Nailah Randle: Staff Writer
Spoilers are everywhere. They’re on social media, in conversations with friends and family, and in news articles. Avoiding spoilers is like competing in the ninja warrior competition; that is to say, nearly impossible.
After the recent release of the well-anticipated fourth movie in Tom Holland’s Spider-Man series, Spider-Man: Brand New Day, it’s become increasingly obvious how hard it is to ignore or avoid spoilers about the film. Twitter is crawling with clips from the movie, superhero nerds discussing plot points, and critic reviews. It’s a land-mine for people who haven’t seen the film yet, and it’s only going to get worse as more people head to theaters to see the movie.
But Brand-New Day isn’t a one-off example of spoilers around every corner. When Project Hail Mary came out earlier this year, even people who had no plans of even seeing it knew the entire plot of the movie. Everyone was talking about it both online and offline. The Pitt season 2 was highly anticipated, and when it came out, there was always someone talking about what happened with which doctors and what ailment the main patients of the episode were dealing with. The list of examples could go on forever.
When it comes to spoilers, there are types of people: those who care way too much, those who couldn’t care less, those who want to spoil everything for themselves, and those who spoil everything for everyone else. Unfortunately, for that first group, people who love to spoil things for others are relentless. Don’t mention not having seen something around them, or you’ll have no one to blame but yourself for the major spoilers you’ll receive in return.
Spoilers go beyond just social media posts and casual conversations though. Commentary youtubers and video essayers will be the first people to spoil something; the only difference is that they come with built in spoiler warnings. These entertaining videos are fun to watch after you’ve already seen whatever the subject is, but one accidentally popping up on autoplay is the stuff of nightmares. There’s nothing worse than getting spoiled by something that’d usually be entirely avoidable.
Getting spoiled in conversations and on social media is a little harder to steer clear of than just a YouTube video accidentally playing when you weren’t paying attention. The feeling of having a conversation with someone and them accidentally spoiling something you were really excited about, because there was no way to scroll past or turn it off and usually, they don’t realize until it’s too late. And on social media, sure you can scroll past as fast as you want, but usually not before you’ve realized exactly what was said.
Avoiding spoilers is not actually all that serious, but there is something to be said about seeing something for the first time with zero idea of what awaits you that makes consuming media more fun. Brand new movies and shows are fun because it’s a brand-new story that no one has ever heard before. We, as humans, love hearing new interesting stories, so when something new comes out and we’re excited only for someone to tell us what happens before we get to see them, it’s very disheartening. But we shouldn’t allow the idea of “being spoiled” to ruin our enjoyment of the things we were excited for!
Spoilers are just a part of daily life at this point, whether we like it or not. Having any friends or any form of social media automatically puts you at risk. But, for whatever reason, avoiding spoilers is really important for you. There are a few ways to ensure you don’t know what happens to your favorite characters before you get to see them for yourself. You could mute the words on your social media, tell everyone you see that you haven’t seen it yet, and try living under a rock for a few weeks! But realistically, none of these except maybe just telling everyone is all that plausible, so it’s better for us to all just accept that there is no such thing as a spoiler free reality at this point in time.