These days I find it hard to watch a movie first time from beginning to end especially if it’s starts slow it’s too easy to pull it up on wiki and see the plot and decide if you want to continue to waste your time or move on to something else.
With sporting events involving my favorite teams if I didn’t get to watch I still want to know who won.
I don’t watch a lot of tv shows but most of ones I get into I usually make time to watch them when they air and if I don’t and someone “spoils” it for me IRL on social media I don’t lose my shit like some people seem to. I don’t think it’s that hard to avoid social media until you make time to watch.
1. "I'm addicted to spoiling movies/shows via wiki" In response to Reply # 0
Most of the time I end up on a movie/show's wiki to check out other actor's credits to see what else they've been in and what I may have seen, and then I'll migrate over to the plot section. First I'll just read up to what I'm at in the movie/show at the moment, you know, just to make sure I didn't miss anything important, then I'll go back to focusing on the movie/show, but then I slowly creep back and time after time again I read a little bit ahead, then a little more, and then finally I just read the entire thing and spoil the rest of it.
Other times I go to the wiki explicitly to spoil it. I have no idea why I do these things. But I wish I could stop. In 2019 I made it a point to start going to the movies because I found myself rarely giving full attention to a movie when watching it at home. I always was half concentrating on the movie, have looking at my phone/laptop. Being in a theatre forced me to focus 100% on the movie and not get distracted. I was finally able to lose myself in the story/cinematography. Hopefully when this pandemic is over I can get back to doing that.
2. "it's hard for me to not read movie reviews viewing at home" In response to Reply # 0
I can usually make it about half way through the movie before I'm pulling up Letterboxd and Wikipedia to read amateur and pro reviews unless the movie Is pretty damn good, and I find it absolutely impossible to avoid if I've seen the movie before.
One big reason I miss going to theaters is I never feel the urge to do that in front of that big ass screen with those loud ass speakers (and all the reminders I'll get pulled from the theater if I do lol).
3. "i find myself inadvertently spoiling nba games" In response to Reply # 0
i work second shift so i mostly watch games on league pass archive later that night. nba.com/games does have a "hide spoilers" feature but sometimes it doesn't work. occasionally while i am watching an archived game with an unknown conclusion i will go to r/nba or oksports out of habit (compulsion?) and i end up reading something that ruins the game for me. i don't use "ruin" lightly as i feel that professional sporting events are all about thrill of the unknown. watching a game when the outcome is known is at best academic and usually pointless
i don't consider myself to be addicted to spoiling nba games but i do do it more often that i would like even though i know better
5. "The only time I've done that with a movie was Uncut Gems." In response to Reply # 0
The way that movie was shot and the way the story was progressing was so anxiety inducing I couldn't take it. Got around halfway through it and had to just stop, look up the whole plot on the wiki to spoil it. I decided it wasn't worth my time and I never finished watching...
8. "i don't even like watching trailers" In response to Reply # 0
Once I'm committed to watching a show/movie, I want to go in with as little info as possible.
This is the reason I've never watched Westworld despite recommendations... Someone kept telling me about it for 2 hours after I was like "cool I'll check it out". Just hearing too much about it felt spoilery enough for me to be like "never mind I'm good"
ALTHOUGH if I'm watching something and it just gets boring, I'll cut it off early and just look up how it ends.
9. "i rarely watch movies" In response to Reply # 0
i will usually wait years to watch big movies. marvel is the big exception. i definitely dont want to come across spoilers for them. i usually go into the movies as cold as i can except for watching trailers. i dont know the back story from the comics and i usually dont get into fan theories before i watch a movie. once i watch a marvel movie then i will sometimes watch videos that explain it and try to guess at the context moving forward.
i will definitely check on a final score for games i didnt watch that i care about. not sure how this has to do with spoilers. unless youre the type to actually watch a recording of the game later and dont want to know who won but i thought only seinfeld actually did that.
what does suck about tv spoilers is that a lot of times you will see the spoilers just browsing the internet. youre scrolling through news and boom someone puts a headline that basically tells you the spoiler. or they include a picture that together with the headline basically tells you the spoiler. so you dont even have to click on it. hasnt ruined anything for me yet but i find it annoying.
i remember one time a coworker told us about ben killing han. it didnt really bother me but my other coworker was mad lol i didnt know if he was joking and i figured there was a chance it happened anyway so when i watched the movie i still wasnt sure if it would happen.
11. "I feel like sports is slightly different" In response to Reply # 0
I love watching the games and seeing what happened, and will record and watch it periodically. But I treat the actual results like news. And if it's a team or an athlete I care about then I want to know the news as soon as I can.
I don't know if that's a meaningful distinction or not. But that's how I do it.
The answer to your larger question is partly "yes" in the dumbest possible arena. I do it for crime procedurals, which I don't watch that often. But they have such a set rhythm (like, you can tell if something is going to go wrong in a case on Law & Order if they're not actually grilling witnesses in court by minute 35) that if there's a disruption I almost reflexively check wikipedia to see what happens in that episode.
Though not every show has actual, real wiki entries for individual episodes so it's not always fruitful.
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"Walleye, a lot of things are going to go wrong in your life that technically aren't your fault. Always remember that this doesn't make you any less of an idiot"
12. "I do actually do it for crime documentaries. " In response to Reply # 11
Especially netflix which will have like an 9 part documentary on one murder. I can still watch it, but I need to know if they caught the person and they go to jail.
********** "Everyone has a plan until you punch them in the face. Then they don't have a plan anymore." (c) Mike Tyson
14. "To me, that makes a ton of sense" In response to Reply # 12
I don't watch a lot of those, not out of principle or taste, just haven't seen one that made me *insist* on getting into it. But I can completely see that reaction. If the doc introduces those real life stakes, you're just acknowledging their effort.
______________________________
"Walleye, a lot of things are going to go wrong in your life that technically aren't your fault. Always remember that this doesn't make you any less of an idiot"
15. "Yep. My wife will watch a true crime or Dateline type of show..." In response to Reply # 12
If I'm watching with her she'll want to sit through the whole thing, while they they drag out the story WAY to much. Especially the broadcast TV shows with the mini-cliffhangers on every commercial break. Eff that, I'm going straight to Google to see if they did it or not, and if they are locked up.
13. "I watch trailers for movies I never intend to see. " In response to Reply # 0
And usually if the movie is bad enough I can get the whole just from the trailer.
If I see a trailer I am unfamiliar with and the trailer looks like a movie I want to watch, I stop the trailer immediately to not spoil watching the movie.
********** "Everyone has a plan until you punch them in the face. Then they don't have a plan anymore." (c) Mike Tyson