Spoilers

**Warning:**

*This contains spoilers. for Game of Thrones (After Season 4 Episode 3 you can read). It also contains a spoiler for how many episodes are in Season 1 of Squid Game. It also contains a spoiler for season 9 of RuPaul's Drag Race (spoiler has been retracted), a spoiler for Breaking Bad (anyone who hasn’t reached season 5 should not read), a spoiler for Seinfeld (anyone who has not reached season 8 should not read), there is also an inconsequential Curb your Enthusaism scene featured below.* The Portlandia clip at the bottom below, is pure chaos. It is an evil clip full of Spoilers. Do not watch if you care about television at all.

I hate spoilers. To an extreme. I think there are a couple of things that I hate about spoilers that are a common occurrence. People say spoilers and then say spoiler alert after. This is not helpful. An alert is pre-emptive. Sir, your “alert” should be a profuse apology and reparations.

Another common occurrence is the discussion of spoilers in regards to an older show. This is the age of the internet when generations of people are finding old shows and gems from the past all the time. These spoilers are costly. Check your surroundings.

The other month I saw an outrageous Sopranos spoiler, OUTRAGEOUS , this was on a very famous podcast.

Literally the most shocking moment on the show was casually announced with not a micro hesitation. I felt immediately wounded despite my having seen the series from start to finish a full seven times. How could he utter such a revealing fact about this fresh and new television show from a quarter-century ago? But in all seriousness, The Sopranos is a timeless masterpiece.

I’m extremely careful about spoilers but here are a couple of memorable times that I’ve accidentally spoiled things… followed by what I’ve had spoiled.

THINGS I HAVE SPOILED

Season 9 Drag Race: I was re-watching a series finale with a new roommate who was watching RuPaul’s Drag Race season 9. She was on the last episode, where the drag queen would be crowned. When asking my roommate what season she was on she started to show me on screen the WINNER'S NAME. While technically I didn’t say she had won, this was horrible.

Breaking Bad (spoilers for anyone who hasn’t reached season 5): This one is the most upsetting spoiler I’ve ever done. I was talking about a show to someone who is really arrogant about their intelligence and doesn’t think I'm worthy of his intellectual debate or discussion. He’s a smart guy for sure, quiet, and interesting too, but he overlooks so much. Anyways... he was watching Breaking Bad and I was excitedly talking to him about it. He was at the part where Gustavo starts to get big in the show. This, for me, is when Breaking Bad leveled up. The precision of Gustavo leveled up the show. I remarked oh I love Gustavo, he was so good in season 4. Immediately my friend was like “that’s a spoiler, now I know he dies”. I argued, but he was right. It was idiotic. This one was a painful one.

I was once showing my friend who was watching Seinfeld for the first time. A clip from Curb Your Enthusiasm where Larry David gets offended that Jason Alexander calls the George Constanza character a jerk. There is where Larry reveals that all the antics George does on the show are actually modeled after his life. Here he reveals the fact that Susan dies from the envelopes. This was a huge spoiler. Here is the clip below.

As punishment for my cousin completely ignoring one of the most underrated comedy shows of all time, The Larry Sanders Show, I engaged in a game where every day he didn’t watch it, I'd reveal a guest star who has been on this immense show.

THINGS I HAVE HAD SPOILED

GAME OF THRONES

Back when HBO Max wasn’t really a thing and streaming wasn’t ubiquitous, I’d watch episodes on weird websites that were most likely illegal. These would be really clutch when back in the day you’d want to watch the episode as soon as it came out. Without an HBO subscription and watching live, your options were really shady websites that opened up a lot of pop-up websites. At the time there were crackdowns on these websites and eventually the episodes would be posted and then users would post the episode links in the comments. So you’d have to scroll to the comments to click the episode link. Well one day when looking for the Game of Thrones episode link, someone wrote “Joffrey dies here in this episode”. It was still amazing to watch how it happened, but it was an awful spoiler. I’ll never forget where I was when it happened.

SQUID GAME EPISODE NUMBER

A hilariously small spoiler that happened to me that will just serve as an example of how insane I am about spoilers. When Squid Game initially came out, my roommate told me that there were 9 episodes. I was very upset because I didn’t know how many there were and thought there would be 10. There could have been 3 or 6. Another cousin I have who understands this, would vehemently refuse to hear titles of episodes of Always Sunny in Philadelphia “the reveal is part of the show.

UFC FIGHTS

These are always my fault but there are so many times I don’t watch a fight and plan to watch it the next day on MMA Core. MMA Core is an amazing website where you can find fights that have just happened. It is a very spoiler-proof website because you have to click each part of the fight. If the video was 7 minutes, and it was the whole fight, you’d know it was a first-round knockout. In the same situation, the way MMA Core does it. You’d have part 1… the fight and part 2 next video would be below, and that would be the winner announcement (which you wouldn’t know: anyways it’s a great website for avoiding spoilers. I, however, always go on Instagram and accidentally see who wins, this happens a lot. I never really mind this kind of spoiler too much. If I’m super into the fight, I see it live.

At the time of this writing, no knowledge about the legalities of the aforementioned website have even vetted and the illegalities mentioned are strictly speculative and embellished for story enhancement. They do not reflect any documentation of anyone’s actions.

In summary, dealing with spoilers nowadays demands constant vigilance and care. Whether it's sidestepping unintentional reveals from friends or navigating through the hazards of online discussions, the fight against spoilers is relentless. Despite the challenges, there's a collective appreciation for the joy of experiencing stories without prior knowledge. So, let's proceed cautiously, honor each other's boundaries, and keep cherishing the excitement of discovering our beloved shows and movies without spoilers.

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