One of the worst things about being chronically online…
Eh, you know what? Never mind. There’s no way to quantify all the terrible things that come along with the near-constant barrage of partially-correct information and stream of consciousness opinions.
One of the things about being chronically online is that the internet can’t keep its damn mouth shut.
We Finally Saw Spider-Man: No Way Home
It’s the first Marvel movie I haven’t seen in theaters. Actually, it’s the second. It’s possible I’ve never actually seen Iron Man 2 the entire way through.
This was the first Marvel movie I wanted to see that I didn’t catch in theaters. I’m not blaming the virus. I’m not even blaming the tons of people who have let their fear of needles cause this virus to continue to reign over us like some demented, in-bred royal. No, I’m, as always, blaming capitalism. Who cares that an even more contagious variant just showed up. There’s money to be made!
And look at my statement all the way up there. I’ve seen basically every one of these two hour color and punch fests in theaters. Some multiple times. I have a Disney+ subscription. I’m not claiming to be some modern-day Thoreau, subsisting on berries and pond-water and scowling at the families passing by with McDonald’s bags. I’ve given a ridiculous amount of money to both Disney and various movie theaters, and they are seriously going to have to start fucking these up to get me to stop. It’s just…when it became apparent it still might not be entirely safe couldn’t we have kept up the simultaneous VOD releases? For a few months? You still make gobs of money, for Christ’s sake.
I still paid for VOD this last weekend because God only knows when it’ll pop up for free or even reduced cost on one of the services I’m already paying for. Potentially never, given the way Sony and Disney are still at each other’s throats about all this (and again, don’t misjudge me – I think it’s hilarious and definitely want the two of them to continue fighting until the sun burns out). The only difference is that instead of seeing it opening weekend, I’m seeing it three months after opening weekend. Which, in internet time, is roughly an epoch.
Tossing up the Spoiler Chocobo, serious spoilers for No Way Home from here on out.
‘Spoilers’ not ‘Super Happy Fun Shareable Secrets’
Yeah, I knew everything before it happened. Everything. I had already guessed some of it, but I still would have liked to be proven right by the movie and not by some dumbass article on the internet. The thing that pisses me off the most was Aunt May’s death, because I only got spoiled on that a week and a half ago. I was so close!
You’ll notice I said ‘dumbass article’ and not ‘dumbass reddit user.’ The Aunt May spoiler is the only one I caught from reddit. Every single other spoiler came from the dumbest places. Article headlines in my Google News Feed. YouTube thumbnails. Off-hands mentions in articles that not only didn’t have anything to do with Spider-Man or Marvel, they didn’t have anything to do with movies. Just some asshole writing about why gas prices are skyrocketing and somehow tying in Electro into that shit. The memes. Everywhere the memes!
This is what I mean about the internet not being able to keep its fucking mouth shut. I don’t mean trolls who create the username ‘mattisbackBAYBEE’ and then comments ‘Goblin kills May’ in random conversations until they get banned, and then they make another username ‘daredevilcatchesabrick’ and keep doing it. These idiots have always existed, they will always exist, and a lot of other people have come together as an impromptu community to shut that shit down before it gets out of hand.
No, it’s the people who simply assume everyone has already seen everything they have seen. Or they forget, and then, because it’s the fucking internet, they don’t go back and edit the mention out of their blog or vlog or whatever, they leave it hanging, forever spoiling randoms who only wanted to know how the sports went the previous day. I’m not afraid of the troll because some random internet citizen is going to punch that troll in the mouth before he can bother me, but then that random internet citizen is going to turn around and be all, ‘Oh, man! That was totally like in the movie when Blank-Man kept repeatedly blanking Green Blank in the face!’
Great. Thanks.
On the Other Hand, It Also Works in My Favor
I haven’t seen any Game of Thrones past the first season, but I still know all the plot beats. I knew everything about the Red Wedding within hours of it happening, and I knew about the Starbucks cup even faster. Once I heard what a medieval shitshow the last season was, it completely erased what little desire I had to catch up and watch the whole thing, and now, thanks to the internet blabbing about every detail, I can safely ignore all the dragons and soft-core porn.
The True Lesson is Get Off the Internet
But that’s not happening any time soon, you can’t make me, you’re not my supervisor.
The actual lesson is everyone should be more like Andrew Garfield, who some say is still out there somewhere, denying he’s in No Way Home to a Hollywood reporter to this very day.
High Urban Fantasy Jazz 