How To Send Spoiler Messages In Discord Without Annoying Anyone

There is nothing worse than having a book, movie, TV show or game release spoiled by someone who tells you all about it in chat. Whether that’s by accident or on purpose, spoilers are endemic online and can spoil your enjoyment in a big way. If you’re a Discord user, you can mark messages as spoilers so you can share information without ruining it for others. This tutorial will show you how to properly send spoiler messages in Discord.

We all like to be ahead of the game. We all like to think we know something other people don’t or have seen and done something before others. Spoilers can be a manifestation of that. They can be used as a power for good in reviews or opinions or a power for evil when shared without warning people first.

You might think sharing spoilers will show everyone how ahead of the game you are, but get it wrong and you will also be shown how quickly you can become very unpopular indeed!

Balance the need to be first with respect for your friends by marking your messages with spoiler tags.

Spoiler tags in Discord

Spoiler tags use markup within Discord or a menu setting to hide the spoiler text. Instead of seeing the spoiler in plain text in the feed, you will see a message with a box that says ‘Click to reveal spoiler’ or a lank box depending on the size of the spoiler. This is the only way you should ever share spoilers in Discord. Do anything else and you risk losing popularity fast!

If you’re desperate to share the news or discuss the latest movie, game, TV show or whatever, it would be better to do it in a dedicated spoiler channel. If you don’t have one of those, spoiler message tags are definitely the way to go.

To use spoiler tags in Discord, do this:

Type your message with ‘||’ either side. For example, ‘I know who killed the Night King. It was || me ||’. as long as the spoiler data is between the pipes, it will be hidden behind the click box. The supporting text, telling people what the spoiler information relates to should be outside the pipes.

You can also highlight the text in the chat window before you hit Send. Right click the text and select Mark as Spoiler. It will do the same thing. The supporting text will be plain while the actual spoiler information you highlighted will be hidden behind a click box.

When to share spoilers and when to not share them

If Game of Thrones taught us anything except how cool dragons are, it taught us that it is very easy to see spoilers even when you’re avoiding them. Unless you caught the very first showing, you have to avoid the entire internet until you could watch it. Even prominent websites and news outlets couldn’t contain themselves and had to get in on the clickbait action.

While things aren’t quite so bad on Discord, there is an etiquette to spoilers.

Warn people before spoiling

The term ‘spoiler alert’ was a real thing before it reached common parlance and for good reason. Warning people before sharing spoiler information is a good way to remain friends with them. In this era of catchup TV or recording to avoid commercials, not everyone has access to the latest of everything the minute it is released. Bearing that in mind helps.

Wait a while before spoiling

With the above in mind, it is now customary to wait at least 24 hours before offering spoilers. You can say you have seen the show, movie or whatever, played the game, completed the raid boss or whatever, just don’t tell what you saw. You still get the satisfaction of being first but you don’t spoil the experience for others.

Spoiler channel or DM

If you cannot contain yourself, asking a simple ‘who else has completed Borderlands 3’ or whatever you’re spoiling and then setting up a channel or chatting via DM will help. That way you can chat with others who have done the same without spoiling it for others. A dedicated channel is always useful as people have the option of joining, or not.

Memes and quotes are spoilers too

There were billions of GoT memes and they appear for most popular games, movies, TV shows. While not technically spoiling, memes and quotes can give away information that can be viewed as a spoiler. If you have them use the spoiler channel or DM to share them with others or ask before sharing them.