Here's what happens: A new episode of "Lost" comes on. People watch it, TiVo it, then pour over it again and again, capturing screen shots, analyzing shadows, cross-referencing minor characters, trying to make anagrams out of main characters names, and generally dissecting everyting in minute detail. The internet facilitates this to the nth degree, allowing communities to spring up, theories to be debated, those screen shots to be posted, and allowing theories to be voiced, debated, and confirmed or denied (sometimes both at the same time).

The internet is key here for a number of reasons. First, it allows groups to form regardless of geographical or temporal proximity. If I wanted to talk, face to face, about Lost with others I'd have to find other people who'd seen it, then find time to talk about it. Both are hard for busy people. But the internet means I can talk about it at 3:00 AM if I want to, with anyone in the world with a modem. Second, the internet archives. Nothing is ever really forgotten; it just get's buried on the second or third page of the messageboard. I can pull the stuff up anytime if it furthers my theory or if I just need to remind myself of what was said.

The internet thus allows us to talk about something over and over, developing and voicing theory after theory about what happens in the show. As an example ("Lost" spoliers follow). . . . .

Two weeks ago, Shannon gets shot on the show, seemingly by Anna Lucia and the tail-section survivors as they make their way to the beach. I checked out one small section of the internet after this episode -- the Lost thread at ENWorld. Crazy crackpot theories were put forth -- Anna is right handed but a screen shot shows the gun in someone's left hand, the shot was a rifle shot, not a pistol shot, the wound was a stab wound, not a gun shot wound -- all desgined to show that what seemingly happened did not really happen, that we've all been duped by the show. All sorts of other theories are out there, about everything on the show -- the significance of the books characters read, the reason the tail section people were taken by The Others much faster, the fact that Jack wears white shirts, why Claire wants peanut butter so badly, etc. (Okay I made those last two up; at least I haven't seen theories related to those two aspects of the show).

My point is that people feel the need to make up an explanation for anything and everything on the show. Why do we do this? I think it's because we are uncomfotable with things having no meaning.

Philosophically speaking, what I am talking about are metanarratives -- stories about how the world Really Is. These stories give us assurance that everything has it's place and everything will work out. Religions give us metanarratives. The Enlightnement gave us the metanarrative of Reason. Metanarratives are comforting. They assure us that there is an Order and a Plan, that Things Have Purpose.

The later half of the 20th Century has seen the death of metanarratives, if you believe anything those postmodernists have to say. Those old stories don't give the assurance they once did. But we have new stories (like Lost) and new ways of talking about the stories (like the internet). So, we've transferred our desire for metanarratives onto these new stories. Sudddenly, everything has meaning. Everything is Significant, a Clue toward the Master Plan. We just have to figure out what it means. It's like reading tea leaves or divining the future from the entrails of your sacrifice, except not as messy in the living room.

We just can't accept the idea that some things, maybe all things, are meaningless in the overall scheme. I know that for a story to work, there has to be some scheme, some plan, some arc, but not EVERYTHING means something in that scheme. Maybe they just are there, maybe Sawyer was reading Watership Down because the writers/producers/set dresser liked the book, or just had a copy lying around. Or maybe it does have significance in the overall scheme of the show. The point is, you don't really know.

I guess I'm a Lost agnostic, then.

(note, everyhting I said here can equally apply to alomst anything with a hint of mystery in it in contemporary popualr entertainment. Martin's Song of Ice and Fire is a good example.