Week of April 28, 2019

Mostly quiet, except for the spoiling #

I took to Twitter to share my reaction to Game of Thrones Season 8 Episode 3 right after it aired. That spoiled it for someone that I like, which made me feel bad. Not in a never-forgive-myself kind of way. After all, it's only a television show. Still, I wouldn't like it if had been done to me, so that's what ruffled me.

We live in an interesting age with social media being what it is. It's not like people haven't ruined the element of surprise before social media. If conversations happened around the coffee maker or water cooler as you passed by, you got hit the same way. It happens. But, in a world of social media there are a few options for trying to avoid spoilers that aren't an option for water cooler encounters.

  1. Stay off the Internet until you can view for yourself. Easier said than done for some folks. As Avengers: Endgame was premiering around the world, this is the option I chose, because I have that ability. There are other folks who have to be on social media for their job, or because they have something they need to promote or support, so just staying off isn't always possible. They run the risk of seeing what they wanted to avoid.
  2. Mute tags, words, and/or phrases. I've had to do that with a few things. Some folks in my feed have to do a lot of promotion, which is understandable. I still want to follow them, but I mute certain things to omit them from my feed, especially if I have already purchased the thing they are promoting. Political stuff falls into my other mute filters. There's only so much of that I want to see. Even with mute filters on, things sneak through so it isn't foolproof.
  3. Everyone just stop talking about stuff. Like, shut up about anything fun or interesting. No cultural phenomena may be shared. Yeah, right! That's not going to happen. And really, if we did it would get boring fast, so maybe don't do this one.

Stuff I read this week #