Well everyone, the cat is officially out of the bag. The stars have walked the red carpet and performed any variety of shenanigans. Including a hilarious interview conducted by Carrie Fisher where she asks a possibly... lubricated... Oscar Isaac the questions instead of the normal press gang. There have also been any number of so called "spoiler-less reviews" by the various industry types who were able to attend the premiere already, and galleries of people attending the parties and all sorts of cool

The takeaway from all of this though, is that now there are spoilers out there to be had. Trolls abound doing their utmost to dig up every little bit of info from people who got advanced screenings so that they can spoil the movie for everyone else.

Don't be that guy.

People will be seeing the movie for the first time on differing nights. Our friends in Australia and the mainland of Europe will be hitting the theatres in less than 24 hours. In North America the first showing will be as early as Thursday night at 7:30. People will be finishing the movie before others get a chance to see it.

When it comes to spoiler etiquette remember these simple rules:

• Don't talk about things in public.
  • You don't know what everyone's status with the movie is. Not everyone got a chance to see the midnight screening. I know you're excited, but don't start excitedly chatting up what happened in a public channel, you don't know whose day you may be ruining.
• Use spoiler tags judiciously
  • One might even venture to say: overuse them to the point of abuse, especially over the next week or so. Protect your fellow fans by making sure anyone in earshot about what you're about to say doesn't ruin things for them. Make sure if you can't resist shouting out a spoiler you at least surround it with as gigantic a "SPOILERS" warning as you possibly can.
• Don't fake spoil things.
  • We all know this guy. He's the guy yelling "Vader is a cylon" and looks suspiciously like Howie. Nobody thinks it's funny. It's not clever. Even if it's a ridiculous statement about something that's almost assuredly untrue, you might spoil the experience. Don't do it.
• Remember: Just because you don't care about spoilers doesn't mean everyone feels the same way
  • I know lots of people who don't care about spoilers. I even know someone who suffers from anxiety issues who actively tries to have movies spoiled for her so she doesn't have stuff make her uncomfortable in the theatre while watching the film. But bottom line is, you're not going to ruin someone's day by not spoiling the plot of the film in public.
• Don't be unreasonable about time for spoilers.
  • If by the time new years rolls around, you're still somehow in a spoiler free zone? Just deal with it. Everyone is excited, everyone will be wanting to talk about this, and in this day and age with social media and what not, if you are still somehow spoiler free by New Years, you must be a monk living on a mountain somewhere. Not the cool kind of monk, the no-electricity styles monk.
• If you can't wait, and need to chat right this instant...
  • There's already been a chat channel created for people who are too excited to contain themselves. You can join the Spoiled Zone chat on telegram here.

Also, for Chrome users, there is a very handy and ridiculously strict addon that will help keep your entire online experience spoiler free if you so wish to use it.

I think it's probably unreasonable to hope that all of us get through the season spoiler free. Ultimately, your only hope really is to see it as soon as possible, but try to remember in the coming days that we're all Star Wars fans, and we all want to have our Episode VII moment, so do our best to make sure the spoilers don't come from us!