You know, with all these complaints about spoilers, I’ve been harkening back to my childhood days. Yes, the days of old. We didn’t have a TV when I was little, then finally got one which was the TV until well after I left home as an adult: a 12" diagonal B&W box. Even after we got it, it was seldom allowed to be on, so while I did see the lunar landing and other historical news programs, I didn’t get to watch TV in any regular way.
I would go to school each day and listen to the kids talking about the popular shows, the ones everyone watched (as a family together, in those days). It’s a great way to make someone feel like an outsider. You don’t know the cultural references; you can’t understand the jokes; trying to fake it just gets you into trouble because at some point you’re going to mess up some key plot twist or character and be found out as a fraud.
It taught me that I don’t have to watch every popular show, but it is an appropriate social behavior to watch at least some of the programming in one’s area. It’s even OK to say that you don’t follow a specific show, as long as you can fit into the general conversation on another show.
Game of Thrones was the show that finally convinced me to upgrade to a premium channel. Knowing what happened Sunday night really does help social interaction at work on Monday morning. Sure, I could hold off and watch it on another evening, but this Thursday or next Wednesday is not when the conversation starts. It starts Monday morning.
Humans are social creatures…even we introverts. Fitting in is part of what we need to do to survive. Complaining that everyone else is talking about something before you – precious little you – have bothered to catch up draws attention, but not in an inclusive way.
Having said all this, apparently there are a bunch of add-ons and such to help people block spoilers from view on their devices until they’re ready to read them. It seems to me that if you don’t want to be part of the herd, that would be the path to take to get what you want.
