Coming Late to the Party

I love coming late to the party. Not a real, actual, physical party.  I don’t get invited to those.

I enjoy introducing myself to things that people once loved, but have moved on from.  For example, when I was little I never read the Harry Potter books, and the movies were very confusing to me.  I never read them because I felt like I didn’t need to.  Well, about a year and a half ago, I started reading them and became completely obsessed, of course.  Harry Potter was always a very large part of my life and I was a huge fan, but now it’s more than that.  I’ve found that I was able to appreciate it on a personal level, as it felt like I was the only one appreciating it in that moment.

That’s precisely why I love coming late to the party. After the initial hype of the popularity, it becomes forgotten and whatever is popular next replaces it.  Just today, my boyfriend, Michael, and I were looking through Netflix for a movie to watch. (One thing should be noted about Michael is that, Pre-Julia, he had a very slim breadth of knowledge on movies. So naturally, our first couple of dates was just movie marathons.)  Apparently I didn’t do my job well enough, because he told me he had never seen Forrest Gump.  We watched it, of course.  He loved it, obviously, and I realized that because he came late to the party, he loved it even more.

When he was a kid, he had a real jerk of a social studies teacher.  This man was the kind of person who would identify Forrest Gump as a comedy film, and he liked to reference it in class frequently.  So Michael grew up thinking the movie was some dumb comedy and never bothered watching it. 

Now, I know Forrest Gump is frequently watched on Netflix and is still socially relevant, but the hype is gone, so the metaphorical party is over. Michael experienced the same level of personal appreciation to Forrest Gump as I did to Harry Potter a year ago.

I guess it’s some form of reverse hipster behavior, but after most people stop caring about something, and you find it then, it’s like hidden treasure.  I guess it just proves that things can withstand the test of time.  Hipsters find it first and love it.  Normal people discover it when it becomes popular and love it.  People like me find it ten years later and love it.  Great things stay great.  That’s what makes classics what they are.  I think my biggest goal in life is to be a part of something that becomes a classic like Forrest Gump or Harry Potter.