There are advantages to being late to a party.

People are likelier to take notice of you, if you're into that sort of thing. It is easier to avoid falling into a maelstrom of sloshed groupthink and social inducement, sidestepping behaviours you may bemoan or words you may bewail. If anthropology or sociology or psychology tickle your pickle, the scene of the good time is laid out squarely for your observation. As an arson investigator might survey a charred dwelling, so might you examine the somatic rubble of mortal desolation.

Who likes parties anyway?

DUNE: PART TWO may have disappeared from your feeds as the algorithm continues to adapt into the void (and us along with it). The eponymous GLADIATORS of the Saturday night smash hit may have migrated into other media spheres as a result of their popularity. I.S.S. may have slipped so comprehensively through the cracks of culture that you never even knew what it was, let alone that it had been released in cinemas. ROAD HOUSE may have already found sufficient success to be commissioned for a sequel. And YOU'LL NEVER FIND ME may not have even registered as a blip on your radar at all...

However...

To translate and address the whole "party" metaphor point by point (and in reverse order to suit my purposes)... with the benefit of time, Jordan and I are afforded a perspective on the critical community and its myriad responses... we have the privilege of distance to discern the shape of a piece's place in the cultural landscape... were we susceptible in the first place, we can more readily rebuff the seductions of consensus... but no, nobody listens still. That's where the thing falls apart really, and I'll leave whether that "thing" is simply the analogy or a larger sense of personal purpose to you.

But yes, there are advantages to being late.

Rather not be though tbh.

Imbibe!