Photo : Marvel Studios

[Spoilers for Avengers: Endgame below.]



As we, a culture-consuming society, have become hyper- sensitive to spoilers—annoyingly so, if we’re being honest—those very spoilers have become weaponized by the sad, the lonely, the desperate. Now, w e’ve been in a spoiler hot zone this past week, with Avengers: Endgame hitting theaters on the same weekend of Game Of Thrones’ most climactic battle to date, and there’s been no shortage of spoiler-spitting ghouls eager to tell you who died, who got married, and who cut off Thanos’ head with a giant axe. They are all horrible, but there is, we’d wager , one exception.


A Marvel fan took to Reddit on Wednesday with a spoiler-fueled tale of revenge, one that involves a fake friendship, some sneaky photos, and more than a year’s worth of planning. It begins with the hero of this story seeing a random troll swoop onto his Instagram to spoil Infinity War’s big twists before he had seen it. Shortly thereafter, a plan was born, one that ended with a cruel bit of payback that ventures far beyond a mere spoil.

We’ll let him take it from here.

I messaged the guy and told him that I had already seen the movie, but that was a good prank. It was then that we became “friends.” So, for about 7 months, me and him messaged each other, texted memes, talked about movies, and stuff like that. (Keep in mind the friendship was fake, I was just trying to get his trust and make him comfortable with me.) Skip forward to about last week. I bought my Endgame tickets and I was going opening night. I asked him if he was going opening night and he said no, which was great news. He said he was going next week (this week.) So I saw Endgame, and while I was in the theater, I took PLENTY of pictures. I took pictures of Thanos death #1, Captain Marvel, Ronin, Black Widow’s death, Smart Hulk, Fat Thor, 2 Captain America’s, 2 Nebulas, Stan Lee’s cameo, all the snapped coming back, Iron Man’s death, and several other plot points. When I got out, I almost thought of not doing it. I don’t like to spoil movies, I think it’s lame, but I reassured myself that this guy deserves it. So I texted him that I saw it, he asked how it was and I told him it was great, he told me not to spoil it, and I said “Oh, like how you spoiled Infinity War.” Then he switched moods, he was all like “Hey man, that was a long time ago, we’re friends now,” Stuff like that. Then, in one glorious action, I sent all the pictures as fast as I could, messaging plot points along with the pictures. It was all over in like 30 seconds, but he definitely saw it all. He cursed me out, saying I was a horrible person and stuff. Then he said “Why would you do that, we’re such good friends?” And I texted back, “we’re not friends, a year ago you picked me out of a crowd of thousands and ruined a movie that I had been wanting to see for months, since then I’ve been lying to you, deceiving you and gaining your trust all for this moment. You are not my friend, just a person who got what they deserve.” Then, he cursed me out some more, and I haven’t talked to him since.


W hile it’s unfortunate that his plan no doubt distracted from a pressure-free viewing of Endgame, it nevertheless led to a cathartic bit of payback for a guy who clearly loves to ruin other peoples’ good time. That he couched his spoiler in the loss of a friendship is even more gutting, as we can’t imagine the kind of guy who casually spoils movies for strangers has that many pals to begin with. Let this be a lesson, readers: Don’t be that guy, and by “that guy” we definitely mean Mark Ruffalo.