About spoilers after the show is broadcast?

[StrugglingAlbion]

Not a TAAT, but inspired by a current thread in which the OP was called a "dick" and a "massive cunt" for posting a thread revealing the winner of last nights Apprentice final. I have been meaning to start this thread for ages so here is an opportunity.

I think the acceptability of this is a rather divisive issue, and perhaps I'll be flamed, but my view is that, once the show in question has been broadcast, it becomes ok to discuss the result online. Therefore, spoilers are acceptable.

In fact it is only a spoiler to a person who has for whatever reason happened to have not watched the show. It's not really a spoiler in the true sense of the word i.e. a reveal of what is going to happen in an upcoming show. Proper spoiler threads should carry a warning.

If you don't want to see spoilers I think it is entirely your responsibility to avoid social media or threads on here or wherever that could contain spoilers. It is surely foreseeable that a thread today about the Apprentice might reveal last nights winner?

That being said, I probably would have or a spoiler warning had it been my thread, to avoid the overreaction wrath of many posters. But that would have been my call and I don't believe I would have been wrong not to do so.

Difficult when a show is 20 years old though :) Or there were books before the series - eg it's difficult to avoid spoilers on the Poldark threads because many people read the books/watched the 1970s series.

Spoilers can pop up in places you aren't expecting though. I am a big formula 1 fan but can't afford £30 a month for sky sports, and only half the races are on live on regular TV, so it takes at least 3 hours to do all the editing for the highlights show they air, usually evening time. I've deliberately avoided facebook and twitter and youtube as i follow the teams pages, in some instances to be checking the news website and for the first time all season they've put a story about the race with a photo of the podium before the highlights show is on, so i know who won before i can even get a chance to watch it!

Also it's annoying if you don't have the channel a show is on, in your TV package and have to wait for the series to be on DVD, like i had to with the walking dead, game of thrones, and a bunch of other shows i used to watch but no longer have in my tv package. I can't afford to be paying an extra £20 a month for the sake of one channel for a show that only runs a few months of the year. How can i avoid social media for all of that time? Especially when half of my FB friends watch these shows and some post statuses about whats happening as reaction posts, AS IT IS ON!? I have American friends who get e.g walking dead on Sunday where as i get it on Monday, am i meant to stay off for 24 hours just in case? I have had so many shows spoilered for me just scrolling through my news feed as nobody ever bothers to put a bloody spoiler alert, and because sometimes you catch a few words mid post as you scroll past. The worst was i had a show i watched with my mum from season 1, spoilered for me in season 11 because i no longer had the channel and was waiting on the series to be added to the netflix type service i watch, with the death of a major character from day 1 of the show. It sucks, it's NOT hard to not make a public board/post and to just message a specific person once you KNOW they have seen it, if you want to discuss an event in it!

I used to work with someone, we got on well, shared an office. One day I said I wished it had been a different winner on The Apprentice. She went mad, said she knew who had won as she knew which one I didn't like. Sulked, shouted and we never really got on after that. I didn't even know she hadn't watched the programme and she brought it up.

Whilst i am the first to get pissed off about spoilers, they are always of my own doing.

If i really, really don't want to know, then I should stay off the internet until I can watch it. Any social fora.

It's not the poster's responsibility to hold your hand and spell out every thread. It might be a completely unrelated thread that someone might mention it in - as they're are completely within their right to do!

A spoiler is only unacceptable if:

• you have watched via a torrent or some preview in another timezone before it is broadcast here
• it's a show or movie based on a book and not all viewers have read it

Can't think of another reason, tbf. If you personally cannot watch it in time, then you can't expect everyone else to be considerate of you!

amusedbush, you're welcome. We will have to watch out for everyone else though.

I used to work with someone, we got on well, shared an office. One day I said I wished it had been a different winner on The Apprentice. She went mad, said she knew who had won as she knew which one I didn't like. Sulked, shouted and we never really got on after that. I didn't even know she hadn't watched the programme and she brought it up.

@grannytomine what an utter child!

The results were broadcast on the radio this morning.

It's sad isn't it. If there is a meet up with ex colleagues, we are both retired, she won't go if I do so sometimes I find out they have all met up and I've been left out "to be fair to her." It's pathetic.

I work evenings and shifts tidbit hard to keep a spoiler out of a title it's just good manners

Just stay of SM until you catch up?

I have been following both IACGMOOH and Strictly, and missed both finals and unintentionally learned the winners of both. I mean that's just my fault - I shouldn't have gone online! It was in my face.

I don't think it is a big deal to hold off on talking about something for a day or two. We went to see the Last Jedi on Saturday morning partly because dd had already seen a spoiler from someone who went to a Friday screening. Not that it really made much difference as the film was really bad, but still doing something that spoils other people's entertainment is a bit off. We were careful not to rant until we got home On somewhere like mumsnet it's easy enough to put a spoiler warning on your thread title.

Ugh I just saw this on trending, I'm just surprised people have time to MN but not watch a TV show that they care so much about last night.

The winners have being doing the media circuit today and have been popping up all over the place. You don't want to know, then switch off your computer, TV, radio and don't look at newspapers.

I agree with you OP.

However I still haven't forgiven Jonathan Ross for giving away the twist in a film(Isee dead people) several years after it premiered.

I literally just clicked on that thread, read a few lines and realised wood de do, they'd spoilered the apprentice finale which I've been wanting to watch on catch up. I think it's really thoughtless to post about the outcome of a show like that, without at least alluding to the content in the title etc so soon after the finale. Really annoying!

As someone who always watches catch up I'd say it'd be nice if people gave it a couple of days... after that it's fair game!
I mean DP is always watching sport sunday evening, and out at a club on mondays, so we've been watching blue planet on tuesdays... If that was spoil-able I'd be annoyed if someone was talking about it on monday morning!

I'm amazed at how un-adulty some people have become about spoilers. But I get it's a thing and would roll my eyes and add a polite spoiler warning to the title.

However I'm part of a book group that still gets its collective panties in a wad about a book that came out over two years ago. Some of them "can't bring themselves to read it" because the Author died; and they still expect the rest of us to not discuss it on the group page.

The results of the Apprentice and Sports Personality were all over this mornings papers as was the result of Strictly. It is such a shame if no one can talk about what they watched on TV the night before in case someone is going to watch it later in the week.

amusedbush, I'm another late convert, too! Something happened in the final episode of series 3 that really, really shocked me and I felt so silly because the rest of the world had known fourteen years ago.

I think if you watch programmes before the majority of people will have seen it, i.e., Game of Thrones first shown at 2.00 in the morning to coincide with the time it is aired in the US when most people in the UK will watch it when it is shown again at a more normal time of 9.00 pm that same night then spoiling it is crass and uncalled for and the poster should provide sufficient warning in advance that the thread will spoil it for those who didn't stay up until the early hours to watch.

Similarly everyone on the Strictly threads is aware that the result happens on the Saturday night and can be found on the internet but it is not 'officially' aired by the BBC until the Sunday night, it would be very bad taste for someone to post on those threads who has gone through prior to the Sunday show being aired.

With shows like the Apprentice, Masterchef, soaps, etc., it is good manners when starting a thread to make it obvious in the title what it is about so those who want to can avoid it. However, people must cocoon themselves into a bubble of total TV/Radio/Internet/Social Media silence to avoid finding out who has won, etc. The comparison with football scores doesn't stand up as they only do this on the news broadcast immediately before the highlights of the matches are shown, the results will already have been announced earlier in the evening and are mentioned without warning in news broadcasts after the highlights have been shown.

When spoilers happen as in the thread in question calling people names and getting overly angry is ridiculous as is continually going on and on about it.

my view is that, once the show in question has been broadcast, it becomes ok to discuss the result online. Therefore, spoilers are acceptable

TV is no longer something that is always watched at the time of broadcast. No one is saying you can't discuss results but, if you want to chat about winners, have the courtesy to put a spoiler warning in the title.

I think if you don't want to know don't read the thread.

But...it's not a "show" , it's a programme!

As soon as the credits are over it's fair game аs far as I'm concerned.

I've read and watched the first 2 books/series of Game of Thrones. I don't want to watch more before I've read the books. On a gameshow the other day the question was something like who dies in series 6/7(can't remember) of GOT? And the answer totally spoiled it for me Harumph!

granny I have found my people !

Yanbu. People that get so irate by it really need to calm the fuck down. I'm surprised by the aggression and full on rage this brings out in people. Why? But that being said, I think there's something about being anonymous on a forum that brings the twat to the surface in people.