Portlandia spoilers skit: spoiler alerts are ruining dinner parties.

Portlandia Shows How Spoiler Sensitivity Is Ruining Our Culture

Portlandia Shows How Spoiler Sensitivity Is Ruining Our Culture

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Brow Beat
Slate's Culture Blog
Jan. 2 2013 5:30 PM

Portlandia Shows How Spoiler Sensitivity Is Ruining Our Culture

Back when he was at Vulture, my Slate colleague Dan Kois argued that people who don't watch TV shows when they first air, "but still demand that we respect their right to remain strategically ignorant, are the real spoilers—the ones whose slow pace keep us from enjoying the postshow discussion as much as we enjoy the shows themselves."

I agree, more or less. And so, it seems, do Fred Armisen and Carrie Brownstein of Portlandia, as evidenced by the great skit from Season 3 (which begins Friday) below. There are some real (non-Portlandiaspoilers in this clip, so don't watch it if, for instance, you still insist on not knowing what happens in Usual Suspects or on the fifth season of The Wire.

David Haglund is the literary editor of NewYorker.com.