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Netflix agrees: 76 percent of people think spoilers are a fact of life

Netflix launches new site full of film and TV spoilers.

By Karen Butler
Kevin Spacey plays Rep. Frank Underwood in the Netflix original series "House of Cards." (Netflix)
Kevin Spacey plays Rep. Frank Underwood in the Netflix original series "House of Cards." (Netflix)

LOS GATOS, Calif., Sept. 23 (UPI) -- Netflix wants you to Spoil Yourself, and the online video streaming service has launched a spoilers site to let would be viewers do just that.

About 76 percent of Americans think film and television spoilers are simply a fact of life in a world where people view entertainment at different times, suggests a survey conducted online by Harris Poll on behalf of Netflix.

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Netflix launched the new site with enter-at-your-own-risk icons leading to "spoilers" for popular movies and TV series -- in the form of short clips of key moments, often from late in the storyline.

The Netflix survey also indicates 21 percent of respondents believe it is perfectly fine to share a major plot twist immediately.

Ninety-four percent said hearing a spoiler doesn't make them want to stop watching the rest of a TV series and 13 percent report a spoiler actually makes them more interested in a show they hadn't seen or weren't planning to watch.

"As TV evolves, consumer behavior is evolving right along with it. When we premiered all episodes of our series at once across the world, it created a new dynamic around spoilers," Ted Sarandos, Netflix's chief content officer, said in a statement. "“After Season 2 of House of Cards launched there was a definite shift in the social conversation about a key plot twist in Episode 1; that was the moment everything changed.”"

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Marking that shift, the site lets users vote on whether specific spoilers are in the "public domain," that is, whether it's "too soon" to talk about or "old news."

"Spoilers aren'’t the end of the world that they used to be,”" author and cultural anthropologist Grant McCracken noted. "“Opinions and habits have shifted. Today, talking about spoilers is just talking about TV; in fact, people aren’'t willing or even interested in censoring themselves anymore."”

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