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Tbefore the first season of The Golden Bachelorette it’s been on my calendar for months. I can’t wait to watch 24 men who have aged very well step out of their limos and greet the star, Joan Vassos, on September 18 at the Bachelor Mansion. I will pay special attention to a few of them, because I already know exactly what the boys do in hometowns and fantasy suites, and who will walk away with the final rose.
No, I’m not clairvoyant – don’t ask me how long Vassos and his leading man will last in the real world – and no, I don’t have an in with the network. I just like spoilers. If I don’t know exactly how to end a TV show or a movie I’m watching when I’m at the beginning, I won’t watch it. I turn to the last pages of books for the same reason. Uncertainty – and the possibility that the end will crush me to pieces – gives me a boatload of anxiety that I have for sure not necessary.
I’m far from alone: just ask the guy who’s made a career out of spoiling The Bachelor franchising. “I don’t make people turn off the show, or not watch it,” says Steve Carbone, a blogger based in Dallas, better known by his Internet moniker, The reality Steve. “It just looks different.” Carbone started blogging The Bachelor in 2003, and in 2009, he received his first spoiler from a tipster, who correctly revealed a couple of weeks in advance that Jason Mesnick would abandon his chosen winner, Melissa Rycroft, in favor of his runner-up and now wife, Molly. That was the majority of Carbone: after publishing the spoiler, his following and his credibility were destroyed. “So every season, people kept coming to me with information.” He started dropping tidbits about Vassos’ season The Golden Bachelorette during filming in July, and revealed their final four on August 27, three weeks before the show was slated to air.
Carbone now has hundreds of thousands of spoiler-hungry followers on Instagram and Xand also a popular podcastand its spoilers are the subject of much discussion in internet niches, such as the daily “spoiler” thread in The Bachelor subreddit. Even if he doesn’t personally like his spoiled fun, he understands why others do. “The biggest thing I’ve had from people is that they tell me they’re looking for a particular modification” — like who was painted as a villain or created to be the unfortunate runner-up — “because they know when this person leaves. , or when this person gets a one-on-one date,” he says. “It’s like a CliffsNotes guide to watching.”
Why do some people love spoilers, while others run away from them? I asked experts, including psychologists and researchers, to dig into spoiler culture and help make sense of the appeal.
Spoilers don’t ruin stories
When Jonathan Leavitt started researching spoilers, he wanted to show that suspense is good – that waiting with bated breath to find out what will happen enhances the experience of reading or watching. Instead, second study results published in Psychological scienceit turns out that people like a story more when they know how it ends. (Hello, validation!) “It was definitely surprising,” says Leavitt, who now works as a data scientist.
Why all the spoiler love? Leavitt suspects it has to do with the fact that stories are often complex and intentionally misleading, which promotes tension and confusion. “When you know the result, you feel much smarter and make better inferences,” he says. “And, I believe, in the end, you understand the story better at the end.”
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Take a mystery book, for example. Many of the clues sprinkled throughout the novel will be misdirects – but you already know who the killer is, because you turned to the last page. “You see this one character acting very suspicious, so it’s like, ‘People are going to think this person did it, but I know they didn’t,'” says Leavitt. “And then you can actually have a better idea of why he acts like that. Organize the elements of a story better in your mind, and you are less deceived. There are fewer paths to go down.”
People often tell Leavitt that they hate spoilers; maybe his favorite movie is The sixth senseand they say that if they had known what happened, it would have ruined everything. He likes to ask how many times they’ve watched it – and can’t help but smile when they say four or five times. It is more evidence, I believe, that knowing what is happening does not derail the pleasure.
During the several rounds, Leavitt reviewed The Lord of the Ringsfor example, he found that he has the same complete viewing experience as he did the first time he watched it. Once you’re transported to a different world and engaged in production, that sense of immersion overrides what you already know. “We thought spoilers were the antithesis of suspense,” he says, “but they’re absolutely not.”
A sense of comfort and control
Alison McCleroya therapist in Oakland, Calif., sees many spoiler lovers in his practice – and she is one of them. “Earlier in my life, I wanted a bit more surprise and adventure, and now I like peace and relaxation,” he says. “I’ve done so much work to have a calmer nervous system with yoga and mindfulness. I just feel like I don’t need to undo this.”
People who prefer spoilers typically value predictability, ease, comfort, clarity and a sense of control, McKleroy says. The world is full of uncertainty – she calls it “free anxiety” – so why subject yourself to more? For many people, not knowing what is going to happen leads to anticipatory stress, or an increased stress response triggered by an unpredictable plot. “When you anticipate something bad, like for me, when the music starts to come back, your heart starts pumping, and you don’t like it anymore,” he says. My anxiety, which is already high at baseline, spikes so much when I read a thriller, or even watch a couple I’m rooting for breakup in a rom-com, that I just can’t enjoy until I i did. I’m sure things will end satisfactorily.
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That resonates with Christina Scott, a professor of social psychology at Whittier College in California and dedicated spoiler lover. Her 10-year-old twins have even started asking for spoilers for the books they’re reading — maybe it’s genetic to some degree, she speculates. However, he compares a preference for spoilers to what people like in amusement parks. “Some people want to go on a roller coaster that knocks them over,” he says. “I just want to go in the cute carusa carusa. You need to do everything that will help you enjoy the trip.”
A desire to know what’s going on, from beginning to end, might reflect an unsatisfied need for certainty in our own lives, Scott theorizes. “There’s enough ambiguity and stress — enough cliffhangers in real-life existence — that you want to sit down and enjoy a movie that’s supposed to be relaxing,” he says. “I think in some ways we still want that reassurance in our lives, but it’s not possible.” She told her children that she wanted to see what they would become a couple of decades down the line – and then she could easily face the ups and downs of the upcoming teenage years. This same perspective translates into how you feel about what you see and read.
In addition, while many people can maintain a certain distance from the book or movie they consume, spoiler lovers tend to be very empathetic. We put ourselves in the shoes of the characters and feel what they feel, sometimes perhaps because what they are going through triggers a memory from our own lives. “To invest in a character who’s now going to be blown to pieces — that’s the worst ending,” says Scott. “Knowing they’re going to be okay allows you to feel safe rooting for them and empathizing with them, because you know it’s going to be worth the investment.”
Spoiler alert: No, he’s not going to change his ways
Daniel Green, director of the entertainment industry management program at Carnegie Mellon University, is not looking for spoilers. He worked in TV production in shows like The sopranos and Party of fivebecause he has a traditional view of how media are meant to be consumed. “I like to go on the journey in my head, because all the writers took so long to come up with it,” he says. “Really good stories are built on structure, and it goes 1-2-3. It’s not necessarily 1-2-5-4.”
It’s a compelling argument, and I admitted to Green that I can remember many times when I jumped to the end of a book, like Gillian Flynn. Gone Girl –only to become wildly disappointed that the big reveal was ruined. On the other hand: There were countless more times when I left a sign of relief after reading the last chapter, and then I enjoyed it in its entirety, from beginning to end. On other occasions, I discovered a movie or a book ending that ripped me to my core – watching you, One day— and I crossed it off my list before I started, relieved that I hadn’t wasted even more time.
In addition, I keep coming back to a point made by McKleroy, the therapist in California. When we’re in fight or flight mode, it’s hard to focus because our brains are working overtime to help us eliminate a threat. “If we run into a tiger in the wild, we don’t go, ‘Oh, look at that beautiful butterfly walking by,’ or ‘Oh my God, the sun is so beautiful,'” she says. “From a nervous system perspective, people who engage in spoilers are actually to savor the beauty as it unfolds – and have room to treasure the less obvious elements of the story.” It might not be exactly what a writer intended, but spoilers grant some of us the ability to enjoy and appreciate their work to the maximum extent possible.
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There’s nothing wrong with needing to know what’s going on, Scott says, and no one should make you feel bad or embarrassed about it. If you’re watching a movie with someone, and they don’t understand why you read an annotated summary before, try to explain where it’s coming from. Scott advises writing like this: “I realize this won’t work for you, but just like you want plain popcorn and I want my butter, this is what will help me enjoy the movie the most.” Sometimes, she says, your viewing partner might feel like you have an unfair “leg up” on them, because you know what’s going on and they don’t. “They might think they’re going to look stupid based on their reaction (to certain parts), and they feel like you have extra armor,” she says, so it’s helpful to get your perspective across the board—and to make sure what will you be don’t spoil anything for them.
Of course, it’s easier when you don’t have to offer any explanation. Scott and I joked that we should start a support group for spoiler lovers, a place for people like us to gather, without judgment, and bond over the joy of knowing what to expect. We all met at the cinema – and made the film with the comforting knowledge of what was coming last.