The wildly successful Netflix series Stranger Things finally came to a close on December 31 at 8pm Eastern. While we don’t know how many viewers have watched the final episode at home, we do know that approximately 1 million fans filled over 600 sold out theaters that also showed the fate of the Hellfire Club. And just as easily as the fans flooded theaters (and living room couches), many took to social media to share their thoughts about the finale. While some were merely high-level opinions, others revealed pivotal moments in the show—spoilers.
Listen to our chat about this topic on our podcast.
The origin of the “Spoiler”
As doucumented by journalist Ben Zimmer, 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 (co-founder of National Lampoon and co-writer of National Lampoon’s Animal House), revealed the endings of famous films and novels. In it, 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!”
According to a commenter on a 2010 article on The Awl, the “spoiler warning” made the leap to electronic communication in 1979 on the “SF-Lovers” mailing list hosted by the MIT Artificial Intelligence Laboratory. At the time, the list participants were discussing the first Star Trek movie, and Roger Duffy, the moderator of the list, put appropriate spoiler warnings on messages when he compiled them in digest form.
Soon thereafter a new kind of forum connected fans. Usenet newsgroups, the earliest Internet discussion groups, first used the phrase “spoiler alert” in a 1982 posting about Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan. (The filmmakers went to great lengths to even fool audiences who may have heard that a certain character died in the film by adding the Kobayashi Maru.)
Spoilers in the 1980s
While “spoiler alert” protected fans in the 1980s from learning more than they’d like to in electronic communication, pre-social media mores kept others (in person) from revealing surprises in then contemporary pop culture. Some trailers and film critics may have occasionally shared too much, but friends usually protected one another’s experience by keeping story secrets as just that. That’s impressive considering some of the most twisty films in history premiered in the 1980s. Consider the endings of The Thing (1982), Friday the 13th(1980), and Angel Heart (1987) or the daddy of all surprises (pun intended) in Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back (1980). The filmmakers of Clue (1985) released three different endings to the whodunit and one could avoid knowing any of them prior to seeing the film.
1980s Movies with the Biggest Twists
The Thing (1982)
Empire Strikes Back (1980)
Angel Heart (1987)
Friday the 13th (1980)
Sleepaway Camp (1983)
April Fool’s Day (1986)
No Way Out (1987)
Dressed to Kill (1980)
In 2010, at the outset of Facebook, Twitter and the like, writer Alessandra Stanley was lambasted by the press (and fans) when she neglected to include “spoiler alert” before she revealed something about the premiere of the fourth season of Mad Men. Now, not only does no one wait until others may have had a reasonable amount of time to watch new media, but posts are eagerly made without the once courteous warning phrase.
Why do people like spoiling stories?
Absent any apparent research on the motivations for sharing spoilers, studies regarding gossip may prove analogous. Both involve the disclosing information that is unknown to the recipient and scintillating.
A main impetus for posting spoilers, of course, is driven by business. Many content creators rely on income generated by clicks and views. The sharing of an otherwise widely unknown plot point from a new movie or TV show is akin to breaking news in other media. The first to do so often enjoys the engagement, and therefore revenue, of a viral headline.
Other explanations are more akin to gossiping. According to Psychology Today, many gossip because possessing secret information gives them a sense of power. If knowledge is power, a means of demonstrating one’s power—and reinforcing one’s ego—is sharing esoteric information with others. The same seems true of divulging spoilers.
Additionally, through gossip, new social bonds can be formed and existing ones strengthened. Similarly, spoilers allow members of a fandom to exchange information and opinions and thereby feel closer to one another. That can foster a sense of belonging, which is more challenging in our increasingly virtual world.
Finally, sharing spoilers—like gossip—feels good. The University of Pavia found that chatting with others causes the brain to release the biochemical oxytocin. (It’s often referred to as the “love hormone” because it surges during sex).
Most People Love Spoilers
In When Harry Met Sally, Harry (Billy Crystal) explains his cynicism to Sally (Meg Ryan) saying, “When I get a new book, I read the last page first. That way, if I die before I finish, I know how it comes out. That, my friend, is a dark side.” Spoiler alert: Harry is not alone.
As reported by Time, when data scientists Jonathan D. Leavitt and Nicholas J. S. Christenfeld started researching spoilers, they wanted to prove that suspense is good. Instead, according to their 2011 study Story Spoilers Don’t Spoil Stories, it turned out that people enjoy a story more when they know how it ends.
Therapist Alison McKleroy agrees. An avowed lover of spoilers herself, McKleroy also sees a lot of spoiler lovers in her Oakland, California, practice. According to McKleroy, knowing spoilers beforehand allows many to forgo the anxiety otherwise created by an unpredictable plot. Per McKleroy, “When you’re anticipating something bad happening…your heart starts pumping, and you’re not enjoying yourself anymore.” It’s therefore easier, McKleroy suggests, for readers who’ve sought out spoilers “to savor the beauty [of a story] as it unfolds—and they have space to treasure the less obvious elements of the story.”
Similarly, Christina Scott, a social psychology professor at Whittier College in California, notes spoiler lovers tend to be deeply empathetic. As a result, what occurs to the fictional characters, may trigger a memory from their own life. Per Scott, “Knowing [the characters will] be OK allows you to feel safe in rooting for them and empathizing with them, because you know it will be worth the investment.”
Regardless of the reasoning, Christenfeld suggests that proof spoilers don’t ruin stories can be found outside his study. Per the professor, “When people go to see ‘Romeo and Juliet,’ they don’t think ‘Don’t tell me how it ends!’” While any reasonable moratorium preventing Shakespearean spoilers has likely lapsed, fans will also watch contemporary movies over and again. That’s in spite of knowing them well enough to recite the dialogue. Those rewatches, whether they be of Elizabethan era plays or 21st century films, however, are not the pure, first viewing experience those against spoilers are seeking to protect.
Spoiler Love is Generational
Although this may suggest that nearly all consumers enjoy their media when spoiled, anecdotal evidence among Gen X suggests otherwise. Instead, there may be a divide between those for and against spoilers hidden by the limitations of the study referenced above.
Professors Leavitt and Christenfeld had participants read short tales that included twists, mysteries and “more evocative literary stories.” To be clear, the media was in print. While parallels to television and film can be reasonably drawn, many more females participated in the research than males—with 176 males and 643 females.
Finally, and perhaps more importantly, the 2011 study only characterizes its participants as having been recruited from the “psychology subject pool at the University of California, San Diego.” It does not include any other social descriptors, including the ages of the subjects.
If spoilers helped limit the anxiety of their audiences, perhaps whether your pro- or anti-spoiler depends upon your experience with anxiety. Considering the stereotypical traits assigned to members of Gen X (drank from hoses, played until the streetlights came on, raised themselves), perhaps the level of stress one experiences—and the extent to which it affects them—varies with generations.
A 2020 study, conducted during the pandemic, by think tank AgeWave and investment company Edward Jones, surveyed 9,000 people in the U.S. and Canada across five generations and found that older adults fared better than younger generations. When asked how they were coping with the worldwide threat, 24% of the millennials and Gen Zers answered “not well,” compared to 15% of Gen X, 12% of the boomers, and just 5% of the Silent Generation surveyed.
Similarly, the APA’s 2023 Stress in America study showed young adults in America to report higher stress levels than older generations. Of those surveyed, 18- to 34-year-olds saying their average stress level is a 6 out of 10, compared with a 3.4 among people ages 65 and older. Curiously, stress level of Gen Xers was comparable to those younger—reporting about a 5 out of 10. (Although slightly lower, pre-pandemic levels tracked similarly across generations. That is, stress levels among generations remained the same relative to one another.)
That said, stress seems to have a greater effect on those 18 to 34 years old. A whopping 67% of the younger demographic indicated stress makes it harder for them to focus. Only 37% of Gen Xers suffered the same fate. It may be that Generation X is better equipped for the emotional roller coaster presented by a fictional tale than those younger. If so, that may be why Gen Xers hate spoilers.
