With written communication comes the problems of conveying emotion and being as concise yet still precise as possible. How can you let your friends know that you are being sarcastic without your tone of voice and dramatic facial expressions? How do you let others know what you're referring to when you're too lazy to write it out word for word? How do you make sure everyone reading your words will understand every aspect of your message? In our world of electronic communication, a popular solution has come forth.
A hashtag followed by a word usually means the post containing the hashtag pertains to the "hashtagged" word. It's mostly used on Twitter. Although there's the annoyance of people constantly using hashtags in real life person to person communication, I've begun to see the hashtag's admirably large range of uses.
There are the aforementioned functions of conveying emotions and making the message clearer (maybe overly so sometimes). Posts with "#sarcasm" denotes sarcasm, and something with "#election" tells you that the post is about an election. It's straightforward and generally effective when used correctly, and since pretty much everyone uses hashtags, it's probably neither embarrassing nor awkward to do so. Hashtags also function like tags or labels. If you added "#sarcasm" to your post, people looking for posts concerning sarcasm can find it if they search for "#sarcasm." Its simplicity and popularity cannot be denied.
In fact, I think if our blog posts could be "hastagged," others on the Why Not Team might enjoy labeling the posts, and our blog could gain more purposeful views (instead of, you know, mostly attracting random people in foreign countries.)
Of course, as with anything, there will be some people who use hashtags in less admirable ways. There are some people who load their posts with enough hashtags to figuratively kill an elephant, excessively describing whatever they're sharing. There are some people who insist on speaking with hashtags, which, despite being incredibly useful on the Internet, are often just as annoying as Internet abbreviations when used in verbal communication. And then there's those people who named their child Hashtag and then told the Internet about it.
The hashtag, when used wisely, is a truly great addition to language.
THE HASHTAG*
*also known as the pound sign, number sign, sharp sign, and octothorpe
A hashtag followed by a word usually means the post containing the hashtag pertains to the "hashtagged" word. It's mostly used on Twitter. Although there's the annoyance of people constantly using hashtags in real life person to person communication, I've begun to see the hashtag's admirably large range of uses.
There are the aforementioned functions of conveying emotions and making the message clearer (maybe overly so sometimes). Posts with "#sarcasm" denotes sarcasm, and something with "#election" tells you that the post is about an election. It's straightforward and generally effective when used correctly, and since pretty much everyone uses hashtags, it's probably neither embarrassing nor awkward to do so. Hashtags also function like tags or labels. If you added "#sarcasm" to your post, people looking for posts concerning sarcasm can find it if they search for "#sarcasm." Its simplicity and popularity cannot be denied.
In fact, I think if our blog posts could be "hastagged," others on the Why Not Team might enjoy labeling the posts, and our blog could gain more purposeful views (instead of, you know, mostly attracting random people in foreign countries.)
Of course, as with anything, there will be some people who use hashtags in less admirable ways. There are some people who load their posts with enough hashtags to figuratively kill an elephant, excessively describing whatever they're sharing. There are some people who insist on speaking with hashtags, which, despite being incredibly useful on the Internet, are often just as annoying as Internet abbreviations when used in verbal communication. And then there's those people who named their child Hashtag and then told the Internet about it.
The hashtag, when used wisely, is a truly great addition to language.
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