Spoil over Troubled Waters
My concerns about spoilerphobia have been heightened by recent incidents on Twitter.
But first, Facebook. I've lamented it before. The way people use it - so shallow, not social - bending courtesy to breaking point, either not knowing or not caring because crowds are no place for the precious. What the Sh*ttingham-upon-F*ck* is a like? I mean really, what is it? Answer: an appalling yet endemic cop-out. I haven't liked a single Facebook status or photo since late 2014. If a connection on Facebook is worth anything, it's worth words. But my thinking seems to put me in an intolerant minority. The point being that logged into Facebook, among dear friends and loved ones, people I've spent countless hours with, I often feel more lonely than when I am on Twitter among strangers whom I will never meet.
"No!" That's what I shouted out while watching Silent Witness to see Derek Griffiths, a.k.a. SuperTed, only for him to get shot. To find out whether others were as outraged as me, I did a search on Twitter. Others were, and I felt less alone. A Twitter friend had tweeted about Derek Griffiths (whom he interviewed in one of his books); I replied, mentioning Silent Witness; he retweeted as well as replying. This led to another reply from someone I didn't know:
'Awww I still have that to watch!! #spoileralert'
Firstly, can there be a more self-defeating hashtag than #spoileralert? Secondly, if you're that concerned about going in blind to a TV programme that's already been flipping broadcast, might the better approach be to - bold suggestion here - take a break from social media until you've watched it, rather than putting yourself in spoilers' way and then finding fault with other people having a free discussion in a public setting? Umpteenthly, I had only mentioned one detail of what happened to one character in part one of a two-parter. In practice, how much would it really have spoiled? I wish I'd known about it beforehand. It would have softened the blow. And I'd still have been able to enjoy Derek's performance.
Today I saw a worse example. On part two of The Last Leg Down Under, Alex Brooker cried as he revealed that he and his wife had had two unsuccessful pregnancies. To say this was moving is to state the obvious. He tweeted afterwards to thank everyone for their kind messages. This led to more messages of support being tweeted his way, and to:
'no spoilers, I've not seen it yet!'
https://twitter.com/PaulWilly72/status/695767019677995008
This is ever so wrong. I don't want to live in a world where I'm obliged to think that it isn't.
Having a digital voice, free in more ways than one, is a privilege. It's not enough to avoid being nasty with that voice; in my view, it behoves people not to be careless. Because otherwise, the results can be repellent.
*Twinned with Bollocque-sur-Merde