Are Spoilers Ruining The Challenge?

The Challenge 42 hasn’t even been formally announced yet, but you can already find the winners online. Spoiler accountshave shared the season’s cast, format, elimination sequence, and finalists; if you want to know the outcome, you’re welcome to view it.

If you look at comments on social networks like Instagram and Facebook, many fans are screaming foul. They feel spoilers are killing the show and making it impossible to enjoy.

And on some level, I agree — but probably not in the way you’d expect.

I’ve been watching the show since 2003, when Battle of the Sexes aired. Every season has been spoiled since then. If you wanted to engage in online discussions, you risked ruining the show. This has always been a part of the Challenge world, and it’s not exclusive to The Challenge. Other shows have gone to extreme measures to hide spoilers, but The Challenge hasn’t taken any notable precautions. 

So, if spoilers have been a constant, what changed?

For the first half of The Challenge’s life, viewers knew they had to tune in to MTV live if they wanted to see the show. This created a set time to watch the show, and millions of fans watched episodes during their debut airing. Eventually, a notable fraction of the audience would DVR episodes, but these folks knew they were playing catch-up.

In the age of streaming, live viewership likely represents a minority of Challenge viewership — and from the sound of it, season 42 will be a streaming exclusive.

Now, viewers watch the show at their own pace, and it’s becoming increasingly difficult to be social with other fans. You can reference the recent episode, even if it premiered 48 hours ago, and you run a big risk of ruining it for other viewers.

There was a time when social media played a big role in the Challenge experience for hardcore fans, and it still exists to a lesser degree. But many cast members are silent online. This is well-intended because they want viewers to have an unspoiled experience, but it also makes it hard to use social platforms to drive engagement.

Longstanding reality TV franchises are going to have a hard time adapting to streaming platforms because viewers don’t want episodes to be spoiled, they want to watch them at their own pace, but they’re not going to avoid social media. So, every time the official Challenge account posts online, there are spoiler warnings. This drives down engagement and takes away the buzz from the show.

During the “Trilogy” era, Dirty Thirty-Final Reckoning, cast members were itching to get online and reignite drama with their castmates. Those days are gone — not just because fans don’t want to see spoilers, but because they’re not caught up with the show, and the drama makes no sense. 

Watching The Challenge used to be a more social experience; there’s a reason the Challenge hashtag was featured at the bottom of the screen during episodes. Big moments on the show, like Bananas taking all the money on Rivals 3, would trend on social media and generate buzz. Those moments are gone, because it feels less exciting to share buzzy Challenge clips when they’re viewed as spoilers rather than entertainment.