You Can See Nothing, You Can Spoil Everything
It’s been a long time since I dealt with a spoiler window that stretched out for more than a few days.
Over the last thirty years, the internet has reduced the time it takes to discuss new shows and films and created a far bigger debating chamber. The algorithm knows what you like and will happily point you to discussions about your favourite shows, invariably packed with spoilers. If you aren’t utterly up to date, the internet doesn’t care.
That’s why so many new ‘hot topic’ releases have a global release date, or at least one measured in less than 24 hours. The midnight drop for new episodes of prestige dramas is relatively common, although it’s not as universal as many would hope. The first season of The Pitt was released in the UK about 14 months after the US, by which time season two was airing stateside.
Which leads me to ‘You Can See Everything’, Nathan Fielder’s documentary of Elizabeth Holmes. It’s had a huge amount of buzz, and since its US release last week, countless online discussions make it clear something special is happening that everyone wants to talk about. Thankfully, these early discussions still mention they are spoilers, which is great because the UK release isn’t until November 20.
That’s nearly five weeks I need to stay spoiler-free about a topic the socials know I love, in a space close to one of my writing beats, and that my friends may have already seen. One lapse in focus or a wandering eye to a sidebar or curated homepage could kill the cinematic experience, one that’s going to be close enough to the big day to be my birthday present.
What would be really useful here is some sort of universal spoiler prevention filter. I could tag it as ‘You Can See Everything’, but I’d also use it to hide baseball score alerts that show up at 4 am here in the UK, spoiling the highlights I’d rather watch over breakfast… even though I follow the team. I still use this question to challenge engineers rushing to establish Agentic AI on personal devices. Can you make it not show what I’m interested in?
But technology that useful feels as far out of reach as the claims Holmes made about Theranos.
It’s going to be a long month.
Image: Elizabeth Holmes, You Can See Everything, Official Trailer, A24.
