Spoiler alert: Bake Off has a short shelf life, so cut Mary Berry some slack

http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2015/aug/20/spoiler-alert-bake-off-mary-berry

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Today’s tech-savvy generation has to be the most spoilt, impatient bunch of brats the world has ever produced. You angrily tweet executives because the bento box you ordered from Amazon Prime still hasn’t arrived; you mew on Facebook about the patchy 4G coverage while you’re on a beach trying to watch a livestream of Pound Shop Wars. Never has more technology been chucked in the faces of an ever less appreciative consumer group.

Related: SPOILER ALERT: Google is trying to get rid of spoilers

While chimpanzees are believed to have entered the blissfully technology-lite stone age, we’re busy screaming at the limitations of objects we carry around that can connect us semi-instantly to anyone on the planet.

The latest dummy-spit at our interconnected, media-rich lives comes in the form of outrage at Mary Berry revealing the outcome of the latest episode of The Great British Bake Off before it was broadcast. If you managed to avoid the spoiler before watching the show, congratulations. If we ever get into a shooting war with Russia, you’ll be drafted into the re-formed Special Operations Executive.

If you’re one of the people who whinged about having the show spoiled for you by Berry directly, or by one of the people spreading the information on social media, you need to grow up. If you’re the sort of person who complains about spoilers being broadcast after a show has actually aired, not even the exalted coming of Jeremy Corbyn can save you from the circle of dribbling, whingey hell in which you belong.

The first thing to point out is that nobody is forcing you to be online during and after a show has been broadcast. If you want to make sure you don’t miss the outcome of an episode, you have a really simple choice. Watch it live, or go into lockdown, mute keywords on the internet, or just unplug.

Watching a show live has never been easier. Your phone, your laptop, your games console (and probably by the time I finish writing this piece your toothbrush), will be able to stream video live. The second option is even easier because literally nobody forces you to use social media, and if you do you can quickly learn how to mute certain words that might upset your sensitivities. You don’t have to seal yourself in a bunker with tinfoil on your head: just don’t look at your phone.

You either have the obsessive compulsion to participate in a live event, or you must be able to develop the self-control to find the off switch. If you use social media, you do not have the human right to avoid spoilers.

The great beauty of the internet is that it provides information: not partial information, but the whole enchilada. Film reviews have a responsibility not to ruin the ending of a movie because they offer potential audiences insight into whether or not to buy a ticket in the first place. The rest of the internet contains pre-release speculation, leaked rumours and forums full of people discussing the meaning of the ending. Is he still in a dream? If you notice, you’ll see all the names are from things he can see around him in the room. The clues are there if you know where to look.

When it comes to “talent” shows, the hotly contested outcome is presumably half the fun. These shows are built ready-made to be dissected by you and your buddies on your Samsungs. The outcome is not Operating Thetan-level secret information to be passed only to the true believers but trivial gossip to be shared with co-workers and bored strangers online.

You cannot go on forever not spoiling the ending to The Sixth Sense or the latest episode of The Apprentice. Either these things have a permanent limitation on spoilers, or realistically they have none. Watch the shows, keep up to date with the latest news, or be released from the tyranny of avoiding spoilers by learning not to care so much. Once liberated from the fear of having the ending ruined, you’ll be able to discern whether something offers the cheap, sugary hit of a plot twist or elimination or produces the subtle texture and flavour of characterisation and strong writing.

Spoiler alert: most of the shows out there aren’t particularly good, and to the extent that any show is interesting it should be about the process as much as the outcome. If you can’t bear to sit through an episode of The Great British Bake Off if you already know who loses, it’s probably not that great a piece of television.

Bakeoff has a shelf life and you cannot sensibly expect it not to spoil

This isn’t to say that people should intentionally spoil shows – that’s unnecessarily mean and pointless – but if you are inadvertently exposed to a spoiler, it isn’t a form of cultural polonium. Great televisual and cinematic art bears repeat viewing. I know what happens in The Big Lebowski, The Third Man or The Great Beauty: I’ve seen them a heap of times. I don’t imagine anyone will be going back to watch old episodes of Bake Off any time soon. Like any good cake, it’s a show with a shelf life, and you cannot sensibly expect it not to spoil.

The world presents a multitude of ways to consume your favourite slice of television, opportunities that did not exist for any generation before. It used to be that if you missed the game, you had to turn away during the scores. Or, worse still, there was an age before that where if you missed being at an event live, you’d only ever get to hear about it from someone else when they felt like telling you it happened.

Here in the 21st century, there’s absolutely no reason to wail if – thanks to your own life choices – someone takes a little bite out of your enjoyment.