Is Social Media a Spoiler?

Super Bowl XLIV's ratings were through the roof this year, surpassing the all time highest rated show of M*A*S*H. Ad revenue was down by 1/2 a million, yet there were still very many memorable commercials aired during the breaks. Many people tune into the Super Bowl solely to watch the ads. Since companies are spending 2.5 million on a 30 second spot, they put a lot of time and talent into making their spot memorable to the audience.

My question is, is social media taking the authenticity out of Super Bowl ads? In order to get a good laugh of the crazy commercials aired during the game, you do not even have to sit down and watch a single minute of the Super Bowl. Within seconds of the game being over, YouTube videos and other forms of internet media had the ads immediately uploaded for everyone to see. In some cases the ads were on the internet before they were ever aired, spoiling the fun it getting your good laugh in during the game.

However, YouTube is not the only spoiler to media. Just by logging into Twitter or Facebook someone could easily learn what was going on in the game without even watching it, from viewers tweeting scores, plays, ad details, etc. I happened to log into Facebook during the game to find out that Denny's was once again doing their Grand Slam giveaway on February 9th, before their commercials even aired advertising the promo. Although finding out something like this via Facebook may be convenient for some, I personally see it as a spoiler, taking the element of surprise out of traditional media.