yes.
The variable of note is whether you mind or not.
Clearly many people do not mind, and have become accustomed or even receptive to it.
One thing that being exposed to a spoiler does is introduce an element of dramatic irony where you (the audience) are aware of what is going to happen while the work's characters do not.
While normally the term is used in reference to information provided by the work (knowing Romeo is dead while Juliet does not), I think it is acceptable to expand it to include knowledge of the work learned beforehand (knowing before they've even appeared that both Romeo and Juliet will die).
Depends. I don't want Persona spoilers, but I'm not going to shit about something like The Room or Birdemic.
[QUOTE=Hidole555;52130030]One thing that being exposed to a spoiler does is introduce an element of dramatic irony where you (the audience) are aware of what is going to happen while the work's characters do not.
While normally the term is used in reference to information provided by the work (knowing Romeo is dead while Juliet does not), I think it is acceptable to expand it to include knowledge of the work learned beforehand (knowing before they've even appeared that both Romeo and Juliet will die).[/QUOTE]
I think a big difference is that an author doesn't intend for spoilers, so the experience is very different from normal.
I've gotten some pretty major spoilers before, but I guess a silver lining is that it leaves me wondering [i]how[/i] the spoiler ends up happening? I can know that X dies without knowing how, when or why, so it definitely adds some tension when you see the elements being lined up beforehand :v:
I guess the bigger question is if it detracts from never having been spoiled in the first place.
I do mind since I was super hype for Persona 5. The day before release, some [B][I][U]CUNT[/U][/I][/B] decided to write a bot that would send super serious spoilers to anyone who tweeted anything with #Persona5. Then if you wanted to block him, he set his name to a spoiler too so if you didn't realize it, you would get spoiled
I don't really care about spoilers because in my mind the story progression is more important than the ending.
[QUOTE=TurtleeyFP;52130063]I think a big difference is that an author doesn't intend for spoilers, so the experience is very different from normal.
I've gotten some pretty major spoilers before, but I guess a silver lining is that it leaves me wondering [i]how[/i] the spoiler ends up happening? I can know that X dies without knowing how, when or why, so it definitely adds some tension when you see the elements being lined up beforehand :v:
I guess the bigger question is if it detracts from never having been spoiled in the first place.[/QUOTE]
Pretty much this.
If a story does a good job at foreshadowing and leading up to certain spoilery plot points, I'll usually still find myself enjoying said points even if they're spoiled, since the story did such a good job building them up.
To give an example, I inadvertently spoiled a number of plot points from Xenoblade before playing it, but the game has a number of little details early on that you could feasibly put together to solve a particular plot point yourself. Even better, with said point, you may be likely to forget about one of the details since it's such a long game, but this detail is actually implemented as a mechanic in a few battles right before said plot point is resolved, subtly reminding you and edging you towards figuring it out on your own.
So even after spoiling it for myself, I still ended up really enjoying it because of how they built it up, and how well it fit into the plot, world, and gameplay. Though I'll also admit I'm a sucker for gameplay-story integration.
Spoilers ruin the experience, but not a story.
If your story revolves around a plotwist then it was crap anyway.
There's times when I get annoyed when I get spoiled to something, but I can't help but laugh at the clever ways that people go to spoil others
When the Miiverse stage came out for Smash 4 and it was full of Game of Thrones spoilers I laughed my ass off
Video presents a very compelling and convincing argument!
In my opinion, the severity of spoiler depends on the weight of information shown. Spoiling an important plot point means that the information leading up to and provided in that scene is now rendered moot, but in turn gives the audience the chance to focus on the other elements of the media more (argued in the video, plot is only one thing out of so many appreciable elements combined to form a whole). Furthermore, spoilers come in many forms, not just plot. For example having the entire last 15 minute of a show leaked VS reading the plot summary VS watching "The entire bee movie but every time they say bee it gets faster" before watching the bee movie.
It is also said that spoilers can act as motivation to dive into a new medium. I believe so! Everything needs first impressions to attract consumers, in the form of trailers, synopsis, tie-ins, etc. Those alone are spoilers, carefully (sometimes carelessly) handpicked by the author and/or the marketers. I also think that most stories have inherit spoilers just out of the gate due to how stories are constructed and imitated (eg. hero's journey, the good always triumph, tropes).
I think the best way to experiment is watch a movie twice to simulate having watched it spoiled. I've done it a few times and the experience is... different, as I start to focus on different aspects inside and outside of the story (such as acting, foreshadows, reasoning, metaphors...). However, I'm not entirely convinced that selective spoilers is always good? Maybe the experience would be better if you watched a movie TWICE VS watching it ONCE spoiled VS watching it ONCE unspoiled.
For me it does. When Star Wars Rogue One came out I assumed the movie was going to be very boring, and bland.
I didn't bother looking into the movie, and did not plan on seeing it in theaters.
A friend of mine saw it and told me he really enjoyed the film, felt it was much more mature than The Force Awakens, and over all was just done very well.
I saw it a few days later, and with such low expectations I was blown away by what I was watching, and even at the edge of my seat a few times towards the end.
Yes I still might have enjoyed the film if I asked my friend to tell me the entire story, but I would have missed out on being pleasantly surprised by a lot of the unexpected things that happened in the film.
Depends on what is being spoilt. For some things I don't mind spoilers, for example if its a spoiler for a video game that I know I'm not going to play.
Although I do mind spoilers on some things, following on from my previous example except its about a video game that I know I'll be playing. I'll care about major story and plot spoilers as I don't want my experience to be ruined.
However, I'll be fine with certain types of spoilers if its a minor spoiler that does not takeaway form the overall experience of the game. For example if its an easter egg then I don't really mind being spoilt about that.
It's always a mixed bag for spoilers for me. While I do prefer not to get spoiled, usually they don't ruin the story for me.
I remember being spoiled about Get Out and it was actually pretty interesting seeing[sp]all the foreshadowing for the mind control/brain surgery twist. I don't think I would have noticed any of it if I didn't know about it beforehand.[/sp]
Spoilers don't enrage me or anything, but they are super annoying. If you are a Doctor Who fan, don't follow their Facebook page. They get too excited and always blurt spoilers for their own show.
[QUOTE=Metaru;52130201]Spoilers ruin the experience, but not a story.
If your story revolves around a plotwist then it was crap anyway.[/QUOTE]
I don't know about that. I think a movie where the plot twist is important doesn't necessarily mean it's a bad plot. Moments was a movie I thought needed to be spoiler free on your first go around because the story won't feel as worth it otherwise. It's not because the story was crap it'a because the whole narrative is driven and given context with it's ending.
Watching a second time is also fun because you already had the emotional context of the first watching. Where as if you watched it a first time with spoilers, you wouldn't have the emotional investment in the character.
He's completely off the mark when he says "twist ending/mystery" stories have most of their worth in the ending. Mysteries are interesting because they're mysterious. Twists only work when they follow a compelling story.
The study he mentions only gave a single paragraph with major plot points. One paragraph is obviously not going to touch on all the best character moments, their arcs and developments, or all of the mystery-solving, clever bits of logic in the writing, important turning points... And that's without getting into tone, atmosphere, and style. It's weird that he doesn't address the possible flaw in the study here, since he later goes on to explain exactly what I'm getting at right now
edit: I shouldn't say flaw in the study, the flaw is in giving it some sort of final say on whether spoilers matter or not. Which he didn't - it's just that I've seen the same study brought up by people who DO think it's the end to all spoiler arguments and he got close to echoing that
For me it usually depends on the story for how much i actually care about spoilers.
However, I sort of view it as a sign of respect to the artist to not spoil yourself on the story going in, so you can experience the story how they intended and take part in the speculative experience as you go through it. A story can still be enjoyed if you know all its details, but you've undermined a lot of the artist's work by doing knowing them.
[QUOTE=Metaru;52130201]Spoilers ruin the experience, but not a story.
If your story revolves around a plotwist then it was crap anyway.[/QUOTE]
I agree that spoilers ruin the experience. I always try to watch something with as little knowledge as possible to have an open mind about it since I want to really feel like I'm observing something in real life with an uncertain outcome. The feeling of being a human but with a directed and planned out story is probably the best explanation. You get to see everything as you do in your day to day life without know what's to come. You can guess and have reasonable expectations what's going to happen but you can never truly know. Then replace your life with a movie and you can widen your perspective and "live" new "experiences".
Having something spoiled before you watched it allows your brain to process it more (and probably allows it to focus on different things you might notice on a second watch) which is probably why the studies showed people who had things spoiled for them liked them more.
Every fucking video I see about this topic is the same shit. People saying "Well spoilers didn't ruin it [i]for me[/i] so they don't ruin a story." Well good for you, but there are other people with different perspectives.
In this he says spoilers only ruin the plot and it doesn't affect the acting or the characters, but he's wrong. If you know a character is going to betray another mid way through the film you've had the plot, the characters, and possibly even the themes of a story ruined.
He should rename the video "A defence of spoilers" since that's all he does for two thirds of it.
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