Big Little Lies, Tolstoy, Succession - is it still possible to be 'late to the party'?

A party. Worth being on time for? Photo / Getty Images

Greg Bruce assesses the importance of punctuality in a changing world.

A friend recently finished watching the hit 2017 television show Big Little Lies and, when she mentioned this fact to another friend, that friend said, "You're late to the party, aren't you?"

As my friend chewed over in her head the meaning and significance of that statement, she got to thinking about the ideas of both lateness and parties, the dynamics between them and what they mean now, in this time of vast and sprawling non-linearity - a time in which we have such great and abundant entertainment opportunities that even if one wanted to be punctual for everything, sacrifices would have to be made.

"With streaming, in particular," my friend said, "the party is like a bender. It doesn't matter. There's no beginning point, no end point. You just arrive and leave when you feel like it."

That felt right to me. If we're not watching anything at the same time anymore, which we're not, how can anyone be said to be late to anything? The notion of lateness requires general agreement about timeliness and, as is becoming increasingly obvious, as a species we are no longer capable of agreeing on anything.

My friend expressed her fondness for the old days of linear TV, when everyone watched everything at the same time. She spoke in sepia tones of the times she spent discussing The Sopranos with people at her workplace, all of them having watched the same episode the night before, and how enjoyable was the feeling of connection and togetherness that came from the shared experience. She added that she would never judge anyone for watching The Sopranos now, or suggest that they're late to the party for doing so, because it's timeless, full of great and important social observations, a classic. She compared it to reading Tolstoy: "You wouldn't say you're late to the party reading War and Peace," she said.

The term "late to the party" was itself late to the party. According to Google's n-gram viewer, which charts word usage over time, via Google's preposterously huge digital library, the phrase was effectively non-existent until the middle of the 20th century. At that point the graph representing its use crawls along at or just above zero until the 1970s, then experiences slight but steady growth until the mid-80s, followed by stronger growth into the mid-90s, at which point it really begins to take off. For the last 15 years or so, the line has been almost vertical. Not to say social media is the reason for that, but Facebook was founded 17 years ago, Reddit 16 years ago and Twitter 15 years ago. As if social media hasn't already done enough by draining us of all our spare time, now it's apparently responsible for the propagation of mildly annoying phrases. Anyway, that's not the point. The point is that if the phrase we use to indicate lateness of arrival is itself a late arrival, does that make it guilty of hypocrisy, or just a victim of wordplay?

I have just been reading an agonisingly boring debate on the web forum stackexchange.com about the use of "late to the party" as opposed to the use of "late for the party." Six people were involved, which is the same number of people that came to my 16th birthday party. The discussion was 10 years old but, far from feeling like I was late to it, I could happily have not arrived until however many years remain between now and my death.

What is time? I read the other day that the week as a unit of time is a relatively recent concept. The more I considered that fact, the more shocked I was by it. The week has shaped the way our lives are lived in such a deep and profound way, it's impossible to comprehend how different our lives would be without it. What would happen to the successful and long-running television show 7 Days?

But I think the issue at stake with the phrase "late to the party" is less to do with time and more to do with the power of words, and the apparently irrational effects they can sometimes have on us. To me, but not to my friend, "late to the party" feels empty, something people might say for no good reason, a throwaway comment best ignored. But here are some other seemingly meaningless word usages that have inexplicably affected me greatly and often viscerally over the years, and even as recently as this morning.

The abbreviation, "voms".
The phrase. "having a mare".
"THIS. JUST THIS."
The way my wife pronounces "Farro".
The song lyric, "You and me baby ain't nothin but mammals so let's do it like they do on the Discovery channel."

A proposition: The ability to explain the power of words is beyond the power of words. I suspect Tolstoy would agree and Tony Soprano wouldn't give a f***.