A Few Useful Tricks To Take Spoilers Out Of Your Social Feed

Spoilers suck. Sure, we all wanted to know whether Jon Snow was alive or dead but we wanted to find out watching A Game of Thrones and not because someone decided to blurt the news out on Facebook.

But how do we avoid spoilers when social media is stuffed to the brim with them? As soon as the new Star Wars movie is announced, somebody’s trying to show that Luke Skywalker is your father now. Can we make them stop?

Keyword Blocking

Twitter has an advanced muting service which lets you specify which keywords you want to avoid. Facebook doesn’t do this directly, but you can use “Social Fixer,” a browser plugin to content filter in Facebook.

Then all you need to do is add the keyword to the blocking tool. Don’t want Batman spoilers? Add “Batman,” “Bruce Wayne,” “Ben Affleck,” “DC Comics,” etc. and soon you’ll be immune to the worst and most obvious spoiler efforts.

You may also want to block comments on YouTube (use No YouTube Comments the plugin for this) as they can often contain unwanted spoilers posted by fans.

Skim Read Stuff

If the keyword blockers don’t handle the spoilers, a good tactic to fall back on is skim reading. If you just run your eyes gently over content and as soon as you feel it’s likely to contain spoilers, you can pull the plug on it.

Then block that piece of content (and if necessary block the source of the content if they’re always posting spoilers) and block it from your memory too.

Avoid Snapchat Stories

One social media hangout where spoilers abound is in Snapchat Stories. This is particularly true when you follow the stars of specific series of TV shows or movies. It’s important to avoid their channels when you think the risk of spoilers are high (e.g. between seasons and in the build up to a new release).

You can dial down the paranoia about Snapchat Stories when the season is airing (as long as you’re keeping up to date with things – otherwise, you might want to tune out permanently on these things) as spoilers tend to be uncommon at this time.

Reduce Your Social Media Exposure

The fewer social media channels you expose yourself to, the less likely you are to encounter spoilers of any type. There comes a point when you’re using too many social media platforms to be properly discerning on any of them.

You really don’t need to be on Twitter, Instagram, Pinterest, Facebook, LinkedIn, Snapchat, WeChat, etc. all the time. Pick a couple of favorites and focus on quality, spoiler-free interactions.

Winter is Here

Winter is here according to the latest Game of Thrones trailers, so if you want to know what that means by experiencing it yourself and not having it spoiled by others, then follow our tips: filter by keyword, skim read everything on social media before diving in, avoid those Snapchat Stories and reduce your overall social media presence.