There’s a postal plebiscite about to happen in Australia, asking if we should allow same-sex marriage in Australia.
The Yes side of the argument is quite simple: gay relationships are legally and socially accepted in Australia and given all the same rights and responsibilities as heterosexual relationships – except those tied to marriage. An inconsistency in the law that needs fixing.
The No side of the argument is a bit weirder. There isn’t an argument being put forward for why gay people shouldn’t be allowed to get married. Instead, topics not relevant to the question are raised, like religious liberty, freedom of speech, school curriculum, or already settled laws about who can raise children (these laws are state, not federal, and gay parents across the country are already raising children within the law).
It’s like two completely different topics are being argued by the Yes and No campaign.
The real crux of the debate (that only one side is willing to say out loud), is this:
Same-sex marriage will further the acceptance of gay people in Australia.
The Yes side of the debate wants this, because gay Australians are just Australians like the rest of us.
The No side doesn’t, but given same-sex relationships are already widely accepted in Australia, they know that argument will make them look bad.
Next time you see the No campaign put an argument forward, ask yourself two key questions:
Is the argument actually about same-sex marriage, or is it about something else?
Is it just a cover for not wanting homosexuality to be accepted in Australia?
The plebiscite result will communicate to the Australian gay population, and to the rest of the world, where we stand on accepting gay Australians. Make sure you vote.
A lot of people seem to have little understanding of what is appropriate regarding spoilers. True, we live in a time that makes spoiler policy more complicated. We can’t rely on people having seen the show as it airs; the word ‘airs’ is becoming irrelevant. We also have social media, where you can post a comment that gets seen by hundreds of your friends whether they wanted to see it or not. It’s time to go over exactly what you should do when you’ve seen episodes of a show that someone else may not have.
Discussion of episodes is a marvellous thing and we should have more of it. And letting people know which shows you’re excited about is a great way to help them spread. But if you do it in a way that screws up people enjoying the show, the whole exercise is self-defeating.
So what do we do?
First, it’s important to get one thing very clear, as it underpins this spoiler policy: you are an idiot.
You are not smart. You are not clever. You are not Joss Whedon or George RR Martin. You have no idea what you are doing.
Now we can proceed.
When is it acceptable to talk spoilers?
We don’t have the simple “X days from air” scenario we used to have. Not only is it irrelevant in a post-broadcast world, but people watch TV differently now. Many save up episodes and binge a whole series at a time. You never know where people are up to.
So here’s the new rule:
You can talk spoilers with people you have directly established are up to the same point as you.
Otherwise, shut the fuck up.
That’s basically the end of the policy. Nice and simple, isn’t it? Just don’t say anything. It’s pretty obvious, but because people are stupid, they try to circumvent it. Here are some methods they use.
Making cryptic references
Just don’t do it. You don’t know how. It’s like having a beautician rewire your house. Leave electricity to the electricians, and leave the storytelling to the storytellers.
People find it fun to throw tiny bits of information they think doesn’t actually spoil anything, for some reason. Some kind of bizarre “I know something you don’t know” urge they have left over from being 6, and haven’t moved on from.
You need to understand it doesn’t work. It just makes you look like an idiot, and anyone with a passing understanding of story can reconstruct the entire episode based on your one “cryptic” hint.
This is you.
The same rule applies here: just shut the fuck up.
Level of importance
You might think some kinds of spoilers are harmless. You think you can get away with dropping facts or hints about the story that aren’t clear plot elements. You can’t.
Because you’re not a storyteller, you don’t know what does and doesn’t matter. You don’t know what elements intrinsically point the story in one direction over another. Storytellers put all these things in for a reason, they’re not just filling space.
Don’t think you know how that works. Just shut up.
For dumb shows
Sometimes a show turns out to be really stupid, or have a really stupid twist no one likes. When this happens, people tend to relax about spoilers. It wasn’t enjoyable for me, so why does it matter if it’s ruined for someone else? They wouldn’t have enjoyed it either.
Let’s go back to first principles: you are an idiot.
Maybe you didn’t understand the twist. Maybe you individually didn’t like the direction that takes the show. But you are one person. One idiot. Don’t assume your response to it will be the same as everyone else’s.
You may have noticed people have different tastes. You may, if you’ve been paying any attention while on this planet, have come across a scenario where you hated a movie and other people seemed to like it.
There’s a familiar rule you should apply here, can you guess? It involves shutting the fuck up.
Whether spoilers matter
Much like someone who has kicked a puppy complains that the puppy shouldn’t have been in their way, you’ll often get numb-nuts trying to justify spoiling people.
They’ll usually point to one of those studies that find a lot of people’s appreciation of a story is increased by knowing what happens.
Nope. Doesn’t work.
Firstly, yes, re-watching something knowing what happens is a good experience. But it’s a different experience. If you haven’t been spoiled, you get two good experiences. If you have, you only get one.
Secondly, studies give you an average. They don’t dictate what everyone enjoys. Pushing spoilers on to someone because a study says they might enjoy it more is like demanding someone eats fish when they’re allergic to seafood. Most people like fish, right?
Keeping everyone happy
There’s a reason we use the word ‘spoiler’. Regardless of whether or not you’re meaning to spoil it for someone, that’s what you’re doing. Giving away a key plot point to a good series is like taking a crap on someone’s dinner. It’s a pretty horrible thing to do to the person who wanted to eat that dinner, and it makes you look like a dickhead.
You’ve seen the episode and enjoyed it. You want to communicate that enjoyment, and that’s great. But don’t destroy that enjoyment for others.
Don’t assume people have seen it. Don’t make cryptic references you will screw up. Don’t assume what is and isn’t safe. Don’t decide what others prefer. Just shut up, and let people enjoy the series.
The R word, being discussed in a blog post written by a man. This rarely ends well.
Any time you discuss the topic it’s bound to get heated. Any topic that involves such trauma for both the victims and the people connected to those victims is going to be a powder keg, no matter how well-intentioned those discussing it are.
Last week, and not for the first time, the suggestion of women being able to avoid rape by avoiding particular scenarios – like binge drinking – was raised, and discussed quite a bit.
I figured I’d take a crack at explaining the issue in simple terms, and I’m also going to suggest a new way of talking about it.
The Good News
This is a debate where both ‘sides’ agree there’s something horrible going on, and both sides don’t want that horrible thing to happen. This is actually an excellent starting point. There’s not many public debates where both side A and side B want the same result – in this case, both sides want to stop women getting raped.
But arguing out of well-intentioned care doesn’t mean you’re right, and it doesn’t mean you’re not causing more harm than good.
Theory A
The suggestion, on a very basic level, seems like a sensible one:
A lot of rape happens when women are drunk
Therefore don’t be drunk
So what’s wrong with that?
First, it puts the onus on the women to not be drunk (something she has every right to be), rather than the rapist not to rape (something the rapist doesn’t have the right to do).
The natural response to this is that much like you can’t reason with a rabid dog, you can’t reason with a rapist. Women have to be the proactive ones here because we can’t offer advice to rapists, by the nature of a rapist they’re not going to listen to it.
When a rapist hears someone say a raped woman shouldn’t have been wearing those clothes, in that place, he doesn’t hear that someone put themselves in the path of a rabid dog. He hears that the fault lies with the woman, not the rapist – so as a rapist, he’s not so bad. He doesn’t think of himself as a rabid dog, something taken as a given by non-rapists.
He’s just going ahead with what everyone seems to agree is inevitable. He didn’t decide she was going to dress like that. This is her choice. What did she expect was going to happen?
That’s our context.
Theory B
The problem, and its solution, are therefore:
A lot of rape happens when women are drunk
This is because our culture makes rapists think rape isn’t that bad
We need to change our culture
You might say that in the short term we could avoid a lot of rape by telling women not to get drunk. But this just perpetuates the real problem: a culture that says rape is the woman’s fault, by only talking about her choices, not the rapist’s.
New Term Required
As much as we’d like to, we can’t discuss social issues in a bubble. Rapists aren’t some outside alien incursion, they’re people living alongside us.
Victim-blaming, and victim-shaming, are big problems. But those terms don’t seem to be communicating what the problem is to a lot of people, and still makes the whole issue about the victim. So let’s instead say rape-permitting. By suggesting a drunk or ‘immodestly’ dressed woman bears responsibility for a rape occurring, you’re giving rapists permission to rape those people.
Plenty of people will still argue that regardless of the scenario you’re best off acting in a particular way to avoid a horrible scenario. But remember, communication isn’t about what you say, it’s about what is heard. Rape isn’t some fringe issue, it’s a huge problem in the West. When you make a statement about rape, that’s the context you’re stepping in to, and rapists are listening.
Binge drinking is a problem that needs addressing. Rape is a problem that needs addressing. But blurring the two issues is not only illogical, it does more harm than good.
Two things I’m involved heavily in are web & app development, and filmmaking. In both of these growing fields you often hear people talk about ideas like they’re worth something. They’ll be amazed at an idea behind something successful, or dismayed when someone else is successful with an idea they had first. They’ll talk about talented people in terms of them having “great ideas”.
People often say things like this to developers:
“Hey, I’ve got this great idea for a (web/app/compact four wheel drive). How about you build it and we split the profits?”
This ingenious business proposal generally causes the developer to laugh a lot.
Here’s the thing: ideas ain’t worth shit.
Execution is what matters.
It’s a big world. Everything you think of has probably been thought of by someone else. The difference between ideas that become successful and ideas you never hear about are how well that idea is bought to fruition.
Speaking of fruit, Apple are a classic example. There’s nothing special about their ideas, broadly speaking. Pretty much every successful Apple product had a competing predecessor. They took a established ideas and built products that actually worked. It wasn’t the ideas that redefined the market, it was the execution.
On paper, there wasn’t anything especially significant about the iPhone. Not only were there already phones with all those features on the market, there were phones with a lot more features. So why did the iPhone turn the market upside-down? It wasn’t because Apple are fashionable, or because the iPhone was a great new idea.
It’s because they executed designing a phone so well. They didn’t just put a web browser on there – they put a web browser on there that let you browse content made for a bigger screen in an intuitive way. They didn’t just put a camera in there – they developed a way to browse and share photos from your phone that felt right. They didn’t just add an email app – they made it unbelievably simple for an average person to set up accessing their existing email account from the iPhone.
Despite what a lot of people think, Apple are a massive success because of how much they value execution over ideas – if they can’t get the execution right, they won’t put a product (or feature within a product) to market. Many other companies flail about trying to make money off ideas that were good, but they could never quite get right.
“I’ve got this great idea for a film. It’s going to be really good. No, I haven’t written the script yet.”
New filmmakers, or people who talk about being filmmakers, say they think they’re going to do well because they have some great ideas. Anyone with any real experience in filmmaking internally snorts when they hear that.
If you’re going to be a good filmmaker, you don’t just need some good ideas, you need a crapload. Because the really important part comes when you develop an idea. That’s when your initial ideas get winnowed away and you need new ones to keep building your story.
No one cares if you have an amazing idea for a film or TV show. No one’s going to hand you a bunch of cash for an idea. Turning ideas into something that actually engages an audience is a process that takes skill, patience, and a lot of hard work.
And that’s just getting to the point where you have a script – let alone shooting and cutting it.
It’s worth mentioning that in Australia, ideas literally aren’t worth anything. You can’t copyright an idea, you can only copyright work. If you tell me an idea for a film, I can make that film and owe you nothing. If you write a 3-page treatment for a film and I make that film without asking, you can sue me, because you actually created something that I stole.
So why do people talk about ideas like they’re what matter? Simple – it’s hope. Ideas are seen like winning lottery tickets. Humans are always looking for a shortcut. It’d be great if you could just come up with an original idea and money started flowing into your bank account.
But that’s simply not the case. Apart from a few odd examples here and there, every success story has years of hard work behind it that you don’t generally hear about.
People love hearing the stories of products that take off and make the creators millionaires overnight, but you don’t hear about the sacrifices it took to get to that night.
Ideas are great. Ideas are important. But they’re just part of the process. Don’t mistake them for something of value. Learn how to execute your ideas, and then you’ll be getting somewhere.
