Stop spoiling movies during the two week grace period
Art by Madison Seckman
Movie spoilers have been around for as long as I can remember, and I’ve never been a fan of them. I’m not alone, either, since 65 percent of the USJ Instagram followers and Creek students I surveyed said they hate movie and book spoilers. Even though spoilers will never stop, there needs to be a two week grace window.
February 4, 2021
When Avengers: Infinity War came out in 2018, not a single school hallway was safe – that is, safe from spoilers. Between people yelling out spoilers in class and coming across spoilers on Instagram, I knew almost the entire plot in less than a week without ever watching the movie. There wasn’t a two week grace period. There should have been.
I’m not alone with hating spoilers. In a Union Street Journal survey conducted both in-person at Creek and over Instagram polls, 65 percent of 88 individuals surveyed said they hate having movies and books spoiled for them.
So many people hate spoilers, yet so many people post them. It’s true that, after about two weeks, it’s okay to discuss the plot of a recent release in public and online. But that’s after a little while – not opening night.
If you’re so eager to talk about the movie, just talk one on one with someone else you know saw the movie, instead of posting it on your Instagram meme account where everyone can see it – regardless of if they’ve seen the movie or not.
The article “Spoiler alert: it’s a piece about why spoilers are evil” by Nikesh Shukla for the Guardian said, “You have WhatsApp groups, you have private messages, you have the potential to go somewhere and discuss it in person.”
Considering that the option exists to just not post spoilers during the two week grace window, no one should have to go out of their way to avoid social media spoilers. Don’t be that person who posts the whole plot on Reddit the day after opening night.
It’s normal to desire the option to make your own opinions about a movie when you first see it. That means you must avoid going into the first-time-viewing experience with information on who’s going to live or die and other major spoilers.
Junior Kayla Robinson said, “I like to experience the movie myself and be surprised by what happens and movie spoilers ruin that for me.”
Robinson and many others know the experience of having their minds blown or hearts broken by a shocking and new movie; they know how hurtful it can be to have that experience ripped away by social media spoilers.
I know I can’t stop people from posting spoilers. Frankly, if you want to make memes about movies, I’m all for that – I like to look at them, too. But you need to provide a spoiler grace window of two weeks. You are not funny or witty or anything but rotten for spoiling a movie on opening night that someone really wanted to witness on their own.
