Late to Every Party

I’ll admit it ... I’m anti-trend.  When everyone else is going crazy over something new, be it a book, television show, or movie, I refuse to go along with the crowd.  I’m not sure why that is other than I have so little free time and refuse to waste it on an unknown clock-killer.  Yet I’m guessing 80 percent of the time, I end up seeing what all the fuss is about ... oh, two or three (or even more) years later.  Eventually the curiosity gets to me, and I spare some time to check out what everyone else has been raving about.

 

Harry Potter.  Game of Thrones.  Mad Men.  Twilight.  Breaking Bad.  And many, many more cultural storms that have swept the public’s interest, I got around to much later than everyone else.  Some things I loved.  The Harry Potter books and Game of Thrones television series have turned into subjects of near adulation.  I hope to start reading the Fire and Ice book series soon (on which Game of Thrones is based).  I’m re-reading the Potter books for the second time in six months.  I’m completely gone over these two things.

 

Breaking Bad was big for me as well.  Hubby and I Netflixed the series about three years after it started and lost our minds over it.  We tuned in breathlessly for the final episode like so many others.  We came late, but we got to dance at the actual party. 

 

Mad Men ... meh.  We watched the first two seasons on our pal Netflix.  In the end, I felt it was a waste of my time.  It’s not that it’s a bad show.  It’s incredibly well-written and the actors are phenomenal.  I just didn’t connect with it.  So I quit watching.  Showed up late, left early.

 

Twilight – no thanks to both the books and the movies.  A friend loaned me the first two books, which was all she could get through.  I soon found out why.  I’d never been bored by vampires before, but Twilight certainly accomplished that for me.  Ditto on the movie.  Those two books were ideal when I needed something to send me to sleep.  Seriously, what was the attraction for so many people?  The idea that a 200-year-old vampire could fall in love with an adolescent girl kind of upped the ick factor too.  Pedophilia and necrophilia, all in one shot.  Eek.

 

Being an erotica author, I of course was well aware of the Fifty Shades phenomenon.  However, contemporary settings don’t tend to do much for me, so I couldn’t be bothered for a long time.  (My own naughty books are set in paranormal and science fiction universes.)  Besides, have you seen what the publisher is charging for the e-book?  Hell, I bitch about spending that kind of money on Stephen King, and he’s one of my writing heroes. 

 

But I figured I needed to see what the hoopla was all about, considering Alt-Tam writes the naughty too.  Before I could handle plunking down my credit card though, I read the sample chapters available on Amazon.  Boy, am I ever glad I did.  If Twilight bored me out of my pants, the little bit I read of Fifty Shades bored them right back on.  I caught myself skipping entire passages because I simply couldn’t take the mundane feel of the book.  I wanted a pot of coffee afterward just to wake up.  I guess you could say I peeked into the window of that party, turned around, and went back home.  Definitely not for me.

 

Sometimes I see that going along with the crowd can be a good thing.  Sometimes I’m right on the crowd’s wavelength.  But about half the time, I find I’m better off ignoring what everyone else is going on about.  It looks like I’ll continue to be late to the party, but I’ll probably show up eventually.  Just call me fashionably late.