I’m currently watching a counter tick down the seconds until I’ll be allowed to book tickets to see Avengers: End Game.
I’m desperate to get tickets for the showing on the day that the film comes out.
Why so desperate?
It’ll be out for ages, right? It’s the blockbuster of the summer. Why don’t you just wait a while? Go and see it when the kids are at school or when it’s cheaper?
You want to know why I need to see it on the day it comes out?
It’s not because it’s the most anticipated film of the year.
Although it is.
It’s not because it’s the culmination of ten years of my heart being broken over and over again by MR Stan Lee.
Although it has.
It’s not even that I need to know who I need to kill if Bucky is really dead (side-eyeing Marvel studios).
It’s that I want to see it before the movie is spoiled by the internet.
I know within an hour of the film being released some basement dwelling Neanderthal will be tweeting the major twists and turns before the introductory credits have even finished rolling.
Other lonely trolls will be venting their entitled impotence over the slights Marvel has done to them personally by daring to complete the franchise in a way that doesn’t suit them.
Within twenty minutes it will be trending on Twitter, within two hours major news outlets will have picked up on the general feeling, Buzzfeed will have a quiz and there won’t be a single place you can go on the Internet without having the movie thoroughly ruined.
(As an aside this is one of the main reasons I try to avoid trailers these days. Trailers are no longer mini bursts of action designed to entice you to watch the film. They are now practically the length of the film and encapsulate all of the best parts condensed into a confusing miasma of explosions and one-liner witticisms. Scenes and witticisms, I might add, that are often not in the damn movie! (Wreck it Ralph 2 even makes a great joke about this) The idea of a trailer- like a book blurb is to make you want to see the movie, not make you feel as if you have already seen it.)
But what’s the big deal, you might say, just avoid the Internet for a few days and you’ll be fine.
No.
No.
Because trolls exist in real life.
Do you remember when the final Harry Potter book came out?
Other than when someone tried to steal the manuscript before release.
People queued for hours to get the book only to flip to the end and walk past all those still waiting and yell out the ending. They text it to their friends who weren’t even awake yet.
People made t-shirts with all of the spoilers on and wore them on the street. Someone even made a banner and hung it over the motorway in England.
People suck.
Why do people do this?
I understand the ever-present need for some to say that they were there first; that they saw it/did it/ way ahead of you. It’s so pervasive that it has become a sub-culture. Hipsters. Aside from the general mockery inflicted on them, their desire for authentication and originality can be so strong it’s almost sad. As far as this unqualified psychologist is concerned it comes from a deep-seated need for validation from others. They are so desperate to be part of the crowd that they want to let you know that they were ahead of you all along.
But this sub-species aside, why do some people delight in ruining this surprise for others?
For some maybe they genuinely want to share their excitement with others and forget that others aren’t as up-to-date as them.
I admit I have done this.
After watching the Force Awakens I was so pumped and completely forgot I’d gone with my fiancee and not my sister. Two days later was talking to her and said: “it’s the end of an era, like when Han Solo gets killed and-”
My sister punched me.
Quite rightly so.
Some people love spoilers. In a world where you can get pretty much anything with the touch of a button, patience is no longer something that people have to cultivate.
If you don’t want to cook- get a takeaway.
If you can’t pass a level- get a cheat code.
If you can’t wait for it to be released- get a pirate copy.
And if you can’t wait to watch the actual show/ book/series, then find some spoilers.
That’s completely your prerogative. There are whole websites just for you. Go ahead and be spoiled to your heart’s content.
But those who delight in screwing up someone else’s day; those who thrive on the misery they can create by spoiling things for others are why I’m sitting here waiting for some clock to tick down.
They are the jerks of the internet, the Frat boys of the web; low on the totem pole of internet trolls but still there holding up the scummy side of the net.
So to all you who, like me, hate spoilers; who love to be excited and entranced with whatever tale is being told for you without knowing what’s coming next; who love to gasp and cry in surprise, here’s hoping you remain spoiler free.
Just like me.
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{Spoiler alert: I got tickets!}
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