thoughts on spoilers for old games/books/movies?

[sanctumsys]

title. this video came up and it made me think of Final Fantasy 7 and other stories that have had major plot points and twists spoiled. i wish intensely that people were more considerate that some people might not have gotten around to things like that yet, and that applies to things of any age. i've stumbled across a few unmarked lord of the rings spoilers randomly before and during my recent reading of the books and it's been at best annoying

[RT-55J]

I was gonna say that it feels unrealistic for someone to have a complete knowledge of the entirety of human thought from the past, but that video touches on that idea lol.

[RT-55J]

Thinking about this some more, I think being able to talk about spoilers is one of the reasons why fan communities form in the first place. I mean, fans don't talk exclusively about spoilers, but fans tend to have the desire to talk about their stuff deeply and holistically (at least, I kinda hope so), including things that would be spoilers. Thus, fans create spaces (clubs, newsletters, forums, subreddits, etc.) where that can happen without having to over/underexplain things for the sake of the uninitiated.

I feel like a good amount of people intuitively understand this, at some level, but it can be easy to make incorrect assumptions about other people's familiarity or level of interest. For instance, the Star Wars films enjoyed a long period of time where they were culturally ubiquitous, so surely everybody knows that Darth Vader killed Luke's father. Also, it can be difficult from casual contact to suss out somebody's level of familiarity with a thing. For example, just saying to someone "I've been reading the Earthsea books" still leaves a lot of unknowns about your familiarity with the series: Is this your first time, or not? Are you partway through the first book, or the last? Do you edit the fanwiki? Did you watch the Ghibli movie? Depending on who you're talking to, they make ask a few follow-up questions, or they might just make some assumptions based on how you're talking about the thing (and their guesses might be wildly off-base).

random musings

[sanctumsys]

I feel like a good amount of people intuitively understand this, at some level, but it can be easy to make incorrect assumptions about other people's familiarity or level of interest. For instance, the Star Wars films enjoyed a long period of time where they were culturally ubiquitous, so surely everybody knows that Darth Vader killed Luke's father. Also, it can be difficult from casual contact to suss out somebody's level of familiarity with a thing. For example, just saying to someone "I've been reading the Earthsea books" still leaves a lot of unknowns about your familiarity with the series: Is this your first time, or not?

i think this makes sense. i'm mostly annoyed with stumbling into untagged spoilers, but discussing what would be spoilers with people who already know them can be some of the most rewarding interactions that can happen between fans or something
i just do wish people would tag spoilers, regardless of how old something may be