I think we can all agree that next to fishermen and lumberjacks, being an entertainment journalist is easily the third (maybe fourth) most dangerous job in the world.
My fellow gossipmongers and I take our lives into our own hands every time we walk a red carpet and risk being blinded by the flash of a paparazzi’s camera.
We brawl with celebrity publicists in hotel suites, email inboxes and coffee shops to get the freshest scoops, and worst of all, we have to spend time in the most toxic place on earth, X.
We put up with all of this to bring you stories so hot you need oven gloves to read them.
Yet, unarguably the biggest downside of being an entertainment journalist is that spoilers become part of your day-to-day.
After all, discussing how a TV show or movie ends – or a big spoilery plot point – is just a hazard of the job.
Even this morning before I’d had time to enjoy my third cup of strangely moreish instant coffee, a colleague’s loose lips spoiled a certain TV show I’ve not found time to watch yet.
So did I get annoyed? Did I scream bloody murder across the bustling Metro bullpen? Did I vent my hot wrath at them like a broken air conditioner?
No.
I did not, because I live by a strict code when it comes to spoilers, a code I call Tom’s Two-Week Turnaround Convention… or the TTTC for short.
What is the TTTC? Well, I wholeheartedly believe that spoilers, like Greek yoghurt, have a two-week expiry date, after which it’s okay (within reason) to discuss plot details.
Why two weeks?
Well, you’ve got to have a cut-off somewhere, and the 14-day lifespan of a yoghurt seems like more than enough time to catch up on a TV show or movie… plus I liked the alliteration of ‘Tom’s Two Weeks’.
So when my colleague mentioned that a [redacted] turned up in an episode of [redacted] and [redacted] their [redacted], I didn’t get annoyed at them.
No, the rules of the TTTC were clear: the show ended three weeks ago, and therefore they did nothing wrong.
The only person I could be annoyed at was myself for not having made more of an effort to watch a show I was genuinely excited for.
Sadly for a few friends and colleagues, this also works in reverse, and I will unexpectedly drop spoilers like one of those fairground claw machines dropping a teddy you’ve just spent £17 trying to win.
It’s not malicious on my part; it just boils down to my belief that it’s rude to think that the world has to wait for you to keep up with it.
What’s more, I think it’s unfair to ask people to moderate their behaviour because you haven’t done something you claim is important to you but have made no effort to rectify.
Because I always truly believe that if a show or film was important to someone, then they’d make the effort to catch up.
Like if you haven’t watched Breaking Bad in the last 13 years, then in my mind you can’t complain if someone tells you that Walter White dies at the end.
Similarly, it’s been 46 years since The Empire Strikes Back, so I don’t think it’s particularly egregious to say Luke Skywalker is a nepo baby with a rather famous father.
Now I should say that I’m not history’s greatest monster – I don’t go spreading spoilers on social media in between building Warhammer models – and as such there are caveats to my rules.
It would be the height of dickishness to ruin something that’s just a few days old.
I also don’t like to presume what people might know or not know about a show or movie, so I don’t mention plot details from trailers or posters if I can avoid it.
Finally, if you’re talking about a series that ended months ago and a person says ‘Oh I’ve not got round to that,’ you shouldn’t ruin it for them deliberately.
However, we live in an era of binging and quick consumption where spoilers evolve into pop culture touchstones incredibly quickly, and once that happens I don’t think you can demand people tiptoe around them – at that point the onus is on you to catch up.
You might disagree with me; in fact I’m sure many of you do. But be wary of sending me angry emails because I know plenty of spoilers – like [redacted] returning in [redacted] season [redacted]!