An Issue in the Arts: Spoilers
Contents
- Why I chose this issue
- Research into the issue
- Gathering opinions about this issue
- Final thoughts
- Sharing my article on this issue
Why I chose this issue
So it started with this show I was really getting into and I thought it would be a good idea to tell my friend about it which was a big mistake because they had already watched it and I was only at the beginning and before I could describe the masterpiece I was watching they asked me “who’s your favourite character” I happily said their name all of a sudden they started laughing because they then said “He turns out to be the villain” which was surprising but also very irritating to me because I didn’t see the spoiler coming and didn’t want to know about it from someone else I wanted to see it for myself. This ruined the show for me because I knew the ending without watching it.
Research into this issue
I read this research study by Leavitt and Christenfeld: https://bear.warrington.ufl.edu/brenner/mar7588/Papers/leavitt-Psychological%20Science-2011.pdf
If suspense, surprise and satisfying resolutions are the heroes that save a story, spoilers are the villains that try to, well, spoil everything. Or at least that’s how they’re portrayed.
Intuitively, killing the surprise seems like it should make a narrative less enjoyable. Yet research has found that having extra information about artworks can make them more satisfying, as can the predictability of an experience. So Christenfeld decided to put spoilers to the test in the most straightforward way possible: by spoiling stories for people.
Leavitt and Christenfeld ‘Story Spoilers Don’t Spoil Stories’
I think that this is a good way to describe people who randomly spoil the show/series for people who just want to watch it.
“What we found, remarkably, was if you spoil stories they actually enjoy them more.”Christenfeld repeated the experiment with three different genres: mystery stories containing a “whodunit” moment; ironic twist stories, where a surprise ending crystallizes the whole story; and literary fiction with a neat resolution. Across all three genres spoilers actually were enhancers,” said Christenfeld. “The term is wrong.”
Leavitt and Christenfeld ‘Story Spoilers Don’t Spoil Stories’
I think that this is odd but at the same time it makes sense because some spoilers can be acceptable.
Studies show that anticipation and suspension of disbelief are both key ingredients in a pleasurable experience—and spoilers have a tendency to kill both.
Leavitt and Christenfeld ‘Story Spoilers Don’t Spoil Stories’
I think that this is true.
The combination of social media, which allows us to react to events in real time, and new technologies, which provide us with countless ways to watch shows after they air, has made it easy to accidentally learn how a TV episode or movie ends before watching it. But this most recent spoiling left me feeling especially outraged—which, in turn, led me to wonder: Why did I care? Why were spoilers so bad?
Leavitt and Christenfeld ‘Story Spoilers Don’t Spoil Stories’
I think that spoilers are so bad because it could be something you have wanted to see from your point of view and see how you would react.
This research paper was saying that spoilers aren’t always so bad, but it was only about short stories and about people in a study. So I also read this article: https://www.theatlantic.com/entertainment/archive/2013/03/scientific-explanations-for-why-spoilers-are-so-horrible/274227/
Spoilers suck because they remind us that a story is just a story. It’s hard to get transported when you already know where you’ll end up—in real life, you don’t have that knowledge.
The Atlantic
I think that it is terrible when someone tells you the ending of something.
I read this article as well: http://brainknowsbetter.com/news?offset=1368563081614#:~:text=I%20love%20walking%20into%20a,and%20harder%20to%20avoid%20them.
Spoilers piss me off. I love walking into a movie without any knowledge of what’s going to happen. It’s not about the plot – it’s about going on the journey the filmmakers intended. I want to be moved, to feel something. Spoilers destroy that experience for me and it’s getting harder and harder to avoid them. But the science of spoilers says I’m wrong, that I’ll enjoy the experience even more once it’s been spoiled. While it’s a total confirmation bias on my part, I’m here to tell you the science is wrong – at least our interpretation of it is.
Brain Knows Better
I do remember times when i was watching and knew what was going to happen and still enjoyed it.
Gathering Opinions about the issue
I made a survey to find out more about this issue:
Here are the results: https://3u2y3mxbfhw.typeform.com/report/KDlNZa1W/8db6lxFlWEsdxCEk
Click the link about to see all the responses. Here are some screenshots of my report:
Some good quotes from the survey:
“This questionnaire posed brilliant questions that has given me lots to think about. Why do we dislike spoilers if we still enjoy stories we know well? In historical societies, traditional cultures, and modern cultural traditions like Christmas, familiar stories are told and enjoyed again and again. Perhaps the difference with a spoiler, for me, is I don’t like someone else’s experience and perspective being imposed before I get the chance to have my own, whereas when we’ve seen something before, or it’s traditional, then it is more of a shared experience. I’ll be thinking about this for a while!”
Survey response
“Spoilers are ANNOYING!!! Also sometimes on the radio or in the newspaper they give the plot away so I tend not to read the article at all or turn off the radio!”
Survey response
“I think spoilers are everywhere. It can be annoying if you know you were unable to watch a programme and the next people are talking about it you can feel out of the loop of what is going on; and wish you had watched it. I know people feel like this with football results too.”
Survey response
My final thoughts
I think spoilers are bad because sometimes it can ruin the show and the patience for others for example Avengers: Endgame most people, if not everyone hated how people were giving out spoilers and the biggest one which was iron man dying made people sad and outraged but spoilers can also be good because it can save you from a terrible ending which has happened to me before searching up for spoilers for what you’re watching is fine because you’re intentionally doing it you’re doing it at your own will.
Evidence of sharing
I wrote my thoughts up into an article that was published in the school magazine
