Monday, January 16, 2006

Anyone out there?

So yesterday I wrote a very last minute post about last night's episode of 24 that divulged what happened in the first 15 minutes of the show. This morning I awoke to a comment from someone admonishing me for the inadvertant spoiler. What I realized as I rode the train in is that people actually read this thing and that means I have some sort of responsibility. What the hell?

When you write thinking no one is reading, you can say what the hell you want - not worrying about feelings or in this case, spoiling a night's good tv. Alwayswrite wrote something similar on her blog awhile back and I find it interesting that here I am in a similar situation.

Do I censor? Do I care?

In the end I want people to read this blog, but I also loathe censoring myself. I do remember avoiding all press, blogs, etc. while reading the last Harry Potter due to the fear that the end would be spoiled for me. How could I ever do that to someone else? So I will take care not to spoil things for others, but I will not refrain from discussing them.

A rather fine line don't you think?

4 comments:

Howard said...

Spence, I read the posting with the spoiler in it and said to myself, "Wow, I'm glad I don't watch the show". (I just don't watch much TV in general), so I don't think you are censoring yourself more than being courteous.

I have a similiar situation where friends have posted comments to my blog and used some 'naughty' words and wondered if I should at least sub the vowels with '*' not because I'm worried about offending someone, but I have a couple of friends who read it at work and they have filters and warnings that would block the site if it's bad. But I don't want to censor my friends either. It's a conundrum.

BTW, I plugged your blog on my blog just now. :)

Anonymous said...

Spence, Sorry wasn't meant to ask you to censor... never that! You were blogging on what enraptured you at the time. I'd admit '24' does provide its whammies. I guess I just didn't expect them to written out so soon after the show. I was web surfing last night, so I there I was. So, I hope that you keep on bloggin with what is really on your mind because that is what I expect from you.

Merujo said...

I'm so slow to write about TV shows lately, nobody has flogged me for spoilers for a long time. But hey, I figure, you read blogs at your own risk. And if there's something I'm psyched about, I'm going to talk about it. (By the way, why does Jack Bauer's cell phone battery never drain down? I don't know who his service provider is, but I've gotta get myself hooked up with one of those babies!)

Ahem.

I censor myself every so slightly now - mainly because I've only been at my job for two months now, yet folks know about my blog (via my local public radio commentaries.) The censorship comes in the form of me trying to stop my occasional "tourettes-like" break outs of irritated profanity. Some of my siblings read my blog, too, but I've given up on censoring for them. If they haven't figured me out in the past forty years, they're screwed.

It's always so funky, by the way, to see someone I know from one "world" making a reference to someone I know from another "world" in a blog entry. I'll probably see "Always Write" at a happy hour this week. I'll have to point out to her, of course, how cool you are. :-)

(Oh, and appropos of nothing - can I just say, I'm still grinding my teeth over the fact that I'm gonna miss MP at Largo by TWO DAYS?!?)

Spencer said...

I think the surprise for me is that I can have that kind of impact. My post last night was while I was on a 24 high and excited from the show. But I hate the fact that I could have spoiled it for someone. So I will have to remember from here on to not spoil it for others. As Howard said, that's just being courteous.

As to language, religion, sex, politics, etc, etc - this is stuff I talk about - so if you're going to read my blog, you're going to read what I think, and I'm going to say things how I say things.

Anyway as you can see, I corrected the problem although I can't imagine I will post to this blog without mentioning 24. I'll post warnings.