A spoiler is an element of a disseminated summary or description of a media narrative that reveals significant plot elements, with the implication that the experience of discovering the plot naturally, as the creator intended it, has been robbed ("spoiled") of its full effect. Typically, the conclusion of a plot, including the climax and ending, is regarded as highly susceptible to spoilers. Plot twists are also prone to spoilers. Any narrative medium can produce spoilers, although they are usually associated with movies and television shows. Some people attempt to avoid being "spoiled" while others seek out spoilers to learn as much as possible about a narrative before experiencing it. Spoilers have become more common in the present day with the rise of social media, which provides an outlet for people to spread spoilers.
There are three types of spoilers: short spoilers, long spoilers, and thematic spoilers. Short spoilers reveal the plot ending in a very brief and less detailed manner, without any summary or explanation of themes in the story, typically spanning one to three sentences. Long spoilers usually provide more context and range between two and five sentences. They provide a summary and reveal the ending of a story. Lastly, thematic spoilers reveal a story's unifying theme as well as providing a synopsis of the plot and revealing the ending. They range from three to six sentences in length. The general consensus is that there are only negative effects of spoilers. However, research shows that it is short and long spoilers that can cause negative effects, while thematic spoilers generally have a positive effect.
History
The first print use of the term spoiler with its modern meaning was in the April 1971 issue of National Lampoon, in which the article "Spoilers," by Doug Kenney, revealed the endings of famous films and novels. Kenney wrote, "Spoilers! What are they? Simply the trick ending to every mystery novel and movie you're ever liable to see. Saves time and money!"
The term first appeared on the Internet in 1979 before becoming common in Usenet newsgroups by the late 1980s. According to the rules of netiquette, spoilers should be preceded by a warning of some kind. Sometimes, these warnings are omitted, accidentally or deliberately, resulting in unwitting readers having literature, films, television programs, and other works that they were looking forward to experiencing spoiled.
Website policies and features
Wikipedia discloses spoilers in its articles without giving advance warning. Mathew Prichard criticized Wikipedia for presenting spoilers for his grandmother's play The Mousetrap. Andrew Jarecki argued that Wikipedia should have spoiler alerts; the ending of Catfish, a documentary he had produced, was posted on Wikipedia before its theatrical release because the film was shown at the 2010 Sundance Film Festival. Jay Walsh, a Wikimedia Foundation spokesperson, said that Wikipedia is meant to be an exhaustive knowledge source and thus must contain spoilers.
Certain websites employ spoiler formatting, allowing certain details to be hidden inline with text, which the user may reveal by mousing over, highlighting or clicking the text. Websites that make use of Markdown formatting, such as Discord and Reddit, have allows for syntax extensions such as or ; websites which use a rich-text editor allow for inline formatting in this style.
On Usenet, the common method for obscuring spoiler information is to precede it with many blank lines known as 'spoiler space' – traditionally enough to push the information in question on to the next screen of a 25-line terminal. A simple cipher called ROT13 is also used in newsgroups to obscure spoilers, but is rarely used for this purpose elsewhere.
Some have felt compelled to avoid participating on public websites altogether, set up "closed" websites to exclude those who are sensitive about spoilers, or decided they had to unilaterally blog at the expense of public exchange.
Psychological effect
Positive effects
In 2011, Nicholas Christenfeld and Jonathan Leavitt of UC San Diego did a psychological experiment testing whether spoilers diminish enjoyment of fiction. They gave subjects short stories with twist endings to read, giving some of the subjects information about the twist in advance. For nearly every story, subjects who had the story "spoiled" enjoyed the story more than the subjects who did not know the ending in advance.
The spoiling of James Holzhauer's loss on Jeopardy!, which was reported upon by both print and Internet sources hours before it aired on most of the show's stations, had a somewhat unexpectedly positive impact on that episode's ratings. Instead of ruining the outcome, the spoilers had teased just enough to encourage viewers to tune in to see how the previously dominant Holzhauer was beaten. Jeopardy! does not contractually require its audience members to remain silent in regard to spoilers; members have generally followed the honor system in not leaking spoilers before episodes air.
Although many avoid spoilers to prevent the possibility of decreased enjoyment, research does suggest that spoilers can increase enjoyment for viewers under certain criteria. One is mood management, in which spoilers can function as "non cognitive desensitization strategy and a cognitive coping strategy." Instead of spoilers inducing positive feelings, those who engage with spoilers may do so as a protective measure. They can insulate viewers from negative feelings by giving a sense of preparedness or time for viewers to process such information before they actually view it. Those who report that spoilers have increased enjoyment for them while engaging in media typically either actively seek this information as a division to ease anxiety or happen across a favorable spoiler.
Those who enjoy spoilers, or feel that spoilers increase their enjoyment while viewing, entail different criteria of focus and for assessment. Another criterion in assessing how spoilers may enhance enjoyment for viewers is curiosity. Viewers may feel anxiety-ridden or impatient in the face of cliffhangers or potential plot twists, in which case seeing spoilers were ways to overcome these "gaps" in viewership.
Similar to Christenfeld and Leavitt, in 2015, Benjamin Johnson and Judith Rosenbaum conducted an experiment to examine the impact of spoiler reveals on enjoyment. However, instead of short spoilers, the subjects were presented with thematic spoilers. To assess the enjoyment, Johnson and Rosenbaum employed a multi-item measure, utilizing a 12-item enjoyment questionnaire, in contrast to Christenfeld's and Leavitt's use of a single-item measure of enjoyment. Their research revealed that, when exposed to thematic spoilers, more subjects reported findings of the stories to be less enjoyable due to their revealing nature. When confronted with a spoiler, it reduces one's ability to individually process and hinders their critical thinking skills about a given story. Therefore, spoilers may then diminish the motivation necessary to experience a work at all if the resolution has been revealed.
Reactions
Writers and directors
The end credits to Henri-Georges Clouzot's 1955 film Les Diaboliques includes a card with an early anti-spoiler message from the director: