Something Rotten on the Internet
| Meta | |
|---|---|
| Title: | Something Rotten on the Internet |
| Creator: | Mary Jean Holmes |
| Date(s): | April 10, 2002 |
| Medium: | online |
| Fandom: | |
| Topic: | Spoilers & Warnings |
| External Links: | Something Rotten on the Internet (Wayback) |
| Click here for related articles on Fanlore. | |
Something Rotten on the Internet is a 2002 essay by Mary Jean Holmes.
The topic is spoiler warnings and the increased use of them in media writing. In some ways, this essay is related to fan debate about content warnings in general.
Some Excerpts
By now, we've all seen the red banners: SPOILER ALERT! SPOILER WARNING! SPOILERS AHEAD! One would think that whatever these "spoilers" are, they are more deadly than hard radiation, something to be avoided like the plague. Woe betide those who move beyond these Red Banners of Death, since from all the noise that is made about them, they must be there to ward off innocent children from the worst degradations and filth ever to spring from the mind of Man.
But... wait a second... All they are is... a lot of noise put there so that people who don't want to know anything about a popular movie or TV show or book don't get the surprise of what happens "ruined" for them because they haven't gotten around to watching or reading it, but still want to go to visit websites and read articles that are devoted to them.
What's wrong with this picture? When did the Constitution guarantee the rights to life, liberty, and the preservation of all surprises? Is it our God-given right to tell the rest of the world that they must continue to do everything possible to preserve our belief in Santa Claus, just because we want it that way?
This is getting ridiculously out of hand. Once upon a time, if you didn't want to hear about a movie or a book before someone else told you, you had the brights to steer clear of conversations about it, didn't watch television programs dealing with it, and, for heaven's sake, went and read the book or watched the movie! If you didn't want someone else to "spoil" your fun, you read the book the minute it hit the stands, you made the effort to get to the flick on opening day so you were among the first who knew, and beforehand, if you saw an article talking about it or came across an item on TV -- or now, encountered a website or newsgroup discussing it -- you closed the newspaper, shut the magazine, turned off the TV, or left the site until you'd finished the book or seen the show and could no longer be "spoiled." If you wanted to talk about what you did know without taking the risk of finding out "too much," you started your own conversation with people who were at the same level of understanding as yourself.
Not anymore. Now, everyone else must take on responsibility for the preservation of surprise for the ignorant; they are no longer responsible. Newbies wander into long-established message boards and chatrooms, only partially familiar with the subject under discussion, then whine when someone doesn't slap spoiler warnings all over messages because they want their cake and they want to eat it, too. They want to participate in an established community where all of what they consider "spoilage" is common knowledge, and they want all those people to do everything to make sure their surprise isn't ruined.
When did people get the right to insist that others help maintain their ignorance, purely for the sake of what they consider to be their own entertainment?
I'd thought our society had slid about as far back as it could go into the morass of anti-intellectualism. I guess I was wrong. It's not the people who merely enjoy a surprise that bother me. It's the ones who insist that their being surprised is of tantamount importance, and that they should be allowed to take part in discussions where the vast majority of other members will be inhibited in their own participation for the sake of a few who cannot exercise self-control and simply stay out of such forums until they are no longer in danger of being "spoiled."
And it can be done. I have known members of newsgroups and message boards and chatrooms who, wanting to make sure their sense of surprise was maintained, simply left for as long as it took for them to get up to speed with everyone else. Yes, they missed out on some of the discussion; some were gone for more than a year. But they understood -- as mature adults -- that you can't have everything. You have to choose your priorities, then take whatever action is needed to implement them. You don't ask others to do it for you, or require them to change their behavior just because you want to have everything your way. Not only is it impossible, it is not your God-given right.
Go right ahead and pursue your happiness. Just don't tell me that I must be a participant in your pursuit. It's not my responsibility or my choice; it's yours.
Pardon me, now, I'm going to pursue my happiness and head off to a literary message board to do my best to spoil a few people who shouldn't be there until they've finished the book. And I'm going to love every minute of it.