SPOILER ALERT: I’m a huge LOST fan.  I got into it a few seasons late when I was peer pressured by a few of my good friends to watch it on DVD and the rest is history.  I spent the summer of 2007 watching every episode, essentially staying up all night because  "just one more episode” turned into five or six at a time.  It was that addicting.  It was fun theorizing story lines with my friends and having nonsensical discussions about certain characters and how they got there. 

One thing I quickly learned while being a Lost fan was that there are two kinds of people in this world: people who are Lost fanatics (like myself) and people who hate it and hate on the people who watch it.  They did not hold back on Twitter and FaceBook.  Last night I was bombarded with people I followed posting things like “I’m so glad I never wasted my life on LOST,” “I’m officially leaving Twitter until LOST is over so I don’t have to see anyone talking about it,” and “The next person who talks about Lost gets defriend-ed” (names withheld to protect the innocent).

Non-Lost fans also had a great time posting fake scenarios and spoilers throughout the night.  Comedian Aziz Ansari even posted fake spoiler texts he was sending to his Lost-fanatic cousin all night, which was also pretty entertaining. http://twitter.com/azizansari

As soon as 9:00 p.m. came around I did my best to stay away from the social networking sites.  I also opted to watch it by myself so I could take it all in and try to understand and absorb it all (which is really the height of my Lost nerd-ness).  I was texting one of my good friends throughout the night and ended up sending Tweets to other Lost fans who were also watching the show in real time. 

The finale itself was 2.5 hours long.  It may seem like a long time for a finale – but let me tell you – they really did it well.  At 11:28 the show ended. We had our “answers.”  The majority of people I know loved it.  Some hated it – so much so that they posted threatening messages to LOST’s official page on FaceBook almost as soon as it was over (no seriously, go read what’s been posted on their wall already http://www.facebook.com/LOST?ref=ts).

Add series finales to the list of things that have been transformed by social media.  Today on the radio one of the DJ’s was comparing the Lost finale to the Seinfeld finale in 1997 and a caller called in and said “Well at least for the Seinfeld finale I didn’t have to ban myself from FaceBook and Twitter to avoid spoilers.” 

All in all, I still have around 100 questions I’d like answered by Mr. Lindelof and Mr. Cuse – but I think that’s the point.  The shows creator J.J. Abrams said today “A good question is often better than a good answer."  And I have to say – I couldn’t agree more.