This is an old debate at this point but I have a new entry in the debate about spoilers and how far you should reasonably be expected to go to avoid having things spoiled for yourself or to avoid spoiling things for others.
 
I have been following the reality/game show Squid Game: The Challenge on Netflix, based on the show of the same name about a brutal competition where losing contestants are killed (no such dark fate awaits the contestants on The Challenge). For those unfamiliar, The Challenge is 10 episodes long, with the first 5 installments dropping just before Thanksgiving, a additional 4 episodes being released late last week and then the finale with the winner finally hitting last night.

I had been out of town since late last week until Tuesday night so had not finished the last couple of episodes of the 2nd batch (episodes 8 and 9) before the finale was dropped last night. I watched episode 8 in the afternoon, ran some errands, went out for supper with my folks, came home and watched the new episode of Survivor and then watched the penultimate episode of Squid Game before calling it a night, opting not to stay up late to finish Squid Game and planning to watch it today instead. However, as I climbed into bed, I opened Twitter (still calling it that, sorry not sorry) on my phone as I do a half dozen times a day just to see if anything interesting had happened in the world in the last few hours.

Almost immediately I saw a tweet from a person named Dalton Ross, who is a writer for the Entertainment Weekly website specializing in reality TV especially Survivor, which is the reason I followed him on Twitter just a month or so ago in the first place (aside from Survivor and now Squid Game: The Challenge, I don't watch reality TV). The pic was apparently taken at a promo event for the show some time ago and was of him, former Survivor contestant Eliza Orlins, and the person who won Squid Game: The Challenge and was identified as such in the text of the tweet.

I was really, REALLY irritated by this, because the finale had just dropped on Netflix a few hours before and now I had the outcome spoiled.already. I will still watch the finale, of course but I would rather have had the experience untainted.

I know that a lot of people surely did watch the finale last night as soon as it dropped, but I would also guess that an even greater number of viewers were like me and not going to watch until today at the earliest. Is it too much to ask to wait at least a few days to give people a chance to watch the episode before you proclaim the winner on social media?

I wouldn't have the same expectation of a live sporting event, be it the Super Bowl or a regular season Minnesota Timberwolves game (Howl!!!!!)...I don't expect the world to not talk about those things, including the winner of the contest, as soon as the game is over. But in the streaming era where people are not expected to watch the exact same thing at the exact same time, what is a fair expectation for spoilers in a situation like this?

I left a snarky reply on Ross's post saying something like "I guess I should have watched the finale the instant it dropped if I didn't want the winner spoiled" and to this moment the only reply on my comment is blaming me for not staying off social media until I saw the finale. Which...I guess?

For what it's worth, I've not had anything else on Squid Game spoiled by Ross or anyone else on Twitter or other social media, or Survivor for that matter. Like, Ross wasn't identifying who got voted out on last night's Survivor in a different Tweet (he did link to his recap of the episode on the website but the tweet itself didn't spoil who got voted out). So why would a journalist of all people find it okay to publicly identify the winner of Squid Game on social media a mere few hours after the episode dropped when, unlike Survivor, the vast majority of viewers are NOT watching it at the same time?

It just bugs me. Is it my fault for checking Twitter before I went to sleep if I hadn't yet watched the finale? Or can we at least have some reasonable expectation of when it's okay to spoil something like this?

That is egregious.

It's a huge disservice, but there's a strong contingent out there that says they don't mind spoilers and even like spoilers. I think they feel a release of anxiety in knowing and the answer at the earliest possible time (i.e. they feel a sense of stress when the ending is knowable, but they don't know it yet). I know my mother will ask any time a program comes up for the ending -- do they end up together? Does he get killed? Who won?

I didn't fully understand that until some of our discussions here at IMWAN -- that some people prefer what is called a "spoiler." Since those discusssions, I have validated it in the wild -- the people that spoil have a hard time even grasping what a disappointment a spoiler is for those of us that want to be surprised.

Spoilers should remain in effect until something has been out for a year or more, IMO. Certainly for several months after the finale of a show has aired, at minimum. Not everyone binges a show the second they can, or sees the latest movies every weekend. I feel comfortable telling you the secret of Citizen Kane, but I wouldn't tell you the ending of the Flash movie (besides that it's terrible )

I think for reality shows with a "last man standing," the rules are somewhat relaxed. When Survivor wraps up the winner makes the rounds on the talk shows, and the same goes more most other reality shows with a winner. So a little bit of grace is in order for those types of shows. Netflix kind of gums it up because it's not a broadcast show -- the "dump" of the final batch means not everyone will experience it near the same time.

I think Netflix should consider a "live cast" dump of the final episode, and encourage everything to watch as closely as they can to that time. That will give the media some idea of when they can start trotting around the winner and interviewing them.

Spoil anything you want - but flag up that that is what you are doing. Announce it in advance - then the reader/viewer has it up to them whether they want to continue.

One of the (many) reasons I stopped visiting CBR.com was because they kept spoiling shows and movies IN THE HEADLINE of their articles. It's fine to put it in there, below a warning...but in the title, without any warning, for shows and movies that have just aired? Fuck them.

Absolutely, hhen someone throws it up in your face like that they can go to hail!

I feel It's your responsibility to avoid threads or talking about said medium until you watch it which is why I never go into threads about a movie or show I want to see until I give it a go. The only time I did was when I was a moderator on a Star Wars forum. Around the time when the final Sequel movie was coming out I told my mod team if they hadn't seen the movie they are not expected to go into the section until they've seen it themselves so as not to have the upcoming film spoiled for them. Hours before I was going to catch my showing for Rise Of The Skywalker I had to go into the spoiler section to help someone and Ben Solo's death was given away to me. I was brassed off beyond belief, but being one of the head mods I had to take one for the rest of my team.

BEN SOLO DIES?!?! WTF, I was just popping it in the DVD now!

Charles Schulz spoiled "Citizen Kane" for me repeatedly before I actually saw it. It was still a good movie.

SPOILERS and actually this would make my point for me if I cared about that movie. I haven't seen it, and probably never will now.

I once had the ending of a movie spoiled for me, here, on IMWAN.

I'm sorry. I assumed you knew that the Titanic sank.

I'm not a social media type, so I don't get hit with the whole Twitter / Facebook spoiler headlines. Long ago, I also stopped paying attention to backstage film news because so much stuff got leaked out. It's even gotten to the point where I ignore trailers if I can.

then, if there's something I really want to see, I'll arrange to get as close as I can to the front of the line, so I can then participate in forum convo's after it, without worrying about adverse spoilers.

I think the hardest example I've run into in the last several years was one of Season 8's episodes of GoT. I was travelling, without access to HBO, so had to wait. That was kind of tough.

Part of me wonders if the whole - spoil it for everyone on day 3 is an industry plot to drive traffic for the opening weekend for streaming / movies / TV to make stuff look better. In my youth (get off my lawn, you mangy kids!), a movie could be in the theatre for 2-3 months; it might even be a couple of months before a theatre could get a print to show the movie at all. So slow burn box office numbers were the norm. Now, if the BO numbers aren't great on opening weekend, it'll be gone in 3 weeks. And the Hollywood machine is trying to drive traffic by encouraging potential audiences to see it NOW!!! because I'm going to spoil it if you don't...

I certainly know that *now*, thanks to SOMEBODY who shall remain nameless.

Nameless here....forevermore?

I don't think I can completely agree with the year part, especially for a competition show. Back in the day when the original season of Survivor was such a phenomenon, it was in all the papers the next morning that Richard Hatch was the big winner and, as Jay said, he was making the rounds on the morning talk shows and on Letterman that night. The promotion of the winner continued in that way for the next several seasons. But 99.9% of people who were interested in who won Survivor were watching the final episode as it aired...there may have been a few outliers who couldn't watch that night and had to tape it on the old VCR, but nobody, including those viewers, expected anyone to not talk about the winner and the final episode. It was fair to expect those people to accept it was fair game and they should try to avoid being spoiled if they could.

But in 2023, it's different in the streaming era. It's a competition show LIKE Survivor, and undoubtedly 1000s of people started streaming the final episode the instant it was available on Netflix, but the vast majority surely did not. Some watched late that night, some watched the next day, some (like me) STILL haven't watched it yet. I feel like Ross's post identifying the winner and spoiling it for me would have been okay maybe on Monday,5 days later. The vast, vast majority of people interested in the show will have watched it by then and I think it would be okay to discuss the finale and winner openly at that point.

If he had just posted the picture of himself and the contestant without naming the contestant as the winner, that would have been okay too. I just expected more from someone actually covering the show for a major media outlet.

Counterpoint: Reality-competition shows are pure poison anyway and why are you doing this to yourself.

Truth bomb from Doot.

You ain't gonna make my alliance in IMWAN Survivor with that attitude, Doot.

Have you watched any lately?
Don’t mix them all together into one group.
Survivor, Top Chef, Amazing Race are all pretty good these days.

They are garbage and you know it!