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Just about everyone has had one of the most common yet dreaded experiences in fandom. You’re talking with a friend about the hottest currently ongoing television show, book series, or film franchise, and you’re both having a great time. Suddenly your friend starts to take the conversation in an unexpected direction. You realize that they’re further along in the story than you are, and they’re about to tell you something you don’t know about yet.
Usually, this would be a perfectly harmless example of “cultural osmosis,” which is when someone hears about a cultural phenomenon second-hand, without having actually experienced it. But you’re watching the show too! You want to experience it fresh! You lean forward and try to yell for them to stop, but their mouth is already open. Their passing remark about that amazing plot twist has already slipped between their lips; you’ve just been spoiled. Oh, the humanity! The earthshaking surprise is shrunk to a pathetic tremor, the dramatic lead-up is rendered flat and mundane, and the entire experience is ruined! We’ve all been there, and for most of us, few fates could be worse.
But what about when you can’t help but be spoiled? You might consider yourself a proficient spoiler-avoider, but the truth is that some media franchises are so popular and influential that spoilers leak out into the larger culture. Eventually, cultural osmosis occurs so much that many people who haven’t seen the media in question know all the big moments and shocking twists. Now, before the anti-spoiler crusaders start hatching a plan to stop cultural osmosis in its tracks, they should know that it takes a special kind of media franchise for it to occur at a large scale. For those specific works of art, being spoiled isn’t necessarily the worst thing in the world.
What Is Cultural Osmosis?
Cultural osmosis is the indirect conveyance of cultural knowledge to people who haven’t actually experienced the media in question. Have you ever had the plot of an unfamiliar show or book exhaustively explained to you over dinner? Have you ever not understood a quote, joke, or reference because you haven’t seen the thing being referred to? You’ve experienced cultural osmosis on a small scale.
Although, the term “cultural osmosis” usually refers to a much wider-scale phenomenon where most of the people in a culture or subculture can be assumed to know something about specific media, whether they’ve directly experienced it or not. For one of the most famous examples, take the plot twist that rocked America in 1980: the revelation that Darth Vader is Luke Skywalker’s father in The Empire Strikes Back.
Everyone knows about this twist. “Luke, I am your father” is one of the most quoted lines in all of cinema. If you were born after 1980, the chances are that you heard this line quoted before you even saw the movie, whether from other kids on the playground or your own father making a goofy joke about it. For modern audiences, there’s very little chance of going into The Empire Strikes Back unspoiled. The moment is so ubiquitous that few would even call it a “spoiler” in the typical sense of the word. It’s just expected that you watch the movie already knowing that plot point, and perhaps a bevy of others as well.
On the opposite side of the mainstream/cult following spectrum, certain niche series also create cultural osmosis to the extent that most people who watch are expected to know what happens beforehand. An excellent example is JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure. Though the manga/anime series has a relatively small following in the US, JoJo’s fans are extremely dedicated to producing and distributing content about the series. From memes about its dozens of characters, exhaustive analysis’ of its outlandish concepts, and truncated summaries of any of its eight discrete story arcs, these fans make cultural osmosis seem like a day job.
Indeed, JoJo’s content is so prevalent that it sometimes even makes its way to people who aren’t all that interested.
“I don’t like JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure, but I feel like I’m so inundated by it on Twitter.com at all hours of the day that I have not been able to avoid it.”
Nick Robinson
(( “Homestuck.” CoolGames Inc. Polygon, 12 August 2016, https://www.stitcher.com/podcast/vox/coolgames-inc/e/57017009 ))
The ubiquity of JoJo’s content, as well as the series’ niece appeal, means that most JoJo‘s fans come to the series through spoiler-filled fan-made content and then watch the show thoroughly pre-spoiled about any number of its dramatic twists. It’s gotten to the point that some veteran fans advocate that new fans gloss over large chunks of the story, relying on cultural osmosis to fill in what they need to know and skipping ahead.
So why does the fandom world accept experiencing these huge properties pre-spoiled when it’s such a stickler about spoilers at all other times? It’s because basic knowledge of a story can help guide viewers through complicated plots, and built-up expectations can make big moments even more momentous. Indeed, getting a story second-hand first can actually make the original material better.
Guidance
The first reason why it’s good to watch classic material with preexisting knowledge gained through cultural osmosis is that knowledge can help a first-time viewer navigate a confusing story. This benefit applies especially to classic work because classic work can be especially confusing. Our most impactful and enduring art is often also our most original, eclectic, and enigmatic, and that sometimes extends right down to a new viewer’s ability to follow the plot.
It’s not easy to see why a basic plot outline might be helpful for watching a sprawling, willfully unconventional story like JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure. But it also applies to plenty of stories we usually consider to be straightforward, such as Star Wars. Imagine watching any of the Star Wars movies, not knowing anything about the story or characters. It would probably be pretty confusing, right?
Credit: xkcd
Even in the first film, there are about a dozen important characters to keep track of, we start in the middle of an interstellar conflict about which we know nothing, and we’re asked to learn about a whole new sci-fi world while also following a fast-moving linear story. The cultural osmosis cliff’s notes can be a big help. In addition to making the viewing experience easier, foreknowledge of the plot through cultural osmosis allows the viewer to focus on all the things cultural osmosis could never give them. The subtleties of character and emotion are usually lost in the process of cultural osmosis and can be deeply affecting when a first-time viewer can focus all of their attention on them.
Defining works like JoJo’s are also known for their idiosyncratic aesthetic qualities, which can be appreciated more fully when the viewer isn’t busy being confused about the plot.
Momentousness
The next reason why it’s good to let cultural osmosis spoil you on some things has to do with the expectation it builds. When Star Wars released in 1977, it was just a movie. After over forty years of cultural obsession, it’s built up a certain prestige. Just about everyone agrees that the Star Wars franchise is extremely culturally significant, so when people watch it for the first time, their heightened attention can make for a uniquely gripping experience.
This can also have the opposite effect. Plenty of contrarians delight in insisting that pop culture’s favorite moments aren’t actually that great, so some might go in looking to nitpick and have a worse experience than they otherwise would.
Given that, it’s a good thing that those moments are so often better than cultural osmosis makes them out to be. Once again, the “I am your father” moment is an excellent example. Since the release of The Empire Strikes Back, abrupt and hackneyed revelations about a character’s parentage have become a persistent cliché. Those who haven’t seen the movie probably imagine the scene to be just as bad as its imitators: Darth Vader corners Luke Skywalker, lobs off his hand and announces apropos of nothing that he’s Luke’s father. Luke screams and makes a silly face. Scene! And at the core of it, the most famous line in all of cinema:
“Luke, I am your father”
… never actually appears in The Empire Strikes Back
That’s right: this is also one of the most misquoted lines in cinema. The typical rendering makes the linework a self-contained statement but implies that the dialogue is an exceedingly awkward non-sequitur and a pointless revelation for its own sake. However, the line is actually part of a dramatic and poignant dialogue exchange:
Vader: “Join me, and I will complete your training. With our combined strength, we can end this destructive conflict and bring order to the galaxy.”
(( The Empire Strikes Back. Directed by Irvin Kershner, performances by Mark Hamill and James Earl Jones. Lucasfilm Ltd., 1980. ))
Luke: “I’ll never join you.”
Vader: “If you only knew the power of the dark side. Obi-Wan never told you what happened to your father.”
Luke: “He told me enough. He told me you killed him.”
Vader: “No. I am your father.”
An exchange like that can be a fantastic shock to someone expecting pablum. That pleasant reversal of expectations only enhances the experience of witnessing the original moment for the first time.
Cultural Osmosis As Remix
Finally, there’s one more incidental bonus to cultural osmosis, though it doesn’t have anything to do with enjoying the original material. Quite the opposite: the actual products of cultural osmosis are often worthwhile experiences in their own right. Anyone who loves to hear their friends talk about media they love can attest, but you don’t need an enthusiastic buddy to experience the joy of cultural osmosis. The JoJo’s fandom has proven itself exceedingly efficient at bringing joyful second-hand experiences to the masses.
JoJo fans love their memes, or “JoJokes,” as they’re lovingly called. In addition, exhaustive analysis posts and cheeky summary videos can often ascend and become works of art in and of themselves. However, when it comes to comedically fast summary videos… well, Star Wars did it first. The summary format is so popular, in fact, that Disney has gotten in on the action. Their “Galaxy of Adventures” series of YouTube videos for kids animate new visuals over audio from the original films to recreate iconic scenes and storylines.
It’s essentially corporate-branded cultural osmosis. They’ve even realized its power and the fun they can bring by repackaging their classic properties in a new way.
Legends
So it’s safe to say that most spoiler-sticklers are good to drop their guard when it comes to culturally-ubiquitous franchises like Star Wars or oft-referenced niche behemoths like JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure. Resistance is futile. The spoilers are coming. However, that’s hardly a tragedy. These series’ twists and turns are no longer just story beats; they’re essentially part of shared cultural mythology that creates a new standpoint from which to view the source material and a richer experience in visiting these classic works for the first time.