Hashtag

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A post on the social media platform Twitter. Several hashtags are used in this post, including "CCCCWI", "TeamRhetoric" and "AcademicTwitter". WikiProject Writing (@WP Writing) Tweet - Why edit Wikipedia%3F.jpg
A post on the social media platform Twitter. Several hashtags are used in this post, including "CCCCWI", "TeamRhetoric" and "AcademicTwitter".

A hashtag is a metadata tag that is prefaced by the hash symbol, #. On social media, hashtags are used on microblogging and photo-sharing services such as X (former name as Twitter) or Tumblr as a form of user-generated tagging that enables cross-referencing of content by topic or theme. [1] For example, a search within Instagram for the hashtag #bluesky returns all posts that have been tagged with that term. After the initial hash symbol, a hashtag may include letters, numerals or other punctuation. [2]

Contents

The use of hashtags was first proposed by American blogger and product consultant Chris Messina in a 2007 tweet. [3] [4] Messina made no attempt to patent the use because he felt that "they were born of the internet, and owned by no one". [5] [6] Hashtags became entrenched in the culture of Twitter [7] and soon emerged across Instagram, Facebook, and YouTube. [8] [9] In June 2014, hashtag was added to the Oxford English Dictionary as "a word or phrase with the symbol # in front of it, used on social media websites and apps so that you can search for all messages with the same subject". [10] [11]

Origin and acceptance

Chris Messina suggested using hashtags on Twitter Chris Messina - South by Southwest 2010 (1).jpg
Chris Messina suggested using hashtags on Twitter

The number sign or hash symbol, #, has long been used in information technology to highlight specific pieces of text. In 1970, the number sign was used to denote immediate address mode in the assembly language of the PDP-11 [12] when placed next to a symbol or a number, and around 1973, '#' was introduced in the C programming language to indicate special keywords that the C preprocessor had to process first. [13] The pound sign was adopted for use within IRC (Internet Relay Chat) networks around 1988 to label groups and topics. [14] Channels or topics that are available across an entire IRC network are prefixed with a hash symbol # (as opposed to those local to a server, which uses an ampersand '&'). [15]

The use of the pound sign in IRC inspired [16] Chris Messina to propose a similar system on Twitter to tag topics of interest on the microblogging network. [17] He posted the first hashtag on Twitter:

How do you feel about using # (pound) for groups. As in #barcamp [msg]?

Chris Messina, ("factoryjoe"), August 23, 2007 [3]

According to Messina, he suggested use of the hashtag to make it easy for lay users without specialized knowledge of search protocols to find specific relevant content. Therefore, the hashtag "was created organically by Twitter users as a way to categorize messages". [18]

The first published use of the term "hash tag" was in a blog post "Hash Tags = Twitter Groupings" by Stowe Boyd, [19] on August 26, 2007, according to lexicographer Ben Zimmer, chair of the American Dialect Society's New Words Committee.

A sign with a #TimeToAct hashtag at a 2014 conference Global Summit to End Sexual Violence in Conflict (14203190979).jpg
A sign with a #TimeToAct hashtag at a 2014 conference

Messina's suggestion to use the hashtag was not immediately adopted by Twitter, but the convention gained popular acceptance when hashtags were used in tweets relating to the 2007 San Diego forest fires in Southern California. [20] [21] The hashtag gained international acceptance during the 2009–2010 Iranian election protests; Twitter users used both English- and Persian-language hashtags in communications during the events. [22]

Hashtags have since played critical roles in recent social movements such as #jesuischarlie, #BLM, [23] and #MeToo. [24] [25]

Beginning July 2, 2009, [26] Twitter began to hyperlink all hashtags in tweets to Twitter search results for the hashtagged word (and for the standard spelling of commonly misspelled words). In 2010, Twitter introduced "Trending Topics" on the Twitter front page, displaying hashtags that are rapidly becoming popular, and the significance of trending hashtags has become so great that the company makes significant efforts to foil attempts to spam the trending list. [27] During the 2010 World Cup, Twitter explicitly encouraged the use of hashtags with the temporary deployment of "hashflags", which replaced hashtags of three-letter country codes with their respective national flags. [28]

Other platforms such as YouTube and Gawker Media followed in officially supporting hashtags, [29] and real-time search aggregators such as Google Real-Time Search began supporting hashtags.

Format

A hashtag must begin with a hash (#) character followed by other characters, and is terminated by a space or the end of the line. Some platforms may require the # to be preceded with a space. Most or all platforms that support hashtags permit the inclusion of letters (without diacritics), numerals, and underscores. [2] Other characters may be supported on a platform-by-platform basis. Some characters, such as & are generally not supported as they may already serve other search functions. [30] Hashtags are not case sensitive (a search for "#hashtag" will match "#HashTag" as well), but the use of embedded capitals (i.e., CamelCase) increases legibility and improves accessibility.

Languages that do not use word dividers handle hashtags differently. In China, microblogs Sina Weibo and Tencent Weibo use a double-hashtag-delimited #HashName# format, since the lack of spacing between Chinese characters necessitates a closing tag. Twitter uses a different syntax for Chinese characters and orthographies with similar spacing conventions: the hashtag contains unspaced characters, separated from preceding and following text by spaces (e.g., '我 #爱 你' instead of '我#爱你') [31] or by zero-width non-joiner characters before and after the hashtagged element, to retain a linguistically natural appearance (displaying as unspaced '我‌#爱‌你', but with invisible non-joiners delimiting the hashtag). [32]

Etiquette and regulation

Some communities may limit, officially or unofficially, the number of hashtags permitted on a single post. [33]

Misuse of hashtags can lead to account suspensions. Twitter warns that adding hashtags to unrelated tweets, or repeated use of the same hashtag without adding to a conversation can filter an account from search results, or suspend the account. [34]

Individual platforms may deactivate certain hashtags either for being too generic to be useful, such as #photography on Instagram, or due to their use to facilitate illegal activities. [35] [36]

Alternate formats

In 2009, StockTwits began using ticker symbols preceded by the dollar sign (e.g., $XRX). [37] [38] In July 2012, Twitter began supporting the tag convention and dubbed it the "cashtag". [39] [40] The convention has extended to national currencies, and Cash App has implemented the cashtag to mark usernames.

Function

Search bar in the header of a social networking site, searching for most recent posts containing the hashtag #science Seguir hashtags.png
Search bar in the header of a social networking site, searching for most recent posts containing the hashtag #science

Hashtags are particularly useful in unmoderated forums that lack a formal ontological organization. Hashtags help users find content similar interest. Hashtags are neither registered nor controlled by any one user or group of users. They do not contain any set definitions, meaning that a single hashtag can be used for any number of purposes, and that the accepted meaning of a hashtag can change with time.

Hashtags intended for discussion of a particular event tend to use an obscure wording to avoid being caught up with generic conversations on similar subjects, such as a cake festival using #cakefestival rather than simply #cake. However, this can also make it difficult for topics to become "trending topics" because people often use different spelling or words to refer to the same topic. For topics to trend, there must be a consensus, whether silent or stated, that the hashtag refers to that specific topic.

Hashtags may be used informally to express context around a given message, with no intent to categorize the message for later searching, sharing, or other reasons. Hashtags may thus serve as a reflexive meta-commentary. [41]

This can help express contextual cues or offer more depth to the information or message that appears with the hashtag. "My arms are getting darker by the minute. #toomuchfaketan". Another function of the hashtag can be used to express personal feelings and emotions. For example, with "It's Monday!! #excited #sarcasm" in which the adjectives are directly indicating the emotions of the speaker. [42]

Verbal use of the word hashtag is sometimes used in informal conversations. [43] Use may be humorous, such as "I'm hashtag confused!" [42] By August 2012, use of a hand gesture, sometimes called the "finger hashtag", in which the index and middle finger both hands are extended and arranged perpendicularly to form the hash, was documented. [44] [45]

Co-optation by other industries

Companies, businesses, and advocacy organizations have taken advantage of hashtag-based discussions for promotion of their products, services or campaigns.

In the early 2010s, some television broadcasters began to employ hashtags related to programs in digital on-screen graphics, to encourage viewers to participate in a backchannel of discussion via social media prior to, during, or after the program. [46] Television commercials have sometimes contained hashtags for similar purposes. [47]

The increased usage of hashtags as brand promotion devices has been compared to the promotion of branded "keywords" by AOL in the late 1990s and early 2000s, as such keywords were also promoted at the end of television commercials and series episodes. [48]

Organized real-world events have used hashtags and ad hoc lists for discussion and promotion among participants. Hashtags are used as beacons by event participants to find each other, both on Twitter and, in many cases, during actual physical events.

Since the 2012–13 season, the NBA has allowed fans to vote players in as All-Star Game starters on Twitter and Facebook using #NBAVOTE. [49]

Hashtag-centered biomedical Twitter campaigns have shown to increase the reach, promotion, and visibility of healthcare-related open innovation platforms. [50]

Non-commercial use

Stencil graffiti promoting the hashtag #OccupyForRights Occupy for Rights.JPG
Stencil graffiti promoting the hashtag #OccupyForRights

Political protests and campaigns in the early 2010s, such as #OccupyWallStreet and #LibyaFeb17, have been organized around hashtags or have made extensive usage of hashtags for the promotion of discussion. Hashtags are frequently employed to either show support or opposition towards political figures. For example, the hashtag #MakeAmericaGreatAgain signifies support for Trump, whereas #DisinfectantDonnie expresses ridicule of Trump. [51] Hashtags have also been used to promote official events; the Finnish Ministry of Foreign Affairs officially titled the 2018 Russia–United States summit as the "#HELSINKI2018 Meeting". [52]

Hashtags have been used to gather customer criticism of large companies. In January 2012, McDonald's created the #McDStories hashtag so that customers could share positive experiences about the restaurant chain, but the marketing effort was cancelled after two hours when critical tweets outnumbered praising ones. [53]

The rise of hashtag activism The rise of hashtag activism.jpg
The rise of hashtag activism

In 2017, the #MeToo hashtag became viral in response to the sexual harassment accusations against Harvey Weinstein. The use of this hashtag can be considered part of hashtag activism, spreading awareness across eighty-five different countries with more than seventeen million Tweets using the hashtag #MeToo. This hashtag was not only used to spread awareness of accusations regarding Harvey Weinstein but allowed different women to share their experiences of sexual violence. Using this hashtag birthed multiple different hashtags in connection to #MeToo to encourage more women to share their stories, resulting in further spread of the phenomenon of hashtag activism. The use of hashtags, especially, in this case, allowed for better and easier access to search for content related to this social media movement. [54]

Sentiment analysis

The use of hashtags also reveals what feelings or sentiment an author attaches to a statement. This can range from the obvious, where a hashtag directly describes the state of mind, to the less obvious. For example, words in hashtags are the strongest predictor of whether or not a statement is sarcastic [55] —a difficult AI problem. [56]

Professional development and education

Hashtags play an important role for employees and students in professional fields and education. In industry, individuals' engagement with a hashtags can provide opportunities for them develop and gain some professional knowledge in their fields. [57]

In education, research on language teachers who engaged in the #MFLtwitterati hashtag demonstrates the uses of hashtags for creating community and sharing teaching resources. The majority of participants reported positive impact on their teaching strategies as inspired by many ideas shared by different individuals in the Hashtag. [58]

Emerging research in communication and learning demonstrates how hashtag practices influence the teaching and development of students. An analysis of eight studies examined the use of hashtags in K–12 classrooms and found significant results. These results indicated that hashtags assisted students in voicing their opinions. In addition, hashtags also helped students understand self-organisation and the concept of space beyond place. [ clarification needed ] [59] Related research demonstrated how high school students engagement with hashtag communication practices allowed them to develop story telling skills and cultural awareness. [60]

For young people at risk of poverty and social exclusion during the COVID-19 pandemic, Instagram hashtags were shown in a 2022 article to foster scientific education and promote remote learning. [61]

Two young men displaying the hashtag hand gesture Armandas.jpg
Two young men displaying the hashtag hand gesture

During the April 2011 Canadian party leader debate, Jack Layton, then-leader of the New Democratic Party, referred to Conservative Prime Minister Stephen Harper's crime policies as "a[ sic ] hashtag fail" (presumably #fail). [62] [63]

In 2010 Kanye West used the term "hashtag rap" to describe a style of rapping that, according to Rizoh of the Houston Press, uses "a metaphor, a pause, and a one-word punch line, often placed at the end of a rhyme". [64] [65] Rappers Nicki Minaj, Big Sean, Drake, and Lil Wayne are credited with the popularization of hashtag rap, while the style has been criticized by Ludacris, The Lonely Island, [66] and various music writers. [67]

On September 13, 2013, a hashtag, #TwitterIPO, appeared in the headline of a New York Times front-page article regarding Twitter's initial public offering. [68] [69]

In 2014 Bird's Eye foods released "Mashtags", a mashed potato product with pieces shaped either like @ or #. [70]

In 2019, the British Ornithological Union included a hash character in the design of its new Janet Kear Union Medal, to represent "science communication and social media". [71]

Linguistic analysis

Linguists argue that hashtagging is a morphological process and that hashtags function as words. [42] [72]

The popularity of a hashtag is influenced less by its conciseness and clarity, and more by the presence of preexisting popular hashtags with similar syntactic formats. This suggests that, similar to word formation, users may see the syntax of an existing viral hashtag as a blueprint for creating new ones. For instance, the viral hashtag #JeSuisCharlie gave rise to other popular indicative mood hashtags like #JeVoteMacron and #JeChoisisMarine. [51]

See also

Related Research Articles

The symbol # is known variously in English-speaking regions as the number sign, hash, or pound sign. The symbol has historically been used for a wide range of purposes including the designation of an ordinal number and as a ligatured abbreviation for pounds avoirdupois – having been derived from the now-rare .

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Chris Messina (open-source advocate)</span> American blogger, product consultant and speaker (born 1981)

Christopher Reaves Messina is an American blogger, product consultant and speaker who is the inventor of the hashtag as it is currently used on social media platforms. In a 2007 tweet, Messina proposed vertical/associational grouping of messages, trends, and events on Twitter by the means of hashtags. The hashtag was intended to be a type of metadata tag that allowed users to apply dynamic, user-generated tagging, which made it possible for others to easily find messages with a specific digger theme or content. It allowed easy, informal markup of folksonomy without need of any formal taxonomy or markup language. Hashtags have since been referred to as the "eavesdroppers", "wormholes", "time-machines", and "veins" of the Internet.

How do you feel about using # (pound) for groups. As in #barcamp [msg]?

Social search is a behavior of retrieving and searching on a social searching engine that mainly searches user-generated content such as news, videos and images related search queries on social media like Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, Instagram and Flickr. It is an enhanced version of web search that combines traditional algorithms. The idea behind social search is that instead of ranking search results purely based on semantic relevance between a query and the results, a social search system also takes into account social relationships between the results and the searcher. The social relationships could be in various forms. For example, in LinkedIn people search engine, the social relationships include social connections between searcher and each result, whether or not they are in the same industries, work for the same companies, belong the same social groups, and go the same schools, etc.

identi.ca Open source social networking and micro-blogging service

identi.ca is a free and open-source social networking and blogging service based on the pump.io software, using the Activity Streams protocol. Identi.ca stopped accepting new registrations in 2013, but continues to operate alongside several other pump.io-based hosts provided by E14N which continue to accept new registrations.

Since the launch of Twitter on July 15, 2006, there have been many notable uses for the service in a variety of environments, including political, economic, social and cultural uses. As users tweet their messages on Twitter, they encourage other people to respond and engage in online discussions as well as offline activities. User engagement on Twitter is usually measured with likes, replies and retweets and is a form of social power.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Weibo</span> Chinese microblogging website

Weibo, previously Sina Weibo, is a Chinese microblogging (weibo) website. Launched by Sina Corporation on 14 August 2009, it is one of the biggest social media platforms in China, with over 582 million monthly active users as of Q1 2022. The platform has been a huge financial success, with surging stocks, lucrative advertising sales and high revenue and total earnings per quarter. At the start of 2018, it surpassed the US$30 billion market valuation mark for the first time.

Reblogging is the mechanism in blogging which allows users to repost the content of another user's post with an indication that the source of the post is another user.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Instagram</span> Social media platform owned by Meta Platforms

Instagram is an American photo and video sharing social networking service owned by Meta Platforms. It allows users to upload media that can be edited with filters, be organized by hashtags, and be associated with a location via geographical tagging. Posts can be shared publicly or with preapproved followers. Users can browse other users' content by tags and locations, view trending content, like photos, and follow other users to add their content to a personal feed. A Meta-operated image-centric social media platform, it is available on iOS, Android, Windows 10, and the web. Users can take photos and edit them using built-in filters and other tools, then share them on other social media platforms like Facebook. It supports 32 languages including English, Hindi, Spanish, French, Korean, and Japanese.

Shadow banning, also called stealth banning, hellbanning, ghost banning, and comment ghosting, is the practice of blocking or partially blocking a user or the user's content from some areas of an online community in such a way that the ban is not readily apparent to the user, regardless of whether the action is taken by an individual or an algorithm. For example, shadow-banned comments posted to a blog or media website would be visible to the sender, but not to other users accessing the site.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Social media and television</span> Emerging platforms

Social media and television have a number of connections and interrelationships that have led to the phenomenon of Social Television, which is an emerging communication digital technology that centers around real-time interactivity involving digital media displayed on television. The main idea behind Social Television is to make television consumption a more active content experience for audiences. In the 2010s, social media platforms and websites allowed for television shows to be accessed online on a range of desktop and mobile computer devices, smartphones and smart TVs that are still evolving today in the 2020s. Alongside this, online users can use social media websites to share digital video clips or excerpts from TV shows with fellow fans or even share an entire show online. Many social media websites enable users to post online comments on the programs—both negative and positive—in a variety of ways. Viewers can actively participate while watching a TV program by posting comments online, and have their interactions viewed and responded to in real time by other viewers. Technologies such as smartphones, tablets, and laptop computers allow viewers to watch downloaded digital files of TV shows or "stream" digital files of TV shows on a range of devices, both in the home and while on the go. In the 2020s, many television producers and broadcasters encourage active social media participation by viewers by posting "hashtags" on the TV screen during shows. These hashtags enable viewers to post online comments about the show, which may either be read by other social media users, or even, in some cases, displayed on the screen during the show.

The term X bomb or post bomb refers to posting numerous posts with the same hashtags and other similar content, including @messages, from multiple accounts, with the goal of advertising a certain meme, usually by filling people's post feeds with the same message, and making it a "trending topic" on X. This may be done by individual users, fake accounts, or both.

Networked feminism is a phenomenon that can be described as the online mobilization and coordination of feminists in response to sexist, misogynistic, racist, and other discriminatory acts against minority groups. This phenomenon covers all possible definitions of what feminist movements may entail, as there have been multiple waves of feminist movements and there is no central authority to control what the term "feminism" claims to be. While one may hold a different opinion from another on the definition of "feminism", all those who believe in these movements and ideologies share the same goal of dismantling the current patriarchal social structure, where men hold primary power and higher social privileges above all others.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">StockTwits</span> Social media site for investors

Stocktwits is a social media platform designed for sharing ideas between investors, traders, and entrepreneurs.Founded in 2008 by Howard Lindzon and Soren McBeth, it introduced the use of the cashtag, a way to group discussions around a stock symbol preceded by a dollar sign.Stocktwits eventually became a standalone network where users share market sentiment, ideas, and strategies in real-time.

Black Twitter is an internet community largely consisting of the Black diaspora of users in the United States and other nations on Twitter, focused on issues of interest to the black community. Feminista Jones described it in Salon as "a collective of active, primarily African-American Twitter users who have created a virtual community proving adept at bringing about a wide range of sociopolitical changes." A similar Black Twitter community arose in South Africa in the early 2010s.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Hashtag activism</span> Use of hashtags for internet activism

Hashtag activism refers to the use of social media hashtags for Internet activism. The hashtag has become one of the many ways that social media contributes to civic engagement and social movements. The use of the hashtag on social media provides users with an opportunity to share information and opinions about social issues in a way that others (followers) can interact and engage as part of a larger conversation with the potential to create change. The hashtag itself consists of a word or phrase that is connected to a social or political issue, and fosters a place where discourse can occur. Social media provides an important platform for historically marginalized populations. Through the use of hashtags these groups are able to communicate, mobilize, and advocate for issues less visible to the mainstream.

Throwback Thursday or #TBT is an internet trend used among social media platforms such as Instagram, Twitter and Facebook. On a Thursday, users will post nostalgia-inducing pictures – from a different era of their life, accompanied by the hashtag #TBT or #ThrowbackThursday. Many posts reflect positive moments, or funny, old clothes, hair and styles. Throwback Thursday can be attributed to any photo in one's past memories whether it be childhood, old relationships, past vacations, old songs, or anything that gives one a "happy and nostalgic feeling."

A social bot, also described as a social AI or social algorithm, is a software agent that communicates autonomously on social media. The messages it distributes can be simple and operate in groups and various configurations with partial human control (hybrid) via algorithm. Social bots can also use artificial intelligence and machine learning to express messages in more natural human dialogue.

Social profiling is the process of constructing a social media user's profile using his or her social data. In general, profiling refers to the data science process of generating a person's profile with computerized algorithms and technology. There are various platforms for sharing this information with the proliferation of growing popular social networks, including but not limited to LinkedIn, Google+, Facebook and Twitter.

Brain Tumor Social Media (#BTSM) is a patient and care partner-run, grassroots Twitter community. The Twitter account @BTSMchat hosts bi-monthly tweet chats for the #BTSM community and consistently trends among the top 15 of disease-related tweet chats. A study published in 2020 revealed the hashtag was most commonly used by brain tumor patients (33.13%), along with patient advocacy organizations (7.01%), care partners (4.63%), and clinicians (3.63%) and researchers (3.37%) specializing in brain tumors and brain cancers.

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