as im writing this, i have the real ass fucking game Hollow Knight: Silksong running on my computer. its minimized, because while playing it i wanted to Post about it. as i did such, i spoilered the image so you'd have to click to see it. but like... what's the point? why do we spoiler things?
spoilering ruins enjoyment. if you know what happens in a piece of media, why even bother? the "fun" is lessened by lacking the joy of mystery. to me, this is a little bit sad. this is the standard argument, but its entirely based around consumption. it implies that the point of a story (especially if you dont watch spoiled media) is to be thrilled- something i disagree with. a media is the vessel for ideas, regardless of the logical chain of events, you should have learned something by the end! if you haven't, you either weren't paying attention, you need to think harder on it, or it has no soul (marvel movies). now, that isnt to say you shouldnt captivate the audience. afterall, im not advocating for media consumption to just be a synopsis of themes. no, i'm saying engaging with something is like eating a cake. i could give you the entire recipe, teach you how to cook it, have you clean my dishes and it wont matter, because until you taste it, you won't truly know what to get out of it. we all agree cooking is art, and we all want to taste good cake, but the same standards aren't applied to media.
so what, should we spoil everything? of course not! afterall, joy is integral to the human experience! joy and ideas. thats what its all about baby. dont put yourself through boredom hell if you dont like a thing. theres infinite media. the last thing i want to advocate is an upper-class snootyness that arises from having "better" takes because you read a book that was truly dull. go watch that shounen anime if it makes you happy white boy! no, in fact, i think we should make spoilers better- jack them off a notch. i mean up.
what information does a spoiler get across?
typically on the Inter Net, a site with posting will have a spoiler feature. this usually puts a barrier to the image attachment, so the user has to click it to reveal it. this is good! the equivalent of a confirmation screen: the user takes the risk, and suffers the consequences. but WHY have that risk in the first place? this system is really only useful for the Spoiler Extremists, those who want to avoid all spoilers no matter severity, and spoilerheads who wear big shirts that say "i love to be spoiled!". this should not be acceptable. no, it would be good if we had a quick clean marker that defines the level of the spoiler, so people know what they're getting into.
my proposal
Level 0 - This is information that is inherently obvious even to someone who has never engaged with the media. This has almost no usage besides defining our scale.
"Portal has portals in it. In fact, it's even a mechanic of the game."
Level 1 - This is information that either requires so much context to understand or is so absurdly minor that the core of the enjoyment isn't damaged at all.
"There is an NPC in Silksong called Sherma"
Level 2 - This is information that actually could compromise enjoyment, but is still minor enough that it would be very silly to get upset about it. Trailers or leaks typically sit around this level.
"In John Wick, his dog dies in the first movie."
Level 3 - This is information that really affects your enjoyment of the media. There's still a lot that's unruined, but this is gonna be on your mind.
"Darth Vader is Luke's father."
Level 4 - This might actually ruin the media for you. It could irreversibly remove your interest or enjoyment. Not all media can even spoiled to this degree- this is reserved for big twists that flip the story on its head.
"In Omori, Sunny [i wont spoil omori. if you've played it, you know what i mean]"
is this system perfect? nope, far from it. its impossible to make a perfect scale for this because everyone interprets and handles spoilers differently. ive met people who dont give a shit about spoilers for any media no matter what! furthermore, its all contextual. someone 30% through a game might post something that connects some dots in the head of someone 70% through a game. this scale doesn't and can't account for stuff like that- but it IS an improvement. what it's really built for is the initial release- when something comes out and briefly infects social media. when a new ultrakill update comes out, or a new deltarune chapter, it's difficult to discuss it with others when it's really unclear what even counts as a spoiler. i hope this system can bridge that.
i'm gonna go play silksong now :)