#happybirthday #hashtag10 #taglife #blessed #yolo<\/b>
\nIt\u2019s hard to imagine a time when we didn\u2019 t use tagging systems to unify our social media worlds, but believe it or not, the hashtag has only been with us for 10 years.
Unlike many of the internet\u2019s most foundational moments, the birth of the hashtag was caught on record, when developer Chris Messina, then a product designer at Google, tweeted out the idea to stick a pound sign (#, or \u201chash\u201d in Brit-speak) in front of a word on August 23,2007:
A decade later, Twitter users alone generate 125 million hashtags a day, not counting similar hashtags on Instagram, Tumblr, Facebook, and other social media sites.
Hand in hand with the rise of social media itself, the hashtag has helped completely alter the way we use the internet. It\u2019s not just that now we can giggle, \u201cHashtag blessed!\u201d after every Instagram selfie we take. It\u2019s not just that a viral hashtag can sometimes be literally life-changing \u2014 see the #IceBucketChallenge. It\u2019s not even just that the distinction between online hashtags and real-life activism has become negligible \u2014 see #ArabSpring, #BlackLivesMatter, #OscarsSoWhite, #HeForShe, #MAGA, and so many more examples of hashtags converging with real political discussion and action. This last feature alone makes the hashtag one of the greatest developments of the modern internet.
But while much has been said about the hashtag\u2019s ability to unite the internet around moments of real-life activism, it\u2019s had other, less discussed but no less pervasive effects on our culture. Here are a few unique ways in which hashtags took over real life, gave communities a voice, and delivered unexpected results.
It\u2019s probably not a coincidence that the number of Americans without a television set has risen alongside the use of social media. As TV ownership has decreased, the importance of social media as a connector during live events has increased monumentally. Where once a television set was our primary gateway to unfolding events in the world, the ability to follow live events more or less in real time via social media feeds has downgraded the necessity of a networked TV.
Gone are the days when a united culture gathered around a TV set to view footage of historical events as they were unfolding. If you\u2019 re too young to remember, say, America watching the moon landing, perhaps you remember watching Mad Men \u2019s depiction of America watching the moon landing. Now we can just follow the #CuriosityRover hashtag.
Hashtags\u2019 utility in uniting the world around live events via social media can\u2019 t be overstated. Last year, for example, in a world that felt increasingly divided politically, the most popular hashtag had nothing to do with politics: It was #Rio2016, the universal hashtag for the Summer Olympics. And while live-tweeting reactions to televised events has become a huge part of the TV-watching experience, the hashtag also allowed those without TVs to follow along at home without feeling like they missed much.
And so it\u2019s gone, from awards shows to election results: Don\u2019 t have a TV or access to a live stream? Tune in to the hashtag, where someone\u2019s bound to have GIFed that moment that made everyone wince, lol, or scratch their heads. (Remember Leonardo DiCaprio at the Golden Globes?) These days, it\u2019s the viral reaction to a live event on social media that endures in our collective cultural memory \u2014 especially since, sometimes, watching the reaction to a television event via hashtag is much more entertaining than watching the event itself. Heck, an event doesn\u2019 t even have to be televised for us to enjoy our collective internet rubbernecking. Thanks, hashtags.
In so many ways, Twitter, along with the now-defunct Vine, has served as a locus of black culture on the internet, a birthing place for expressions of sharp humor and sharp pain alike. But among the most notable features of Black Twitter is the increased visibility it\u2019s given to a group of people who were largely without a distinct space on the web before hashtags gave them one: black geeks.
With the rise of social media, self-described blerds (black nerds) began carving out a space for themselves in geek communities where they\u2019 d previously been largely isolated from one another. But as more people began to self-identify as fans and geeks, black fans sought ways to meet and congregate online, and hashtags became a tool to facilitate that congregation.
Jamie Broadnax\u2019s @blackgirlnerds Twitter account \u2014 created in 2012 when she typed \u201cblack girl nerds\u201d into a search engine and found zero results \u2014 has become ground zero for this community; its popularity has yielded a podcast, a website, and an upcoming all-inclusive fan convention. But the biggest unifier by far is Broadnax\u2019s weekly community-centric viewing tags \u2014 dialectic hashtags intended for black fans to use to gather together and discuss their favorite TV shows. Blerd Twitter has birthed the popular hashtags #DemThrones and #ThronesYall for Game of Thrones, #DemDeads for The Walking Dead, #DeyWalking for Fear the Walking Dead, #DemClones for Orphan Black, and many more.
Though they\u2019 re intended specifically for the black geek community, these weekly hashtags are closely followed by TV writers and producers. The resulting convergence of grassroots fandom activity and creator awareness has not only led to an explosion of black geek and pop culture blogs and communities but also contributed to the representation of these communities in shows like Sense8 and Luke Cage, which both embrace diversity and allow black characters to be geeks.
One of the quirkier instances of hashtags crossing over into real life is the instance of what Kanye West dubbed \u201chashtag rap\u201d in a 2010 interview. The idea is the complete excision of figurative language, like metaphors and similes, in favor of the eliding of two ideas \u2014 much like in a tweet where a hashtagged ending alters the meaning of what came before it.
One of the most oft-cited examples of hashtag rap is this line from Bruno Mars\u2019s \u201cGorilla, \u201d where he lays out the concept neatly:
The key to making the rhythm work is the dash in the middle \u2014 the momentary silence that not only gives the line rhythmic intensity but emphasizes the twist in the meaning of what came before.
Kanye\u2019s coinage of the term was in reference to the line, \u201chere\u2019s another hit \u2014 Barry Bonds, \u201d from his 2007 \u201cBarry Bonds.\u201d But the trend found its voice with Lil Wayne\u2019s verse on the 2008 T. I. track \u201cSwagger Like Us, \u201d which evolved the rapper\u2019s storied use of simile. The hashtag rap also got a big assist from Big Sean\u2019s 2009 \u201cSupa Dupa, \u201d which is filled with examples (\u201ca problem too big \u2014 trig\u201d; \u201cwhen they see me on my high horse \u2014 polo\u201d) .
And perhaps the most sublime instance comes from Big Sean\u2019s 2010 \u201cLemonade\u201d freestyle, in which he drops a string of hashtaggy endings starting at 2: 30:
Though hashtag rap has mostly faded as a trend, it definitely served as an example of the many ways social media language and cultural modes have bled into culture, and vice versa. You may not have known you were celebrating a hashtag when you rapped along to Ludacris\u2019s line \u201cComin\u2019 down the street like a parade \u2014 Macy’s, \u201d but it\u2019s just another way the hashtag has slipped, largely unmarked upon, into the way we express our world.<\/p>\n

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