Now that we've done the history of "Spoiler Alert," let's discuss appropriate and/or civically obligatory uses.

The (previously, of course) definitive guide to spoiler alert usage was written by Awl contributor Dan Kois for New York magazine's Vulture blog in 2008. The whole guide is worth reading, as is the accompanying manifesto calling for a return to a "water cooler culture," in which people who really care about a show or book or movie make an effort to read or watch it as soon as they can, so they can then discuss it with their co-workers (or whomever) in person.

It would be easy to dismiss Lee Siegel's piece-"Where Have All the Mailers [he means Norman] Gone?") in the New York Observer this week-but what fun would that be? Siegel, writing in typically bombastic fashion, obviously intends to start an argument. His essay is essentially a lament for the disappearance of fiction from just that sort of debate: the shared (and perhaps largely imaginary) upper-middle-brow cultural conversation many of us try to engage in by reading magazines like the New Yorker and going to see certain movies, etc. I enjoy that conversation, too; so let's have at it.