Why you shouldn't consume leaked content

[weesh 690]

The finale leaking early was certainly a big deal.

 

Many of you could not help but check it out.

 

I'd like to suggest that the leaker, and those that participated in the early release actually hurt their own enjoyment, and the enjoyment of the others around them.

 

here's why:

1. Anticipation is destroyed.  you lose out on multiple days of build up that the community enjoys together
2. community is fragmented.  some watch it, others wait, and the discussion is spread out over multiple threads and days
3. there is no singular moment to celebrate together
4. you desire to talk to everyone about it, but have to hold out without telling people until its released
5. some of you let spoilers slip anyways, making it harder for those that wait to avoid them

And that is just why its bad for you and for the community.

 

Its also extremely disrespectful to the creators to punk their moment of joy when the show is released.

how would you like it if you've been planning to release your finest work for 6 months, and then a few weeks before your planned release, someone else releases it for you, in bad quality, and out of context?  they stole your moment.  

 

bucking fuckball season got to 100 posts on this forum in roughly 4 hours after the release.  it took the finale about 40 hours.  why?  because the excitement and anticipation was ruined.  look at the hype and discussion and community wonderment in the season five finale thread as the episode is airing, and then look at the season six finale thread.  You can practically see the tumbleweeds as people that have already watched it launch right into analysis because there is no excitement to participate in.

 

What maximizes your enjoyment in the short term?  Consuming spoilers.

What maximizes your enjoyment in the long term?  Honoring the show and its creators by watching it when it releases.  

 

[-Nobody- 534]

Is it really a leak if it was an official release?

[Baykush 328]

I agree with this but the finale wasn't leaked, it was an official release on television, just not in the USA. It still sucked that it was the way it was though. 

[Red Cedar 1,408]

The finale wasn't leaked. It aired legitimately on British television.

 

When I first got into MLP, it didn't air in my country for six months after it aired in the U.S. And the show is made in my country. If it's out there, I'm grabbing it rather than dealing with spoilers for who knows how long. I can keep my mouth shut until it airs elsewhere, but I know others can't.

[Simon 4,557]

Like others pointed out, the finale wasn't leaked. And really we haven't seen genuine episode "leaks" as that requires an extraordinary amount of backhanded work in Hasbro for an entire episode to be leaked early. Episodes that get released prior to their US showing have consistently been because Hasbro / the HUB / Discovery Family and the other corporations involved in release have had extremely poor planning and protection over their IP. We've seen issues with foreign release dates, episodes being programmed to release on the wrong day on sites like iTunes... that's not anybody's fault but Hasbro's.

 

Now I totally agree I'd love to see Hasbro and the corporations behind MLP's release put in the care and effort to not have that happen, but the fandom unilaterally agreeing to close our eyes and pretend content released early doesn't exist is silly and infeasible. Few people are actively hoping or looking for episodes to get leaked, particularly a finale, for all the reasons you cited, but it's hard to say that the fandom's individual participants shouldn't participate in watching an episode that's released early for whatever reason. If they don't, they risk having the entire episode spoiled for them.

 

Now I actually did wait for the US release date to watch it due to the quality (sure enough there were upload issues and I was with a group so we ended up watching the UK version anyway, but that's besides the point.) But while I would love for these types of things to not happen, I don't expect anybody to not watch an episode early -  but ultimately making sure releases happen in a logical manner is on Hasbro, DHX, Discovery Family, and all the other networks and corporations shoulders, and the fandom will never have control over that aspect of our community.

[cider float 2,539]

As long as you don't blab about it without a spoiler tag then it's fine. I would say trailers and small shorts can ruin the enjoyment for yourself though so I don't watch those I just watch the episode and since nothing that came before the finale was related to it, I didn't lose anything watching it early just made sure not to leak too much about it for others.

[Kyoshi Frost Wolf 42,202]

Even if an episode is leaked, I have no problems with viewing it early. I don't scream from the mountains about what happened in it and I still enjoy the episode all the same regardless if it is early or not. I mean, eventually I will see it anyways, some arbitrary date doesn't effect my enjoyment of it. I can understand that it does fragment discussions, but those discussions become linked again once it does air, so it is only a short fragmentation anyways.

[simba86 1,541]

it wasn't leaked, it was officially released in the UK earlier than in the US.

and even if it was I am still going to watch it early because I hate waiting

[Eggy0 103]

What the others said. The finale wasn't leaked, it just aired outside of the US and earlier than the planned US date.

To be fair though, I'm honestly sick and tired of people calling the UK airing of the finale a "leak". I've gone to several places on the internet and more often than not I've seen someone claim it's a leak even if it legitimately aired on TV. It seems that either these people don't actually know what a "leak" is (Google defines it as "an intentional disclosure of secret information" and airing on TinyPop doesn't seem like it fits that definition) or they believe the whole world revolves around America.

And in my country, MLP didn't even begin to air until the end of two thousand freaking fourteen. That's slightly more than 4 years since the first episode originally premiered, and that's definitely longer than what you mentioned in your example. And even after what should've been years of work (even though dubbing really shouldn't take that long IMO), the quality of the dub is downright horrendous, so it's essentially like the show doesn't even exist in my country to begin with.

And in my case, this so called "leak" was actually a good thing. Why? Because I, as a person who just enrolled college, was given a chance to wrap up my watching of season 6 so I wouldn't have to worry about missing an episode because of the possibility that I might not have had the time to watch it (although I came back for the US release to see other people's reactions) due to college responsibilities.

[PonyMage 228]

I kind of agree. I likely would've waited but the person I was gonna watch 'em with wanted to not wait, so I didn't.

[Steve Piranha 29,497]

Well, technically they weren't leaked, they were released earlier in UK . 

Though I'm sorry for not sharing the same feeling about early releases, leaks or not. If I wait to watch an episode, the excitement gets overwhelming most of the time. Second: this is the internet, SPOILERS GALORE  

[Lambdadelta 1,462]

UK release isnt a leak, but i get what you say, not everyone will watch it at the same time, some youtube reactors i know have a hard time to avoid spoiler because they want to finish Top Bolts before the Finale , and they succeed, good for them.

 

The true leak episode is Scare Master...

[PinkiePie97 913]

Someone getting a new Steven Universe episode from Cartoon Network's website servers before it airs and uploading it to another site is a leak. If it gets an official release somewhere, then it's not a leak. I do get what you're saying, though. I'm surprised the finale wasn't spoiled for me.

[NeonCobalt 256]

I can definitely see where you're coming from here. Unfortunately, when something like this happens, it has the potential to splinter the fandom for a while, and people could also ruin their own enjoyment, as you mentioned. That being said, as other have pointed out, this wasn't a "leak", rather that the episodes aired early in the UK. And ultimately, I'd pin that on Hasbro. And I don't blame anyone who may have wanted to watch the early release episodes.

[Foxy Socks 2,603]

It wasn't released in a way to ruin the episode, and there was plenty of hype for the early release for it. The episode wasn't even leaked.

 

Also it's impossible to stop leaked content realistically.

[EmeraldStar04 250]

The finale leaking early was certainly a big deal.

 

Many of you could not help but check it out.

 

I'd like to suggest that the leaker, and those that participated in the early release actually hurt their own enjoyment, and the enjoyment of the others around them.

 

here's why:

• Anticipation is destroyed. you lose out on multiple days of build up that the community enjoys together
• community is fragmented. some watch it, others wait, and the discussion is spread out over multiple threads and days
• there is no singular moment to celebrate together
• you desire to talk to everyone about it, but have to hold out without telling people until its released
• some of you let spoilers slip anyways, making it harder for those that wait to avoid them

And that is just why its bad for you and for the community.

 

Its also extremely disrespectful to the creators to punk their moment of joy when the show is released.

how would you like it if you've been planning to release your finest work for 6 months, and then a few weeks before your planned release, someone else releases it for you, in bad quality, and out of context? they stole your moment.

 

bucking fuckball season got to 100 posts on this forum in roughly 4 hours after the release. it took the finale about 40 hours. why? because the excitement and anticipation was ruined. look at the hype and discussion and community wonderment in the season five finale thread as the episode is airing, and then look at the season six finale thread. You can practically see the tumbleweeds as people that have already watched it launch right into analysis because there is no excitement to participate in.

 

What maximizes your enjoyment in the short term? Consuming spoilers.

What maximizes your enjoyment in the long term? Honoring the show and its creators by watching it when it releases.

See, this is why I only watch SUck online leaked, because I don't like SUck. I didn't watch the MLP leaks.