Anghus Houvouras on how spoilers are ruining film sites….
I’ve been pretty ambivalent about the spoiler outrage that has gripped the online communities since their existence. Even when they were microscopic. No doubt at some point in 1992 there were four film fans on a BBS Bulletin Board and one of them ruined The Crying Game for the other three. Probably with a ASCII picture of a penis. The fundamental truth here is that spoilers exist. And in the internet age of always-on 24 hour streaming information, they are getting harder and harder to miss. They make the rounds on every film site. They hit the front page of Reddit. They pop up in your social media feeds. Spoilers are everywhere. They are inevitable. To be online is to expose yourself to potential spoilage. No doubt at some point in 1992 there were four film fans on a BBS Bulletin Board and one of them ruined The Crying Game for the other three. Probably with a ASCII picture of a penis.
I found myself contributing to a conversation with Superior Spider-Man writer Dan Slott who has been extremely vocal about comic book spoilers hitting the web, funneling most of his welling rage towards BleedingCool.com EIC Rich Johnston:
@richjohnston Rich, you have a heavily trafficked site. If you DIDN’T spoil stories the information would not spread as fast. Please don’t.
To which Rich replied:
@DanSlott then stop launching public tirades when the real problems is elsewhere. Please stop.
Dan’s final word on the subject summed up how many creators feel:
Done arguing, Rich. All other arguments aside, this still holds true: When YOU spoil stories, the spoilers spread faster. Please stop.
Slott’s final thought on the subject mirrors how I’m starting to feel about spoilers. Every film site claims that they’re merely reporting what’s already out there, spreading spoilers like a virus. This week there was a slew of spoilage about Captain America: The Winter Soldier based on some toy photos and a soundtrack listing. The kernels of truth were quickly popping up everywhere online. To me, the spoilers weren’t nearly as interesting as how the websites opted to cover this ‘news’.
There are two distinct groups when it comes to spoilers online. There are those who blatantly expose those secrets with a sick level of glee. The ones who enjoy ruining things for others. The sites that will post the spoilers in the headline of the story giving you no choice in the matter. Sites that make highly questionable editorial choices that make it come across like they want to ruin the movie for you. Like that episode of The IT Crowd where the Dominator tries to ruin the Tarantino produced Zombie film or on a recent episode of Community where Britta goes to extreme lengths to expose the ending of a Game of Thrones style fantasy series to Abed. I don’t know what you do about those wretched souls. There will always be an uncontrollable element, like those people who drive to bookstores at midnight yelling “Snape kills Dumbledore.” The creatively malignant who find humor in spoiling it for everybody else.
Then there are those like Drew McWeeney over at HitFix who post a story about spoilers and then get weirdly sanctimonious about it. The headline of the story over at Hitfix:
Soundtrack listing and toys reveal ‘Captain America: The Winter Soldier’ spoiler (But we won’t give it away)
In the column, McWeeny (formerly Moriarty at Ain’t it Cool News) explains the whole sordid scenario behind The Captain America: Winter Soldier spoilers hitting the web and then gets preachy about it.
“I’m not going to repeat the spoiler here. I’m genuinely frustrated that I learned it, and I’m especially irritated that I learned it the way I did.”
McWeeney represents that new school of online film journalist. The ones who are desperate to come across as above it all, but still pass along the spoiler information in a kind of passive-aggressive way. By posting the story about the spoilers, he’s contributing to the potential ruination of the new Captain America movie. He provides all the links where you can find the spoilers, but doesn’t reveal the twist in the body of the article. Then he spends a paragraph or two talking about frustrated he is by it all. As if this story was so important publishing it was a mandate and that it’s all out of his control. It’s such a strange read. McWeeney helped usher in this spoiler plagued age with his Ain’t it Cool cronies, and yet he chastises the existence of these spoilers while writing a story that basically gives the reader everything they know to reveal the twist. It’s so wonderfully sanctimonious and simultaneously sociopathic.
It’s like McWeeny walks into the room of someone considering suicide and places a box of bullets and a gun on the table. Then proceeds to provide instructions on how to load the gun, unlock the safety, chamber a bullet, and pull the trigger. Just before leaving, he turns back to explain why it’s wrong to kill yourself, then lectures you on your selfishness for even considering something so terrible.
Let’s be honest, they’re just spoilers. It’s not exactly life and death. For online film sites, they have become a currency. They are leveraged and traded. Even the most ridiculous ones are passed around from site to site because everyone is afraid of potentially missing out. Sites that broker in rampant speculation like Latino Review with a heinous track record get constantly linked and re-posted because of one important principle:
Page views are more important than the truth.
The truth stopped mattering once film sites realized you get ten times the traffic for posting an erroneous rumor about the design of Batman’s codpiece as opposed to a traditional film review. Why bother with a well thought out piece about film theory when a two paragraph blurb about casting speculation for a superhero movie gets you twenty times the traffic? It’s a sobering realization. Standards have eroded to an embarrassing level. Even the most supposedly legitimate film sites engage in a symbiotic relationship of story sharing to guarantee they maintain certain traffic levels. The spoiler stream isn’t going anywhere.
There are a lot of people online who are constantly hungry for information. Who love the internet because it provides them a comprehensive look behind the scenes. You can know more about a movie than you ever could before. From inception to creation, it’s all there to be found online. There are some who believe it strips away some of the magic from the experience. There’s certainly some truth there. The reality is if you enjoy film and spend enough time online, the odds of the latest movie being ruined for you increase exponentially. The sad part of this new spoiler driven culture is that it feels like choice has been removed from the equation. For some, even finding out the movie has a twist is tantamount to ruining the experience. Seeing the words SPOILER ALERT in front of a story is often as deflating as the content of the story itself.
I’m of an age where realism consistently wins out over idealism. Accepting the fact that spoilers are a permanent fixture of the online film culture gives you a certain level of freedom. Expecting standards from these film sites is a waste of energy and effort. The one nagging thorn with all this are the sites that still seems way too excited to ruin a movie for their readers and the writers who re-post the stories while simultaneously lecturing us on the topic.
Spoiler Alert: They’re both pretty useless.
Anghus Houvouras is a North Carolina based writer and filmmaker. His latest work, the novel My Career Suicide Note, is available from Amazon.