So Avengers: Infinity War opened wide today (well, "today" as I'm typing this, Friday) and I have somehow, miraculously, made it to my 9:40pm showing without knowing a single plot detail. This feels like it deserves documentation because honestly I didn't think it was possible anymore.
Here's the thing nobody tells you about opening weekend for a movie this size: the actual danger isn't spoilers from friends, it's spoilers from the internet just existing in the background while you go about your day. I checked Twitter at 11am on Thursday like a normal person checking Twitter, and there it was, some account with 40 followers quote-tweeting a paparazzi-style set photo with "lol they really did THAT to [redacted]" and a crying-laughing emoji. I closed the tab so fast I nearly dropped my phone in my coffee.
So I did what any reasonable adult does in 2018: I muted keywords. Twitter added a mute-words feature back in 2017 and I don't think I'd used it for anything more serious than blocking "crypto" and "blockchain" out of my mentions, but last night I sat there for ten minutes adding character names, actor names, "IW," "spoiler," and eventually just "Marvel" to the list. Reddit I gave up on entirely and just didn't open the app. Facebook I wasn't worried about because, well, I barely open Facebook these days anyway, which is a whole separate thing.
Actually, speaking of Facebook, funny timing: they reported earnings this week too, Wednesday I think, and the stock jumped something like 9% because ad revenue was up almost 50% year over year. This is a company that spent the last month getting hauled in front of Congress over Cambridge Analytica, and the market's reaction was basically a shrug and a "yeah but the numbers are good though." I don't really have a tidy point to make about that except that it's a little bleak. Twitter's stock did something similar the same day on user growth numbers, which I guess means the market has decided the data privacy stuff is a PR problem, not a business problem. Fine. Noted.
Anyway. Back to spoilers, because that's actually a more interesting topic to me right now than earnings calls. There was a story going around a few days before release that the presale demand for this thing broke Fandango's own records, past what Force Awakens did back in 2015, and that the app was choking under the load for a bit. I believe it. I tried to buy my ticket Tuesday night and the AMC site gave me a spinning wheel for a solid twenty seconds before it let me pick a seat. Twenty seconds doesn't sound like much until you're sitting there refreshing and wondering if you just lost your seat to somebody else in the queue.
One thing I've noticed this week that I did not expect: my inbox is suddenly full of "we've updated our privacy policy" emails. Not spoiler related, I know, but it's the same week so it's stuck in my head as one big blur. GDPR enforcement kicks in next month, the 25th I believe, and it looks like some companies decided to get ahead of it rather than wait until the last week of May like everyone else will inevitably do. I got three of these emails yesterday alone. I read maybe one sentence of each before archiving. I suspect this is going to get a lot worse before it gets better, and I say that as someone who is, in theory, in favor of the actual policy.
Point is: I made it. No spoilers. I'm going to go sit in a dark room for what I've heard is close to three hours and find out what happens, and I'd genuinely rather learn it from the screen than from some rando's tweet with a laughing emoji on it. Small victories. If you're reading this before you've seen it, mute your keywords now, not tomorrow. It's already too late for tomorrow.