Featured Posts
It was a late, stressful day at work. Traffic was awful on the way home, causing you to miss dinner with your family. Your significant other was kind enough to heat you up some leftovers when you walked in the door. It’s too dark outside to play that game of HORSE that you promised your child you’d play before bedtime. After tucking them in and relaxing with a hot shower, you sit down an hour late to watch your favorite TV show. Before you hit “play” on the DVR, you decide to give your Facebook feed a quick glance, as you have ignored it all day and didn’t want to miss wishing anyone “Happy Birthday”. Then you see it: the dreaded post. One of your friends has mentioned how they can’t believe that so-and-so was killed on the episode that you are just about to watch.
Mother!%&@#$.
I have avoided Facebook since last night. When television shows go dark for ten months between seasons, I like to refresh my memory by either watching the prior season or the entire series run before the new one begins. Such is the case with Game of Thrones as I had decided to rewatch seasons 1-4 before season five premiered. I got behind, and currently I am in season two, so I was not ready to watch last night’s new episode. Knowing how my Facebook friends like to post major spoilers on deaths and plot points for television shows right after they air, I thought it best to not even bother reading the newsfeed. Sorry if I missed your birthday.
Typical responses for people, like myself, who are angered by people ruining shows for others online are “you should have watched it live” or “don’t get on Facebook if you haven’t watched it.” My reply is “don’t be dicks by purposely spoiling stuff.” Should people on the west coast be forced to avoid Facebook for three hours until the episode first airs in their time zone? Why do people post these spoilers anyway for all to see? Can you not post “I can’t believe that happened on Bates Motel” and then hide your spoilers in the comments? They could, but I believe people enjoy ruining things for others.
From my personal observations, Facebook has become a place to complain about anything and everything. It is a cesspool of negativity. People like to post how stupid some things are, how certain people annoy them, and pretend they are holier than the Heavens themselves on certain topics. (God forbid you have a barbeque on Memorial Day.) I think the negative atmosphere of Facebook breeds further negativity, and that is where the desire to ruin things for others comes from. The only reason to immediately post spoilers ruining a television show is to piss people off; otherwise they would post a vague comment like my example above.
If you are one of these “spoilers” then I ask you to contemplate not being an a-hole anymore. Let’s let everyone enjoy their television. And their barbeques.
Follow Jeff on Twitter: @JeffLane22
