A good story should work even if you know what will happen. The components of the story (such as the easter eggs in the present discussion) should be more interesting than some gimmick of a big reveal. The whole concept of spoilers is extremely modern, probably invented by Hitchcock as marketing to sell more tickets to his movies. When you go see the ballet or an opera, you're given the whole plot upfront as part of the programme.

On the other hand, some movies are simply too intense to be enjoyable for me. So I often pull up Wikipedia first to make sure that the payoff is going to be worth it.

An example that falls into both categories is "The Fugitive" (Harrison Ford movie based on the TV show). I already know who the villain is and who dies at the end, but I can still enjoy Harrison Ford piecing it together and Tommy Lee Jones trying to stop him. And the last part of the movie is more intense and action-heavy than I really like, but I can take it because I know how it turns out.

I sometimes joke that I'm a member of the "Wikipedia Film Club" because I read about more movies than I actually end up watching.

That's so funny. I definitely do that too. However, a lot of the times I don't end up watching the movie unless it's really good. That's probably my favorite use of Wikipedia.

I'll admit, for a while, I spent a lot of time on themoviespoiler, a website dedicated to, well, movie spoilers. Like you, I sometimes can't take an emotionally exhausting ride. I like to watch movies for a little escapism, not to come out of the other side drained.

It's also a case where knowing the twist in advance really would profoundly affect a lot of people's experiences of the film, probably even more so in 1992.

Agreed. My first play-through of Dark Souls was thoroughly spoilerified, because I was consulting a walkthrough and reading a little bit ahead of my current progress, from start to finish. And you know what? It was still a phenomenal experience.

In fact, the experience was enhanced somewhat by knowing what was coming ahead. I could look forward to facing a boss like the Four Kings, having already read some of the lore and knowing it would be a brutal encounter.

Later in the series, my first play-throughs of Bloodborne and Dark Souls 3 were blind and unspoiled, but I don't think the experience was gigantically better for it. Some reveals were pretty cool [1], but I don't think I would have suffered to have known about them in advance. In fact, I still thoroughly enjoy all of those games, despite knowing them inside out and back-to-front.

[1] I'm thinking specifically of the transition from The Consumed Kings Garden to Untended Graves in DS3. Probably better unspoiled.

How else would you know what is going on?

Ballet is a bit more like miming, but overall, the plots are still obvious, and frankly, very thin. We don't watch the Romeo and Juliet ballet wondering if they will survive or not, but rather wondering how they will express their anguish and suffering through dance.

You don't know anyone? At all? Isn't that a bit... arrogant to presume?

'Law & Order: Criminal Intent' explicitly based its plots on discovering the motivations behind the crime, while the perpetrator was known to the audience from the start.

'Criminal Minds' similarly examines profiles the state of mind of the perpetrator to identify a suspect, with the person's identity known to the audience in advance more often than not.

I enjoy binge watching, so I always wait for the season to complete; sometime for multiple seasons. However, I don't find the occasional spoiler detrimental to my viewing pleasure. I can only speak for myself, but I have watched many classic movies with prior knowledge of the plot; and I believe they have not significantly affected how I perceived them. Of course, it is impossible to tell if I would have enjoyed them more had I not known anything about them

And even those that do follow the show through non-legal channels probably haven't downloaded the episode yet, since it has aired in the middle of the night for us.