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Comment by shermantanktop | Hacker News Reader

Can you describe what you found funny at the time? I'm genuinely curious what motivates behavior like this.

Finding something funny doesn't necessarily imply you endorse the behavior, believe it to be harmless fun, or even that you don't feel sorry for the victim.

There's entire categories of entertainment media that use "unfortunate things happening to strangers" for comedic effect.

"Ow! My Balls!"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FWfOMeLk6m0

"go way i'm batin"

It was people that didn't like reading or nerdy kids, trying to spoil their interests.

I actually liked reading and I was a nerdy kid. To be clear, I never actively participated in the spoiler stuff, just read about the reactions.

I mean, keep in mind I was fourteen when this happened, and fourteen year old boys are very often assholes and I was sadly not an exception to this.

I guess I just found it funny how much of a reaction people had with it. I liked the Harry Potter books too, I was reading them like every other fourteen year old was, and the plot being spoiled for me didn't really bother me very much, cuz, you know, it's just a book. Some people really got upset.

Again, definitely a dick move to do that, and a dick move for me to find it amusing. Kids are douchebags.

Did you also find videos of guys waiting in line at stores to buy consoles, then smashing them in front of the people who were still in line funny?

I doubt that. Someone who doesn't like reading wouldn't think of "spoiling a book" as a prank category that comes to mind or understands it to be a serious upset rather than just slightly annoying. Also, they'd likely feel that going to a bookstore and shouting things relating to a book serious is "cringe" or whatever you want to call it, if they aren't the type to even go to a bookstore in the first place.

All it takes is one person to go "I did this" and then the others have a good troll/joke to use. Doesn't take a lot of effort and people were more outgoing back then.

Not sure about funny, but the schadenfreude from spoiling a plot like this may come from spoilers seeing themselves as being “other” or feeling excluded from a group where the fascination with the media (Harry Potter fans) is the common trait. You may not want to be a Harry Potter fan, but seeing people obsessed with it and gathering around it may make you feel isolated

I don't know if I think it's funny, but I'm probably equally curious about two points. I do think that the journey is as important as the destination. I spoil things for myself all the time, mostly because I'm just always out of step with pop culture. It doesn't really impede my enjoyment of a well made book/game/film if I know some plot beats ahead of time. If you're just in it for the major plot twists, why not just read the wikipedia synopsis?

Also, there's the assumption that it was a real spoiler. It's not immediately verifiable. What if people were yelling "Snape kills Harry"? Why did the people in line assume the guy yelling into the night was being truthful, or that weirdly cropped images of pages weren't just photoshopped?

lots of modern comedy revolves around people who should know better being petty little jerks and doing stupid things that actually don't cause any real damage but just makes everybody wonder "why is this idiot such a pathetic asshole?!?"

It’s about 20 years old, so the likely answer: they were under 18

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