Hashtag (#): We explain what a hashtag or tag is, its function and characteristics. Also, how it originated and examples of popular hashtags.
What is a hashtag?
In internet jargon and specifically in social networks, a hashtag or tag is 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 marked with that specific descriptor. Normally, it is a string of words and characters preceded by a hash sign or pound sign (#).
For example, a social media user (especially on Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, YouTube and Telegram) can click on the hashtag #VeganRecipes to go to the posts identified with this content, thus filtering the vastness of online content available to go directly to what they are looking for. You must read about Smartphone once.
It is also common for social media users to invent their own labels to express certain personal positions, emotional states or to be ironic about the use of social media itself. For example: #IHateMondays or #AnyThing.
For its part, the word hashtag is a neologism from the English language (that is, an anglicism) composed of two different words: hash, translatable as “hash mark” (#), and tag as “label”. Each label or hashtag represents a specific topic and a quick and easy digital descriptor for any micro blogging database.
Origin of hashtags
The pound sign (#) was already part of the descriptive protocols of various online communication services in the late 1990s and early 2000s, such as Internet Relay Chat (IRC) or Jaiku.
It was used as a descriptor of information, similar to keywords in library systems, but not in the exact sense it acquired from 2007, when it began to be used on the social network Twitter.
The first use of a tag on social Twitter was by Chris Messina, a Google employee, who proposed it to organize entries (tweets) that belonged to the same group:
The tweet translates as “What do you think about using # (pound) for groups, like in #barcamp [msg]?” That same year, the use of hashtags became popular when another user of the same social network created #sandiegofire to tag his posts about the forest fires in California in October.
Since then, hashtags have been used to group posts 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. Maybe you should definitely read about Ordinal Numbers once.
Characteristics of a hashtag
In general, a hashtag should be:
- A simple and brief phrase, with few words, that directly refers to the topic in question. It should be headed by the hash sign (#) and without spaces between the words that compose it: #ThisIsAHashtag.
- 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 in this regard.
- It should be clickable (i.e., a hyperlink), so that the user can navigate between the platform entries that are identified with the same tag. The same entry can have several tags simultaneously.
- The most widely used and most visited hashtags enter a popularity ranking and are called Trending Topics.
Examples of popular hashtags
Some of the most popular hashtags over time have been:
- #TBT or #ThrowBackThursday. A hashtag popularized on Twitter to share a childhood or past photograph with the public on Thursday of each week.
- #YOLO. A hashtag that contains the abbreviation in English for You Only Live Once, that is, “you only live once.” It is used to accompany confessions, announce risky decisions or to ironize about rather timid and distrustful attitudes in life.
- #FollowFriday. A hashtag popularized on Twitter to encourage users to acquire new followers on Friday of each week.
- #BLM or #BlackLivesMatter. A hashtag that emerged as a result of the protests and riots that occurred in the United States due to police excesses against African-descendant citizens and became a slogan of anti-racism in the West.
- #Instamood. A hashtag used by the social network Instagram, which accompanies photographs or images shared by a user to express their current mood.
- #NoFilter. A hashtag that means “without filters” and is specific to Instagram, specifically for photographs that are shared without applying beautifying filters. It is a way of warning other users that the photograph is shared without retouching.
- #Selfie. A hashtag designed to accompany “selfies” or self-portrait photographs that users of any social network take at a given time.
- #FakeNews. A hashtag designed to inform other users that an entry or a link to a news story is actually false, manipulative information or conspiracy theories.
- #Photooftheday. A hashtag used by some Hispanic users to organize certain photographs that constitute their “daily contribution” to the social network, as if they kept a sort of photographic diary.
- #foodporn. A hashtag used for photographs of food or particularly succulent dishes, often accompanied by beautifying filters. It literally means “food pornography”.
