Stop With The Spoilers, Folks. Seriously, STOP IT

When you love a popular TV show or movie, you’re always excited for new content. Whether it be a new episode or a new movie in the franchise, it’s understandable that you’re pumped for the next installment. Of course, you want to share your excitement with your friends and family who may also be fans of the same thing. So naturally, when you finally get to see the big movie or watch the next episode of the show, you want to talk about it. And you might turn to social media to share all your thoughts. But in your excitement, you may be sharing spoilers and honestly, that’s so not cool.

Spoilers are the worst part of enjoying anything even remotely popular. And not even just movies or TV shows, books get spoiled too and it really fucking sucks. This world is harsh and our favorite forms of entertainment bring us some joy, so why ruin that?

Yes, you can try to avoid them, but it’s not fair that those of us who can’t see something right away should have to avoid social media because you can’t refrain from posting detailed reactions to new media.

No one is saying that you can’t talk about how much you loved the most recent episode of Game of Thrones, the latest Marvel movie, or the newest book in a popular series. Talk about your love! Tell people they must watch/read! But, you can 100% talk about how much you love something without giving away half the plot of the episode in your Facebook post, or your tweet or your comments. Seriously, how hard is it to simply write, “I fucking love tonight’s episode of GoT” without naming any characters or spoiling the ending? And yes, hashtags count too. Just stop.

Can’t you just say, “Wow, Chris Hemsworth is really fucking hot in Endgame” without then giving spoilers about what Thor does in the movie? Why is it so hard to be considerate of other people?

More often than not, people who are really into something popular are going to try and watch/read that popular thing as soon as they possibly can. But we’re all living our lives, and sometimes that takes a little longer for some folks. While it’s great that you can go see Avengers Endgame at midnight the night it comes out, your friend Jan may not be able to see it until Sunday. So you should be able to hold off on spoilers for the first 48 hours.

I’m a single parent and don’t have a lot of free time or money. So it’s not easy for me to go to the movies. And I rarely watch TV. The amount of stress that comes from coordinating a night to go see a Marvel movie isn’t worth it. But, I will say this, spoilers are still a pain in the ass.

For those of us who live in time zones that aren’t Eastern Standard or Central, we’re not watching TV shows when everyone else is. I live in the Pacific time zone. There are A LOT of things that we’re watching three hours after everyone else is. So while your fave character is kicking ass on GoT on the east coast, someone on the west coast is just sitting down to dinner. And in the time before the show airs in our time zone, maybe we don’t want to sign off all social media to avoid spoilers, and we shouldn’t have to.

And what about the people who are watching shows in an alternate way? I don’t have cable anymore, so (like many people) I rely on streaming services for all the shows I like to watch. Which means I’m not watching anything in real time — I have to wait for it to come to Hulu or Netflix. So, I can’t watch Thursday night’s episode of Grey’s Anatomy (yes, I still watch it) until Friday. And I work during the day, so I’m not watching it until almost 24 hours after its initially aired. I may be able to try and avoid spoilers, but it’s not always easy.

Look, posting spoilers is just frustrating for everyone. There are plenty of ways you can have discussions about your favorite popular things without ruining it for literally everyone. And they’re things that don’t put the responsibility on the people trying to avoid spoilers. We shouldn’t have to mute people/words because other people just can’t keep shit to themselves.

You could set up a group text or email with the people you want to talk to.

If you have a core group of friends who like to talk and share spoilers immediately after the event, then set up something off social media. Or do it on social media in a private group. Go ahead and start a Riverdale spoilers group on Facebook. If someone misses the thing that week, they can simply ignore the group chat until they’ve caught up.

Put a *spoiler alert* on your posts.

So, if you simply can’t keep spoilers off social media, then the least you can do is give people a head’s up. This way, if someone is trying to avoid spoilers, they can keep scrolling. Take it one step further and put your spoilers in the comments of the post. Even easier to skip past.

Honestly, it’s not too much to ask that people don’t post spoilers on social media. And it doesn’t make sense that people get so bent out of shape when the request to not share spoilers is made. You’re not being cool or cute or funny by oversharing all the plot points of this week’s Jane the Virgin in your Facebook post. What you are is an inconsiderate asshole.

There are plenty of ways to share your love for something popular that don’t involves specifics. Sure, it can be hard when you’re really excited about the new Star Wars movie. No one is saying you can’t be excited. All we’re asking is for you to keep your damn trap shut about the movie/TV show/book itself.

Let’s try to just not be shitty, huh?