Audience Originated Spoilers

Hello, and welcome back to this.  This week I think that we have to talk about another impending pop culture event.  In just under two months, on the first day of 2016, the Victorian special of Sherlock, “The Abominable Bride,”  will air in the UK and the US.  This follows a nearly two year break following the third season of the series.  The way that the production manages the numerous and avid fans of the program involves a controlled use of social media.

                As the special approaches, interest is very high.  Sherlock has many fans across the globe who have been eagerly awaiting the next installment from the moment they had finished watching the third episode of the most recent season which aired early last year.  The program has behind it a strong force of word of mouth with die-hard fans consistently talking about the series previous installments and what they expect in the future on platforms like Tumblr. 

                How, then, do Mark Gatiss and Stephen Moffat, the minds behind the series, feed their following as the newest piece of their work comes to our screens?  They’ve learned that by providing their rabid followers with small pieces of information over the months leading up to the premiere, they’ll keep them engaged over each long hiatus that the show takes.  Now, the information being released ranges anywhere from images of Holmes and Watson in Victorian garb which happened a year prior to what will be the release of the new episode to, most recently, trailers for the episode. 

                Of course, trailers are meant to give the viewer a taste of what the project will be like without spoiling any of the narrative of the work.  Does this take on a new meaning with modern fandoms spending the time leading up to a premiere breaking apart the trailer which has been given to them and analyzing each clip before creating a narrative which could connect the dots and having the ability to discuss those possible narratives with others across the world?  If you wanted to remain 100% clear of spoilers for the special, it would be reasonable to avoid the internet predictions.  They can very easily become spoilers for the upcoming event because, in a narrative that should be grounded with realism, there are only a certain number of plausible links that could connect a series of events.  In the same way that independent creation is an acknowledged way that new inventions or artistic creations can come into existence without being direct imitations of one another, within a set of limitations which are laid out by logic and small pieces of information provided in a trailer it is likely that at least one fan who attempts to predict what will happen in “The Abominable Bride” will create the same story as Moffat and Gatiss have.  Leave it up to the power of individuals collaborating on social media, and there will definitely be spoilers before you know it.  

Studiously Avoiding Spoilers

It’s that time of year again!  The Walking Dead is back on our screens, and again I am not watching live, forced to avoid spoilers studiously.  In my first post, I said that I hate spoilers about narrative programs and this one is super important.  The Walking Dead is a easily spoilable show.  What events are more important in a tv show than when a beloved character meets his/her tragic end.  And in this show, that is constantly happening. 

                As of this moment, I have yet to watch Sunday’s episode.  I haven’t had the time to sit down and watch it, but I have been scrolling through Twitter once again.  On Sunday nights, Twitter becomes a minefield for me.  And I do admit that I could probably create a less spoiler-y zone. 

Each week, one person who I follow tweets constantly about the night’s show.  When I check Twitter, I often end up scrolling without looking in depth at much because I’m trying to avoid reading something I don’t want to.  Y’know what makes spoiler posts easy to avoid: hashtags.  It’s funny to me because they are meant to help you to find posts.  If you are scrolling down a page quickly a hashtag is easy to spot and avoid, especially now that there is always a hashtag emoji image for each week’s new episode.

Great British Bake Off Spoiled?

Should I be giving spoiler alerts on a blog which consistently claims that spoilers don’t exist?  Yeah, because you don’t have to agree with me.  Don’t read this if you watch the Great British Bake Off but haven’t, for whatever reason, watched this season’s finale.

I, quite unsurprisingly, had the finale episode spoiled for me.  A number of people that I follow on Twitter are British, and that show is a big deal.  13.4 million people watched the finale (in a country of 64.1 million).  Dear reader, you will not at all be shocked to hear that I very quickly moved past the fact that the winner had been soiled for me.  Nadiya was certainly the favorite in my house from the earliest stages of the competition, though we were also fans of Tamal and Ian from the beginning.

I did wonder whether I would have been upset that the results had been spoiled for me if there had been one contestant who I hated and that person had been the winner.  Once again though, I came to the conclusion that what would have been bothersome wouldn’t have been knowing the result of the show without having seen the episode.  Even knowing that Nadiya had won, I still fully enjoyed watching the difficult technical and seeing the successes of each baker with their individual showstopper.  I would only have been bothered if the result was not what I had hoped for in the show.  At least in the way that I experience “spoilers,” I’m more upset at the outcome than I am about having someone else spoil the outcome for me.  Any negative response I have to spoilers is tied back to the emotion about the part of the show that was being spoiled.  Anybody else?  Agree?  Disagree?  Feel free to think either.  Bye.

Not on Topic, But on Theme

Continued this week:  Writing on a topic that isn’t the actual topic but is thematically relevant. 

This past week’s episode of Great British Bake Off was spoiled for me.  And, yes, I realize that in the first post here, I said that I wanted the world to spoil things that were competitions as long as they refrained from spoiling narrative shows that have an actual plot.  But as I was scrolling through Twitter the day after the actual airdate of the show, someone had posted an article which announced in the title the person who had gone home in the semi-final. 

                Now, as I watched the episode, I was feeling a little bit bitter about the fact that I knew who was out.  If we’re being honest though, you can see from the start that one person isn’t going to make it when there are only four contestants and one person has been making the same wrong decision week in and week out.  In the isolation of reading a tweet, it is easy to get wrapped up and feel like some aspect of watching the show has been taken from you, but as soon as you’re focusing on the show and what you know from everything you’ve seen up to this point, there really isn’t that much to ruin.  Maybe that situation would’ve been different if one contestant who was just the best through the whole show had a terrible weekend.  That isn’t what happened though, so there isn’t that much to worry about.  

Live Tweeting During Production?

Just as a warning, this week’s post is not about live tweeting in the context that we generally refer to it.  It’s more about the live tweeting of the production of entertainment.  And in that broad of a description, what I’m saying makes zero sense.  Let’s just get down to it. 

                For the past four months, the reboot of Ghostbusters has been filming.  If you aren’t someone who has been totally excited about this film or following the director, Paul Feig, on social channels, you may not know about his attempted control on what gets out about the film while it is still being produced.   

                In August of last year, it was announced, without the go-ahead from Feig or from Sony, that the director was in talks to work on a Ghostbusters project.  From before he had signed on to have any power over the film, the media had begun to take it away from him.  The trend continued as media outlets exposed that Katie Dippold was then being discussed as a writer, alongside Feig, for the film.  Rumors over which actresses were being discussed as possible ghostbusters began to spring up as the year came to a close, and Sony’s hacked emails were sorted through by people across the internet. 

                Feig tried to change the pattern of how his film was being reported late in January with a picture of the film’s four leads posted to Twitter.  Then, entertainment reporting began to follow his lead.  In June, as filming approached, Feig announced Chris Hemsworth’s casting as a receptionist.  During the earliest weeks of filming, Feig posted on Twitter pictures of Ghostbusters related props and costumes: green slime, four uniforms hanging on a rack, a proton pack, the Ecto-1, and, finally, the four women, in uniform, standing in front of the Ecto-1 about a month into filming. 

                And then the director’s control got lost.  The trick of filming a giant, studio film is that there are a lot of people involved.  Not everybody is going to get the same warnings about what they should and shouldn’t say.  Dan Aykroyd tweeted about his own cameo in the film, clearly not having been warned appropriately about how secretive Paul Feig wanted the details of the film.  In quick succession, the paparazzi and entertainment media caught word that Bill Murray, Annie Potts, and Ernie Hudson had all been brought on for cameos in the film.  As news of Ernie Hudson’s appearance was surfacing, Feig took to Twitter again, an attempt to break the news before anyone else could.  And, finally, with the announcement of Sigourney Weaver’s cameo, Feig lamented that he was “trying to keep surprises, but [it]was about to leak.” 

                While I do understand the disappointment in paparazzi leaking who is on set, there is so much more to going to see a film than just a leaked, still image of Chris Hemsworth.  And in reality, not a single person is going to hear word that [insert name of cameo actor from the franchise here] is in the movie and decide that they aren’t going to see it.  At the very least, to see that the original cast are all going to have a hand in the new film, and must approve to some extent, might soothe all of the middle-aged men who were so threatened that the cast of this film would be women and make them stop whining about it already. 

                In total, Paul Feig is doing a great job working on a project for an existing property.  From the time that it was announced that he was directing, he was sure to engage with Ghostbusters fans across the country and is providing pictures and information about props for the more heavily devoted fans (think people who make costumes for conventions).  That community that already existed around his film a year before it will be released is a really great plus, but the media attention is an unavoidable “negative”.  Or its free, grassroots marketing.  Either way, the director should just stick to sharing his own news.  With as much demand for information as there is, he is holding all of the cards.  As it sits, this production has been a chance for him to get ready.  If it does well, the studio will definitely have him back to do more.

Identity Crisis Averted

I thought that I was wrong about my original belief that spoilers don’t spoil for a minute or two last night.  I wasn’t watching the Emmys, and I felt as though I was distinctly under-informed as I knew that this big event was happening and all I was seeing was other people’s reactions.  And I was totally okay with missing some of the speeches from the winners whose work I’ve watched because I knew that they’d be up on the internet this morning and there really wouldn’t be that much of a difference about when I watched it.  In that way, I was totally on the same page as when I wrote my first post for this blog.  

                But the Emmys are generally full of moments that don’t matter that much culturally.  In the realm of things, it doesn’t matter that  Tony Hale won for Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Comedy Series or that Veep won for Outstanding Writing in a Comedy Series because those wins were moments that will matter beyond this week for only a handful of people.    

                The moments that were spoiled for me were the moments where I missed the beginning of a conversation that was launched because of the way that a winner used the platform with which they were presented last night.  I missed out on Viola Davis’ speech for Outstanding Lead Actress in a Drama Series.  On Twitter, my entire timeline was filled with emotion at her words.  But I didn’t know the content of her speech until a little later that night.  More importantly, I wasn’t able to feel the power behind what she was saying because I missed that moment live.  I missed the way that Jeffrey Tambor, Jill Soloway, and Allison Janney brought to light the issues that are connected with their shows and weigh on them.  Those are the moments that are likely to be spoiled.  But even so, it isn’t the fault of Twitter spoilers that I was left out of those moments last night.  The fault was only in my hands, because I couldn’t watch the show live.  And I would have missed out on that moment no matter what. 

It is a benefit of social media that I know now that there were important issues being brought to light during what is, at its most basic, a popularity contest for rich/famous individuals.  And that, this morning, I had the opportunity to watch Viola Davis’ speech and be glad that in 2015, you can miss it the first time around but check out what you missed when you wake up the next morning.  

Losers All Around

Hello again! 

Don’t be afraid.  I recovered from the joy I was feeling at the success that my sisters and I had while watching Only Connect last week.  There will not be bragging herein.  Because we did terribly this past week.  Only two questions right.  (In case you just NEED to know: the lion question in round two where C.V./Curriculum Vitae was the answer and the first satnav question in the missing vowel round.)

This week, before I’d watched Only Connect, I’d seen on Twitter that the show is nearing the episodes where the questions will begin to get harder.  This was the first week where two teams that had previously lost were coming together to determine which should stay.  Even the team who lost in this episode performed well when compared to the (pathetic) standard which we’d set while sitting on our couch.  It does make you feel a bit better about having a difficult time with the answers when Richard Osman (a host of a different quiz, just so you know) tweets about the show calling it the “Ultimate Hell Week” of quizzes (until he then tweets that he was doing great on that episode’s clues). 

The benefit, I think, of the way that Only Connect is set up is that a sense of failure doesn’t overwhelm you as much as it might if you don’t get a single question on Jeopardy!.  The two contributing factors to that, at least for me, are your time and your team.  Yes, your time to get the connection on Only Connect is limited, but you aren’t forced to move quicker because you are worried that your competitor will get it before you will.  When you’re putting your mind fully to the task, you will get it if you know the information or not if not.  It’s also harder to feel so completely beaten when you’ve put together your knowledge with others to try and find the connections between the clues.  A wider base of knowledge is going to exist between three people than within one person (even when, in the case of my sisters and I, large amounts of life experience overlap). 

I mean, do what you will with that.  I’m likely looking too hard for some deep meanings in this but it makes sense and applies to other situations, right?