spoiler alert

a friend of mine from undergrad had a great facebook status message today:

And thus in 2013, the second American Civil War was caused not by divisive politics or beliefs, but by the rift between those who posted Game of Thrones spoilers on Facebook, and those that did not see the episode when it aired.

i did not watch "game of thrones," (i'm pretending, mostly to myself, that i'm going to finish the first book) but now, thanks to social media, i know the fate of at least 2 characters who, given the place i am at in the book, i knew to be very much alive.  not that finding this out is some sort of devastating blow, but upon reading people's reactions last night, i did think, "well, guess i know what happens in the 3rd book now."

this leads to sort of an interesting question of the nature of being "spoiled" on entertainment, especially in today's world of time-shifting, netflix and media that you can always come back to.

please note: after the jump, i will discuss spoilers concerning the past of don draper on "mad men." if you have managed to avoid hearing anything about this character, 1. i want to know how and 2. you may want to avoid.

i love binge-watching television shows.

there are a great number of things that i never watched when they were first airing and sometimes, when they aired at all.  for example, i watched the five seasons of "brothers and sisters" after it was announced it would not be renewed a couple of years ago.  more often then not, however, i'm trying to get caught up on a show so i can start watching it in real time.  too many times i've started a new show at pilot season only to have it cancelled and then i'm pissed.  even when the show is not so awesome, i still hate wasting time trying to get invested in it only to have it canned. i'm still bitter that we never found out who the killer was in 2005's "reunion" (look it up) or we'll never know where that staircase goes in the ansonia on "666 park avenue."  so often, to try to mitigate this irritation, i let a new show lapse a season or two before i pick it up.  

there are exceptions, of course, sometimes a show is so compelling that i just have to watch it from the beginning.  and more rare than that, sometimes it is also a hit and doesn't get yanked from my viewing mid-season ("american horror story" comes to mind here... i was sold on that show from the first promo i ever saw).

the other benefit to this philosophy is that when the show is very good, it means you get to cheat the system and only have to wait as long as it takes for netflix/hulu/hbogo to load the next episode to get your fix, rather than wait weeks or who-kn0ws-how-long hiatuses for more.

this system tends to serve me fairly well, even when it's years and years of a show i need to catch up on to be in real time. i recently finished mainlining 74 episodes of "mad men" to finally catch up to real time with last night's episode, which i think might be a record, and i've put in varying amounts of time finally getting into other popular shows (4 seasons of "parenthood," 3 seasons of "the vampire diaries" (don't judge), 2 seasons of "how i met your mother," and "gilmore girls," etc).  the only problem with this, of course, is that once you're in real time and no longer have an instant gratification delivery system, that wait for new episodes feels extra INTERMINABLE.  but that's a small price to pay.

the bigger issue, i think, is that along with living in a glorious world where 100's of episodes of television is available on-demand, we also live in a world where all remotely popular television shows run the timely feedback loop that is social media.  as a show is airing people are lodging their reactions through "live blogging" it on twitter or posting their outrage/excitement to facebook the second the episode ends.  the upside of this is that you get to have your opinion instantly validated by your friends.  the downside of this is that it doesn't allow for any sort of organic reaction from people who didn't watch it right at the moment it aired.

i don't watch anything live except for sports.  i don't even watch awards shows live.  ever since i got tivo, i watch everything at least 20 minutes late so i can avoid ads.  to a certain extent, i do think if you choose to do this, especially when it comes to something timely and popular (such as, again, awards shows), you have to accept that if you also go on social media, you may have it spoiled for you.  but it seems like we've lost any sort of desire to keep things from being spoiled for our friends.

remember when "the sixth sense" came out, years before facebook was invented?  remember how if you were talking to someone who hadn't seen it, and you weren't a jerk, you would maybe comment on how you felt about the movie but you were very careful not to spoil the end for them? because you didn't want to lessen their enjoyment of the film or rob them of the surprise.

i accept that because i started watching the wildly popular "mad men" in it's 6th season, that i was already going to know a lot of things that happened (it's hard, for example, to even feign interest in the don/betty dynamic when you already know who megan is).  but as i watched it, i couldn't help but think how much more fun it would have been to try to pick up the trail as they slowly revealed dick whitman.

i don't mean to sound like curmudgeon guy here, or to ask people to adjust their social media habits to accommodate those of us who work on a different timeline, nor am i trying to say that this is some sort of major issue of our times. but one of the things i want to use this blog for is to talk about pop culture and i do think it's worth taking just one moment before you post something super spoiler-y out there to think about how much more you enjoyed the media when you didn't know what was coming.  let's let more people experience entertainment to the fullest possible extent of the writer's intention. 

it's the difference between a "HOLY SHIT, Game of Thrones!" and "OMG, Game of Thrones, why did you have to take out [character's name]?!?!?!"

after all, doesn't it make more sense to leave the next civil war to something that actually matters, like who we want to win the super bowl?