These days, it becomes harder and harder to live a spoiler-free lifestyle. It is so commonplace for movies and television shows to have formats based on frequent revelations and intense cliffhangers. There are many hour long shows that feel like each episode is a mini-movie. Even though it has been off the air for a few years, Lost is probably the best example of this, presenting a cliffhanger each week and often presenting revelations that would color previous episodes in some way (Lost was also quite guilty of creating questions that felt important at the time and then leaving them ignored and unanswered due to their inconvenience). Game of Thrones is a current show that is very much full of twists and spoilers, and even though it is on a premium channel, enough people watch it so that it is hard to avoid spoilers for it.
I go out of my way to avoid spoilers, sometimes to the point where I sound rude (and I probably am rude in some of these situations). If someone is referring to an important aspect of something I've never watched before, even if it is something that I just have a remote interest in, it feels like I've been cheated out of something that I had the chance to enjoy. My mind doesn't allow me to forget spoilers, so if someone tells me something, I'm going to remember it.
Sometimes people say that certain things are okay to be spoiled, as if some things are such common knowledge that they are considered pop culture and it is okay to talk about them. Luke Skywalker's father, how the Wizard of Oz ends, the ending to A Christmas Carol, and other spoilers seem to be a-okay with most people. It is as if the movie's plot is so common that it is okay to spoil because most people "should" know it. When I was watching The Empire Strikes Back on television as a kid, I didn't know the twist, so it was a nice surprise to me. I also had the benefit of a tiny, almost non-existent internet at that point, so I had fewer chances of having it spoiled. What exactly makes some spoilers fair game but others aren't? It really doesn't seem fair. Is The Sixth Sense really so popular that you can just go ahead and ruin it for others? What about in another ten years?
Things are much different now than they used to be; there are so many streaming movie and television services online and on most things will eventually be on DVD/Blu ray, there's no reason to dedicate time to things you aren't really interested in initially. It is so much nicer to watch a show when you have an entire season that you can watch at your leisure compared to watching something week by week. Also, you don't run the risk of beginning to watch a show that will only be canceled later on, which happens way too often. Unfortunately, when you choose to adopt this lifestyle, you heavily run the risk of spoilers.
As much as I hate spoilers, I feel like you must accept their inevitability to an extent. Even if you do your best to avoid them, if you have a decent attention to detail, you're going to notice them. Eventually, you're going to accidentally notice someone's conversation at some point, and maybe you'll be in a situation where you can't scold someone, like an elevator or if you're in line at Target. The old lady at Target talking about the ending to The Sopranos won't be fazed by the possibility of angering you and losing your friendship; she's going to just keep on talking and spoiling until she's finished. Maybe you'll just be on Yahoo.com checking out the news, only to peripherally notice a spoiler for Game of Thrones on the right side of the screen (I was a victim of this recently). You'll never be able to avoid all of them, no matter how hard you try.
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