Author: Anna Ravenelle

It’s TV pilot season!

From FX’s American Horror Story: Hotel to AMC’s The Walking Dead to, heck, CW’s millionth season of America’s Next Top Model, Facebook, Twitter, and Insta feeds are going to be filled with news about all of your favorite shows. And let me tell you – it needs to stop.

 

As a broke college student living in a rundown Collegetown house, I not only lack the money to pay for cable, but wouldn’t have the time to watch all my faves every week even if could afford it.

Some shows I save until I go home for winter break for a DVR binge watch, while others I make the time to watch the day after they air. Regardless of when I decide to watch my shows, I deserve to enjoy them unspoiled. And so do you.

For some reason, TV networks assume that all of their viewers connected with them on social media watch an episode’s first airing. News flash! A day or an hour after the episode’s  conclusion is not an acceptable amount of time to pass before posting about a major event.

Once, I logged into Facebook during a study break in the library on a night that something major was happening on ABC Family’s Pretty Little Liars (don’t judge me; I’m six years invested and can’t give up now). Though the episode had just finished 10-15 minutes before (and hadn’t aired on the west coast yet), the social media gurus posted something along the lines of “Can you believe _________ died?! Comment with your thoughts below!”

 

Sure enough, a check into the comments read largely as variants on “Nooooooooooooo WHY DID YOU POST THIS? IT HASN’T EVEN AIRED YET!” If PLL viewers nationwide had voodoo powers, you can be sure that the forces at ABC Family would have felt their wrath.

The same goes for mid-premiere hashtags that immediately take over Twitter and Instagram, referring to specific events happening in the episode. If #GoodbyeMainCharacter is #trending, then the suspense is gone. It doesn’t matter if the character died, moved away, or something else; the fact that I already know they’re leaving turns me off. In fact, it makes me never want to watch again. TV producers: leave the hashtag vague and keep your army of fans actually guessing.

 

The third, and arguably worst, category of spoiling is people you actually know. Whether it’s your best friend here at Cornell, a third cousin (twice removed), or your childhood bus buddy, someone’s bound to comment about what just happened when your favorite character dies. If this is you, stop. Everyone hates you for a) having cable and b) assuming that everyone else does too. And you know what they say about people who assume…

So, when is the best time to post about what happened in a specific episode?

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…

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That’s right. Never. Posting spoilers to TV shows, books, or movies on social media is a crime against humanity. Okay, maybe not that far, but anyone who spoils definitely deserves to step on a Lego (or 50) when they get up in the middle of the night to pee.

It’s not that hard, random person from high school I haven’t spoken to or cared about for three years, to just not post it. Just say the episode was great! Or, if you absolutely, positively think that something needs to be commented on via the internet, [SPOILER ALERT] it’s really easy to warn people of what’s coming.

 

Don’t be that person who casually references how Breaking Bad ends. It doesn’t matter if the finale aired in September 2013, because someday I might want to watch it– and I deserve to enjoy it spoiler-free.