In Praise of Laggards

A long time ago, when I was in my late teens and working as a part-time ticket-taker at a repertory movie theatre, I had a co-worker who was unusually enthusiastic. By “enthusiastic,” I mean the sort of person who would line up outside McDonald’s before opening so he could be among the first to taste the McRib.

It was 1981 and I still remember the day he showed up to work carrying a warm McDonald’s paper bag filled with McRibs. The expression on his face as he took that first bite—pure bliss, as though he were communing with something sacred. And I remember thinking: who exactly lives for the privilege of being first to try the latest lab-tested addition to the McDonald’s menu? Who sees a processed meat patty shaped like a pork rib and thinks, finally, my moment?

Apparently the same kind of person who will stand outside Starbucks at 5 a.m. for a limited-edition green-and-red Hello Kitty holiday mug. That would be a colleague I work with today. She arrived at the office this week triumphant, Starbucks bag in hand, and within minutes half the team was gathered around her desk as she unboxed the thing like it was a Fabergé egg.

This one, at least, had a certain logic behind it. The mug had sold out immediately and was already doubling in price online. I looked it up myself. Meanwhile the McRib—discontinued in 1985, resurrected in 1989, cancelled in 2005, and now inexplicably back again in 2025—remains the fast-food equivalent of an unemployed couch-surfing buddy making the rounds.

I don’t understand any of this. I hate crowds. I hate standing in line even more. At bar mitzvahs I remain seated until everyone else has hit the buffet, on the theory that there’s plenty for all. Admittedly, I have eaten more than one piece of brisket that looked like it was carved from the heel of a hiking boot.

It seems there are “adopters” and there are “laggards.” My McRib and Hello Kitty colleagues are adopters. I am, without question, a laggard. Adopters love new things because they’re new. They need to be first. They live in a perpetual state of FOMO (fear of missing out) like someone plagued by migraines.

Laggards prefer the tried and true. We prefer the sweatshirt that has a familiar smell that never comes out in the laundry over the latest fashion, and the refrigerator we got twenty-five years ago that hums in the basement over the shiny model upstairs. Newness doesn't usually mean better, it means more complicated, more expensive to fix, and less reliable.  

Culturally, adopters get all the flattering adjectives: bold, visionary, entrepreneurial. Laggards are told, “You snooze, you lose.” Which is convenient for people trying to sell you something.

But lately I’ve started to wonder if maybe laggards like me are finally having our moment. This early bird does not want to catch the worm, because the worm seems to be infected with a brain-eating parasite. 

I'm talking about the parasite that infects through technology. With information pouring into their heads through their devices, like water from a broken hydrant, the brains of adopters are turning soft and mushy. Meanwhile, we laggards—by virtue of our god-given skepticism and natural reluctance to embrace anything 'latest' or 'improved'—may be in a better position to survive this period of history with our sanity and perspective intact.

Being a laggard, it turns out, is no longer just a personality trait. It's the future. I can live without the newest McRib. My coffee tastes just fine in the stained mug I've been using for the last 20 years. Actually it tastes better.