More LOST

There is another thing that I think is amazing about LOST. Despite the popularity of the show, LOST has not produced a pop culture cliche. Pop-culture has tendency to devour things that are rabidly popular and in doing so reduces that thing until all that is left is a small piece of the original that becomes a symbol of the thing. Pop culture ingests television readily and acts quickly to reduce it. There is almost always some signature phrase or icon that emerges once pop-culture has fully digested and reduced popular thing. Kit the Talking Car, from the TV show "Knight Rider" was before my time but I still know the reference when I see it. Kit is all I know of the show but I still recognize the symbol. (The usage of the symbol is another issue entirely) "Star Trek" is another example. Who doesn't know what it means to be "beamed up"? but how many people have seen a complete episode of the original "Star Trek". Up to this point LOST has resisted being reduced to anything less complex.

What happens to massively popular unsymbolized things when they are forgotten? I think that they become something akin to black holes in space. The only way that we know that they exist is because of the affect they have on things around it. If I could cite an example then it would shoot a hole in my theory. I guess the second option would be that, like electrons, they can be located only for a second before blinking off to somewhere unknown without any proof that they were there.

The conundrum for LOST is that the things that ultimately do not become symbolized are truly lost. Maybe it is only appropriate a that show about people stranded on a desert island that is disconnected from space and time is destined to be forgotten. The momentary nature of LOST, mirrored in the show and in reality, is another reason that I think LOST is amazing.