Chapter 1
Spoilers -- another identity that has been around since way before Survivor (2000)! The one major difference is the manner in which Spoilers communicated. Technology makes spoiling a more accessible "sport" for our culture today. It creates a larger more diverse "collective intelligence" (Jenkins, 2006, p.27). Until Jenkins (2006) mentioned the history of spoiling on page 30, I wasn't aware that this participatory activity had a name. My friends and I used to get together to discuss, argue about, and prove our thoughts and assumptions about the 1978 television series Dallas. Does anyone else remember the summer that everyone wanted to know and was trying to discover who shot J.R.? It never occurred to me then that different times zones could answer the secret. I did see some life lessons learned in spoiling. For example, on page 35, Jenkins (2006) tells us that if a spoiler lies to others, he/she is blacklisted and are never trusted again. This lesson is one many teen-agers (I dare to say ALL teen-agers) usually learn the hard way; isn't it interesting that the spoiler practice can also teach such a valued, ethical lesson to participants?
Just as technology lacks restrictions or control, it seems spoiling does as well. What was once something fun and exciting seems to me has become something threatening and much too important to those who participate and the producer of the entertainment industry.
Citations
Jenkins. H. (2006). Convergence culture: Where old
and new media collide. New York:
New York University Press.
Sugarbarre. (2007, July 9). Webshots
[linked image]. Retrieved August 6,
2009, http://entertainment.webshots.com/photo
/2263335870044785100RnWspV
Wow, haven't thought about Dallas or the "Who Shot JR?" craze in a very long time. As Jenkins hints at, there are built-in controls to a lot of our social networks in terms of trust, truthfulness and transparency. It is a "let the buyer beware" kind of thing, but one is only as good as one's reputation, even on the largely anonymous Internet. The book "Smart Mobs" talks a lot about this self-regulating Internet thing.
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