Does knowing the ending really ruin your experience?
The term "spoiler" long predates its current common-usage definition — not to mention the advent of social media, movies with outrageous twist endings or, you know, the Red Wedding on "Game of Thrones." The word, which has its origins in the 15th century, referred to any person or event that undermined the enjoyment of an activity or thwarted an expected outcome, such as a third-party candidate in an election. |
Now, however, it usually refers to the revelation of a narrative detail from a movie or TV show that in some sense spoils a surprise. "Spoiler" can also refer to the person who does the spoiling. Both the act and the person seem to be instinctively reviled and are often publicly rebuked — the assumption being that spoilers are a breach of some sacrosanct rule of modern etiquette. This holds even as the modern world conspires to make it harder and harder to avoid spoilers and harder and harder to suppress them once they're loosed into the wild. |
Not everyone agrees that spoilers are taboo. Way back in 2008, the culture critic Dan Kois made a stirring defense of discussing plot details as a cherished water-cooler ritual. And I've long had my own dog in this public fight about spoilers which is, basically: Everybody chill. |
But even those of us who dabble as amateur spoilerologists may be shocked by the scientific research from actual -ologists, like the psychologist Anna-Lisa Cohen of Yeshiva University. She wrote last week for Opinion about her surprising finding that "we are just as likely to get caught up in a story even when we know what is coming — perhaps because more significant factors determine our enjoyment of narratives." |
One strong takeaway from her research for me is that when we talk about spoilers, we're talking about one specific kind of pleasure, which is the pleasure of being surprised. And that's certainly not the only pleasure — and perhaps not even a central one — that compels us to watch the shows and movies that we admire. |
We are hard-wired, it turns out, to get swept up in stories, even if we know exactly what will happen. This makes sense on a meta-narrative level, in that few fictional narratives are truly surprising and most follow a relatively predictable arc, i.e. the hero encounters obstacles but ultimately prevails. Yet we still love our shows and films, even though we often know, in some broad sense, how they will end. |
So does all this mean that spoilers don't actually spoil anything? |
To find out, you'll have to read the whole essay. I'd certainly hate to … you know. |
Here's what we're focusing on today: |
Forward this newsletter to friends to share ideas and perspectives that will help inform their lives. They can sign up here. Do you have feedback? Email us at opiniontoday@nytimes.com. |
|
No comments:
Post a Comment