just no urgency to watch or read something. I mean like what's the point if I basically already know what'll happen. There are so many somewhat iconic movies with major plot twists or spoilers, like Shutter Island, Breaking Bad, Donnie Darko, The Sixth Sense, Stranger Things, Star Wars: The Return of the Jedi, Severance, and Fight Club. And to be so honest, I haven't even seen all of those, mainly just because I know what happens or the spoiler is so commonly known now, like The Sixth Sense, to be fair, it's been out since 1999, so that's to be anticipated. I know eventually I'll get around to watching these movies or shows that I haven't seen, but already know what happens.

The Sixth Sense (1999)

The thing about spoilers, some people don't understand, is why I still watch something after knowing what's gonna happen. But when it comes to me knowing spoilers for certain shows or movies, I don't know when it's gonna happen, like season, episode, or time-stamp. I also don't know how it'll play out or the context of it. So even though I may know a major plot twist or a significant death or anything somewhat surprising that's considered a spoiler, my interest is still piqued because I want to know when it'll happen and the context. Sometimes, if it's a death, I get more intrigued by a show. I find out someone dies and I just have to know how it happens and when it happens and why. Without knowing the death is going to happen, sure, it'll build anticipation, but it'll be unknowing. Whereas if I know about it, the anticipation of me waiting for it to happen continues to build. If not it just happens and sometimes I have to go back because it all happened so quick.

That being said there's some shows or movies that I've seen that I had no spoilers or no knowledge of what it was even about that I absolutely loved and I would say I'm somewhat glad I didn't get spoilers for them. I followed them through the ups and downs and twists and turns that kept me so interested I would binge watch these shows in what seemed like record time. So I guess at times having no spoilers is sometimes a good thing for me, it keeps me on my toes. I guess it really depends for what I'm watching or how long it's been out or even just how busy I am, but spoiler alerts are never anything I'll shy away from or get angry or upset about. If anything sometimes I'll beg for spoilers from people. Now maybe that's not the greatest thing and I should probably let myself enjoy things in the moment. But like I said, it allows me to know which builds the anticipation even more.

-AC