Spoilers and the Wireless Internet

There are some people that just have to turn to the back of a book to see how it ends even before they have got a few pages into the story. In the same way, you can probably be more or less assured of finding out the ending to any new movie, new book, or any of the twists and turns in any new media product by just doing a quick search on the wireless Internet. What does the ongoing prevalence of "spoilers" mean for the Internet and the production of artistic works going forward?

It is quite telling that "spoilers" are called "spoilers." In this postmodern age in which we live, it is easy to lose the meaning of any and all words brought into the lexicon, but the word "spoiler" definitely has an implication of something being lost when you learn too much about what goes on in a book or movie early. There is certainly something to be said for the magic of going on a journey with an author as a source of pleasure in itself, but at the same time all of the surprises and plot twists and turns of a novel or play certainly lose some of their immediacy if exposed too early.

A recent good example of this is the revelation that advance copies of George R. R. Martin's "Song of Fire and Ice" series have been leaked onto the Internet well in advance of the book's official release. The "Song of Fire and Ice" series is one of those serialized works of fiction released periodically that seems to capture the imagination of people throughout the world, who seem to lie in wait for each and every installment. With HBO's "Game of Thrones" series having transformed the first book in the "Song of Fire and Ice" series into a popular television event, unfortunately the incentive for releasing unauthorized advance copies of the latest "Song of Fire and Ice" book, "A Dance with Dragons," was apparently too strong for some fans to bear. Approximately 180 advance copies have been sent to fans in Germany, seeming by a rogue employee of Amazon in that country. Predictably, the author, George R. R. Martin, is furious about this turn of events, having threatened to "mount" the perpetrator's "head on a spike."

Why do people feel the need to release things that are just embargoed for a few more weeks anyway? One potential explanation is that in the wireless Internet age, when we can get everything on demand in seconds, people are just more impatient than ever before. In addition to these people that simply cannot seem to contain themselves, there also people determined to get a little bit of notoriety by being the "first" to do something. With people already having been the first to climb Mount Everest, invent wireless Internet service, and so on, it seems some people are just satisfied by being the first person to leak a book on the Internet.

You can learn more about the "spoiler" phenomenon with a mobile account from clear wireless internet.