To not understand what someone means when they say 'hashtag'?

[ferriswheel]

Just that.

I don't understand, in any context.

[ferriswheel]

This thread has been very helpful. #thankyou

[LouLouLove]

THIS -

[Tapandgo]

Never knew what it meant either - but got me thinking - how long will it be before some child gets called Hashtag?

[HidingBehindTheWallpaper]

Sometimes it’s to be ‘funny’.
So someone might post a huge pile of work and say #lovemyjob.
Or cleaning up a poonami and say #glamorouslifestyle.

[Sammysquiz]

I get the idea where you put #strictly or whatever so people can search for everything about that show, but I don’t get it when people put something which clearly won’t be searched on, like #datenightwithfred
What’s the point? Why wouldn’t you just put the picture & say ‘On a date night with Fred’, what’s the point of the hashtag?

[MissDuke]

The above is a great explanation! Some people take it to extremes though, eg a fb friend (a grown woman!) recently had a pic of herself tagged with #blueeyes #boyfriend #laceblouse #nightout #datenight etc, so cringe.

[HidingBehindTheWallpaper]

On Twitter it is used like this:
Someone wanting to post about Strictly Come Dancing might say ‘I can’t believe they got voted off. #strictly’
Then anyone on Twitter can search the hashtag #strictly and see what everyone is saying. It’s kind of like reading a thread on here about it. Rather than looking for a thread with a title like Strictly, you just look for the hashtag. You see it sometimes at the start of tv programs. So #c4locations is the one for Location Location Location.
It’s worth knowing that you can’t have a space in a hashtag.
Anyone can make a hashtag, you just add it into your post.
So for example I might post a picture of a glass of wine on a Friday night saying ‘yay, Friday night at last. #wine #thankfuckitsfriday.


In speech it can be used rather like someone putting a line through stuff on MN.
For example someone might say ‘See you’ve got a small glass of wine hashtag pisshead hashtag open another bottle.’ But only if they were a dick.

[Carouselfish]

Bloody useful on Twitter OP when there's a major news event and you want to see what's happening, as it happens, live feed. #thenameoftheevent and see the continually refreshing list appear, often eye witness.

[VioletCharlotte]

Conyo yes I've heard people say it, but normally ironically.

[elQuintoConyo]

People actually SAY hashtag the word?
With their voice? In seriousness?

Good lord, what a bunch of dweebs!

[UnderslungBowlingBall]

To cut a long story short a hashtag is something used to categorise posts on social media. It started on Twitter and moved to Instagram. Basically it's meant to group all like posts together, so if I wanted to look up vegan meals I'd search #veganmeals and a loaf of posts relating to vegan meals would pop up (along with a few obligatory porn posts that have had that hashtag put on them because veganism is trendy right now and the porn sites will get more hits).
It later became a trend to describe your post with a series of hashtags following on from each other, for example, if I post about a vegan recipe I might post #yum #veganfood #gormet #imanadult #haha #no. This then simplified into just one or two tags to describe a complex post.
With the invention of tag yourself meme it progressed into speech and thus we end up here.

[Yeeeha]

#dontunderstand
#oldpeopleproblems
#Shoukdjustbuythepaper

[HeadDreamer]

Like this

[HeadDreamer]

if I was on twitter and wrote #coronationstreet it would link me to all other coronation street references? Is that what it means?

Yes. Also there are trending hashtags. When you login you should see it.

[HeadDreamer]

They are keywords or topics. Started on twitter and it’s also used in Instagram and Facebook. I’m old enough to remember its use on twitter. #oldandjaded #10yearsofhashtags #mumsnet

See that’s how you use hashtags. And you say hashtag oldandjaded.

[SirGawain]

^Provided^

[luckyDuvet]

It's the 21st Centuary version of doing bunny finger quote marks around something you say, that used to be ridiculed as pretentious in the 1990s.

[SirGawain]

Yes Ferriswheel, privided the poster had used exactly the same hashtag.

[WhatwouldAryado]

They are trying too hard.

[DancingHouse]

I would never say the word 'hashtag' out loud in the middle of a sentence no more so than I would say the word lol when I'm laughing (which I have witnessed unfortunately) but I do and would use it in the context of social media because it is a useful search function and form of broadcast communication.

[ferriswheel]

I guess I mean both.

[Love51]

The people who say hashtag are the same people who used to say confused.com. As a pp said, they are the same type of people who used airquotes back in the olden days.
I think they use superfluous words associated with modern technology to seem more up to date. I've never known actual techie people use 'hashtag' in conversation.

[Catalufa]

OP, are you asking about people who type # or people who say “hashtag”?

Two different answers!

[peachgreen]

@Growingboys has hit the nail on the thread there. I think people only say it out loud if they’re taking the piss out of themselves.

[cathyclown]

Oh heck, I may be a square and very boring, but I have never signed up for any Social Media apart from this one and a couple of other fora. Thank God for that. I doubt I am missing anything much either.

Keep it simple. Keep your sanity.