WHAT IS A HASHTAG?

When I was 22, which I assume is the age of the person who came up with “hashtag”, the symbol “#” was actually called “pound.” It’s the pound sign, right?? It’s on the bottom right corner of every phone in America. Thousands of automated messages have told us for decades to hit “pound” 5 to return to the main menu. My mom used it in her hand written recipes. 1# of butter. Because “#” meant POUND! And now one whipper snapper has totally changed what we call #. Yes, I just used the word whipper snapper… and I meant it. Mr. Hashtag makes me feel old. Because, Mr Hashtag, what you’ve created is CONFUSING! And most of us 40-plus fogies, don’t really get what you’ve done with our “#” sign. You’ve totally stolen a perfectly simple symbol and given it super powers. I now understand my parent’s consternation when trying to conquer the TV remote control!  But since I use social media, where this hashtag thing lives and multiplies like rabbits, I had to educate myself. I read a great article in the Reno Gazette Journal where Abbi Whitaker of The Abbi Agency explained it like this. “I think hashtags are going to become the new dot-com. They’re like the new www because it can connect everything on a particular topic.” And she thinks hashtags are the future of marketing. Here’s an example. Instead of going to Reno.com to find out about Reno, you will go to #biggestlittlecity or #thisisreno or #renofoodporn where you will find thousands of pictures, posted by regular old people like you and me, enjoying everything Reno has to offer. So where do you “enter” all these hashtags? Honestly, this is something I did for the first time for this blog! This truly is a new frontier for me! You enter the hashtag, for example #biggestlittlecity, in your search lines in Twitter, Instagram and Facebook. I’m sure there are other social media platforms out there that support hashtags, but this blogger is ALREADY OVERWHELMED!!! So now, let me take you to my dinner table last night. My husband was asking me what a hashtag was, I was trying to explain, and then I took a good close look at him. His hair was brushed completely straight back. Think Dracula with a duck dynasty beard. I said, “What in the hell did you do to your hair?” His reply?? “You love your husband even when he does this.” And I said, “NOW THAT’S A HASHTAG!” We all love our husbands, but they all drive us crazy, right?! So I explained to my husband that #ilovemyhusbandevenwhenhedoesthis would be a hilarious hashtag because wives could post all these funny pictures of their husbands doing things that only we could love them for. Like this:

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The cat can’t even look at him! So let’s give this a try shall we? Go to your favorite social media site and tag your favorite hubby photo with #ilovemyhusbandevenwhenhedoesthis  I will check them out and pull the best ones and put them on my blog. But you have to participate! Please don’t leave my hashtag hangin’! That, Mr. Hashtag, is a term from the 80′s meaning to ignoring someone… leave your grubby paws off it!

And for an even better description of hashtags, including their history, go to The Abbi Agency blog.

 

 

 

About Wendy D

I was born in San Francisco and ended up marrying a rancher in Reno, Nevada. I have a big city job anchoring the 5 o’clock news but come home to the country where my husband’s family has ranched for 5 generations.

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