a Julian Response to: How To Stop Caring And Learn To Love Spoilers by James Somerton

🎵Now Playing: a bootleg album mix of choe by Ichiko Aoba

Spoiler for the 'The Last of Us' film serial

I'm mildly annoyed that I had been saying most of the things expressed in the video since I was around 15 years old.
Not out of malice, and some sort of misplaced desire for disruption (Like *some* people, you know who you are, you scumbags), but for a lack of means to connect with others on the subject of Media and Storytelling.
My favorite joke is
"My apologies for my lack of foresight. I watched too much TV as a kid."
Legitimately Too Much™, honestly.
to the degree that the makeup of my shorthand lexicon/otherwise known as my love language is comprised mostly of mild recountings of contextual moments or lines from Television and film Media. The Rub however, is that I'm a very passive viewer of media.  it is rare that something catches my attention with absolute immersion or even merits total recall of it's elements. For this reason I enjoy inviting others to indulge in their passionate play by play or retrospective of works that they enjoy.  I think that's very cool and in my mind an indulgence that holds in itself traces of the spice of life itself, and it is integral to the practice of storytelling as new ideas can be formed through the exploration of shifting perspectives and alternative reads.
The spoiler is commonly refereed to and employed as a mechanism of discourse control as if the reveal of key story elements will dispose of all emotional potency.  And there's a bit of merit to this concern.  a rote dispassionate retelling of a Movie or a Game might ruin any interest one may have in a work, depending on their level of connection to that work or the creator of that work, which may in turn rob them of the experience of engaging with that work themselves firsthand. (Something of a tactic I employ very often when talking about things I like, as I am avoidant to share my passions freely. Historically it opens those passions up to different kinds of external abuses in the wrong crowd)
But someone who genuinely likes a work will give you a richer perspective on the Art that is presumably being spoiled, so much so that you might actually want to try it out for yourself.  You may even be surprised when your experience with that work doesn't parallel that of your friend's, though you enjoyed yourself regardless and I think more effort should be put into promoting that kind of discourse. I perhaps selfishly want that connection from other people, please show me only the good parts, or hand me a 100% completion save you hand made yourself that precedes your favorite level. Is it spoilery? Sure, but at the end of the day it's still a piece of art and it's more valuable to me that someone took the time to share with me, indirectly or not something that makes up a partition of their brain space and informs their worldview and decision making.

James did touch on it in their video I believe I recall in one or two points, like with "Snape Kills Dumbledore", and I really do think that the distinction between genuine spoiled twists and troll spoil is important.  The goal of a troll spoil is to diminish the emotional impact of a work, quite often troll spoils lack significant context for the element being spoiled or deliberately make out those spoilers to be the end all be all of a work. In more contemporary examples, these tend to be elements that make out the work to be of a low quality or lacking in substance.  as pointed out in the video, this is much a legitimate mark against the merits of huge corporate medias where nuanced character writing is stripped away in favor of all encompassing mysteries that are being dangled in front of your eyes constantly, or at least just long enough for the idea of asking for your money back has passed on so far that you would look like a cheap asshole for even entertaining the idea.  These people are annoying and I think they should be punished.
I am aware that I employ this tactic myself, but it's mostly just to dissuade myself from 'Geeking Out' at other's expense or overtly encouraging others to engage with media that may be of a waste of their time. Despite my desire to foster social connections and engage in the act of sharing, I frequently veer away from going "all in", this miiight be bad? I'm not sure, I've never been chided for a lack of sharing, so it's something I examine on a case by case basis.

that brings to my mind how these conversations are situated and organized.  It's not like everyone who likes a particular work sits down to talk deep dairy about their collective favorite thing, it usually tends to happen in the moment.  and is usually halted by the stopgap of someone stepping in to ask if spoilers can be avoided, as they haven't yet seen the Art for themselves.

I am very fine with entertaining requests like these, since it's often difficult to hand waive the justification of
"your enjoyment will only be lessened by spoilers if the work itself is rubbish" especially for someone who does not have any firsthand association with the work in the first place. I dont understand it myself, I love spoilers, but I can perform basic empathy like not wanting to ruin something for someone else.
Ideally I would hope however that these interactions are happening between strangers, I would like to think that people who are friends  with each other would have enough trust in the other person(s) to want to have that interaction despite lacking firsthand experience of the work.  Maybe, I dont know, it's complicated.  Just as well as I'd have that happen, I'd also imagine there would be a person who muddies the spoiler conversation with their lack of experience or context.

I suppose all we can do is try to meet each other halfway and do our best to wind our way around the miserable "troll folk" of media discourse.   it has been too long that the internet has been controlled by commercial interests, and I believe that spoiler culture is also a mechanism of those interests, so it will take time for us to move past them and develop new social formalities around this sort of subject matter.  But as with anything it starts with getting it out there and being willing to put your name on it, so I appreciate James for making the video, even if I'm a little jealous that they'll get praise for something I've been railing against for probably the same amount of time as they have.  Check out their other videos if you have a chance, apparently their channel is struggling but they consistently are on message and make videos with significant value in my opinion.

Spoiler tangent below:

dude
what??
does Bill is Gay?  wow, that's crazy.  I had no idea, like really.  When I played the game it never stuck out to me that there was any indication of Bill's sexuality or or that he was Gay. Bill was my favorite character, and the levels prior and during the adventure with him are my second favorite parts in the game.  I don't know if there was some super obvious dialogue line, or some sort of Easter egg I just consistently didn't crack, perhaps it's explicitly due to my lack for caring, but yeah, neat idea of the show runners to dedicating that extra time to one of the story's best characters.