Per this thread it seems TIVO & related DVR device use has become so ubiquitous that day after media, internet, and social discussions of the events in popular TV shows are getting to be seen as impolite and insensitive. What are the limits of these expectations?
People often love to talk about and hear discussions about their favorite TV shows or sports events. Are TIVO/DVR viewers being unreasonable in expecting a spoiler free social life space after shows have ended for the majority of the non-recording population?
Recording a show and watching it later isn’t new. VCR’s have been around for decades. As a DVR owner, I’d have to answer yes, though. I fully expect that people will be talking about things the day after, so I try my hardest to avoid it. I don’t expect people to not talk about it because I haven’t watched it yet.
However, I think it is polite to ask someone if they saw a show before talking about it. I always start out with “Did you see XXX last night?” before revealing any potential spoiler material. If in a group, it becomes “Anyone see XXX last night?”. It just seems like the right thing to do. With the media, the polite thing to do would be to say the name of the show before revealing any info. Most people at hearing the name of the show have a chance to make enough noise to avoid hearing anything (I usually do LA LA LA LA LA). A radio example:
“XXX got kicked off American Idol last night” - bad, no warning.
“On American Idol last night, XXX was kicked out” - good, it gives warning by saying the show’s name first.
Also, stealth spoilers are bad. There shouldn’t be spoilers about other shows in threads or even articles talking about other shows. I think this is a reasonable expectation to not be blindsided like that.
Really, it’s just about being considerate of other people. That’s the real issue.
I have a TiVo and I reallly have no expectations that folks need to be careful about what they talk about around me. It would be nice if they started a conversation with “Did you see XXXX?”. I don’t know if I would call it courteous, because I don’t comnsider someone who spoils a show discourteous. It’s just a risk I take when I time-shift a program. It is’t the end of the world if something is spoiled.
I do think that if several people have seen a show and want to discuss it and one person has not, the person who has not does not have the right to demand everyone else change the subject of be euphimistic. It’s just a little primadona-ish, especially if it’s been more than 24 hours since the show aired. Better to quietly remove yourself from the conversation.
We’ve always had this “problem” with movies and books, haven’t we? A popular movie or mystery novel comes out, people who want to see/read it may not get around to it for a couple of weeks. It’s common courtesy not to blurt out the ending for such shows and events. I don’t think it’s unreasonable to extend this to ordinary TV shows.
No-one is expecting a spoiler-free space. Just adequate consideration. A little warning.
In the linked example, less than a day after it went to air, CNN showed the climax of the episode, without any preamble, at a time when it’s probable that there were as many people looking forward to watching the episode as had already seen it. No-one’s saying the topic should be verboten – that’s silly. But taking the time to say, "Next up: The startling developments in the season premiere of The Sopranos… " is just a required consideration.
No-one’s going to bitch if people are reasonable about it. Of course there are post-mortems IRL, online, and on various entertainment programs. People who timeshift aren’t free from the desire to blab about popular entertainment either – but these are all easily avoided until you’re in a position to properly enjoy them.
Dropping a major spoiler for a very recent show without any warning is dickish behaviour.
The difference is that TV shows come out new every week. It’s not unreasonable to expect to discuss an episode of a TV show within, say, 10% of the time until the next. With books and movies, this gives a pad of weeks or months; with TV shows, it’s hours or days.
That said, those should just be the limits for reasonably requiring a pre-spoiler warning, not for refraining from discussion altogether.
okay, how about this…i’m a 20 something (24 right now) and i used to run a little carsars pizzeria. they own the detroit tigers and the detroit red wings. well, one of my employees (40 something) was a big red wings fan and taped the games. (nevermind thet they replayed them rather late in the nights). anyways, i wanted to have the games on the radio partly to hear what was going on in the game, but also to know when the busy times were coming, because the little caesars corporation ran tons of commercials during the intermissions. my employee would also tell customers not to spoil it for him at the counter as well, even when he engaged the dialogue and it got to hockey talk.
so, was i being a dick by playing the radio in the store and playing the game?