Hashtag (#)

We explain what a hashtag or label is, its function and characteristics. Also, how was its origin and examples of popular hashtags.

What is a hashtag?

In the jargon of the internet and specifically social networks, it is called hashtag or tag a clickable phrase or word, that is, a metadata tag that allows a user to access a specific set of entries (such as writings or images on a social network) that have been flagged with that specific descriptor. Typically, this is a string of words and characters preceded by a pound or pound sign (#).

For example, a user of social networks (especially on Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, YouTube and Telegram) can click on the hashtag #VeganRecipes to go to the entries identified with this content, thus filtering the immensity of online content available to go directly to what you are looking for.

It is also common for social media users to invent their own labels to express certain personal positions, emotional states, or to ironize the use of social media itself. For example: #IHateMondays or #Anything.

For its part, the word hashtag It is a neologism from the English language (that is, an Anglicism) composed of two different voices: hashtranslatable as “numeral” (#), and tag as a “label”. Each label or hashtag represents a specific topic and a quick and easy digital descriptor for any database of microblogging.

Origin of the hashtags

The pound or pound sign (#) is now It was part of the descriptive protocols of different online communications services from the late 1990s and the early 2000s, such as Internet Relay Chat (IRC) or Jaiku.

It was used as an information descriptor, in a similar way to the keywords of library systems, but not with the exact meaning it obtained from 2007, when it began to be used on the social network Twitter.

The first use of a hashtag on social Twitter was by Chris Messina, a Google worker who proposed it to organize the entries (tweets or tweets) that belonged to the same group:

The tweet translates as “How about using # (numeral) for groups, like in #barcamp (msg)?” That same year, the use of hashtags became popular when another user on the same social network created #sandiegofire to tag his posts about the wildfires in California in the month of October.

Since then, the hashtags were used to group entries referring to the same topic, the same news event or the same debate among users of the social network, and soon spread to other similar platforms such as Instagram, YouTube and Facebook.

Characteristics of a hashtag

In general, a hashtag must be:

• A simple and short sentence in a few words, that directly alludes to the topic referred to. It must be headed by the pound sign (#) and without spaces between the words that compose it: #ThisisunHashtag.
• It is common to differentiate between upper and lower case (CamelCase) to distinguish an important word from the rest and facilitate readability. This is usually done with the initial capital letters of each word, but there are no definitive rules about this.
• It must be clickable (that is, a hyperlink), so that the user can navigate between the platform entries that are identified with the same label. The same entry can have several labels simultaneously.
• The hashtags of greater diffusion and with greater visits enter a popularity ranking and are called Trending Topics (“Popular Topics”).

Examples of hashtags popular

Some of the hashtags The most popular over time have been:

• #TBT or #ThrowBackThursday. Tag popularized on Twitter to share with the public a childhood photograph or from past times on Thursday of each week.
• #YOLO. Label containing the English abbreviation of You Only Live Oncethat is, “you only live once.” It is used to accompany confessions, announce risky decisions or ironically regarding rather timorous and distrustful attitudes in life.
• #FollowFriday. Tag popularized on Twitter to encourage users to acquire new followers on Friday of each week.
• #BLM or #BlackLivesMatter. Label that emerged as a result of the protests and riots that occurred in the United States as a result of police excesses against Afro-descendant citizens and became a slogan of anti-racism in the West.
• #Instamood. Label of the social network Instagram, which accompanies the photographs or images shared by a user to express their current state of mind.
• #NoFilter. Label that means “without filters” and is typical of Instagram, specifically of photographs that are shared without applying beautification filters. This is a way to warn other users that this photo is shared without retouching.
• #Selfie. Label designed to accompany the “selfies” or self-portrait photographs that users of any social network take at any given time.
• #FakeNews. Label designed to report to other users that an entry or a link to a news item is actually false, manipulative information or conspiracy theories.
• #Photooftheday. Instagram label used by some Hispanic users to organize certain photographs that constitute their “daily contribution” to the social network, as if they kept a kind of photographic diary.
• #foodporn. Label used for photographs of food or particularly succulent dishes, often accompanied by beautifying filters. It literally means “food porn.”

Continue with: Meme (internet)

References

• “Hashtag” on Wikipedia.
• “What is Hashtag?” in Tuenti's Techie Dictionary (Argentina).
• “What is a Hashtag?” (video) at Bootcamp Digital.
• “Hashtag” in The Britannica Dictionary.