Blog #7 #Hashtags

  

    Without realizing it, we come across lots and lots of hashtags every single day. It's like they're everywhere. We see them all over our social media's, books, magazines, you name it, but what exactly are hashtags? Well hashtags are used to signify the theme of one's content. As we all know a hashtag is made out of a pound sign attached to a word or phrase. They're normally used to tag a group content of a common topic. They essentially become a hyperlink that when people click it, it takes you to the search results page of that tag, it's a way for people to search for content of a given topic. It's another way to filter down the overflow of online content and find people that share the same interests. 

Although hashtags are most commonly associated with Twitter they appear frequently on other social networks. Many brands use hashtags to promote themselves. Which is one reason why they are important to big brands and companies. They use it as a way for them to find their targeted audience.

Personally I do not use hashtags a lot but I will use them once in while. 

As most of you may know, this year at the Oscar's we saw lots of interesting things that went down. For example Will Smith slapping Chris Rock after the joke he made about Jada Pinkett. Not only did the internet go crazy but #WillSmith and #ChrisRock was seen all over the media. It became such a trending hashtag, in the matter of minutes. At first we can all agree that it was funny watching people's reactions and memes, but a couple of days have passed and people are still having late reactions.   

Without a doubt hashtags have had a big influence on our culture. For example, through the use of hashtags communities were built by bringing lots of people around the world together. It's also used for cultural movements for example the #MeToo movement. It basically brings more awareness to victims of sexual abuse, it's a way of giving them their own voice. 

There's just so much to hashtags it's unbelievable.