What the Trend? Twitter and its #hashtag

If you haven't noticed, hashtags are everywhere. Well, everywhere online. Nowadays, they’re almost unavoidable.

What began as a means of sorting out what's being tweeted at the moment on Twitter has now grown into something more; becoming punch lines on Facebook statuses, daily news and even during your favourite TV shows. In other words, what started out to be a social media trend has progressed into something more meaningful - a communication system that allows you to view a topic of discussion just by searching a key word. Need the next Miley Cyrus hit? Hashtag search "Miley" and you'll find a flock of tweeters tweeting a tweet about her most recent smash hit or her latest break-up.

But is this just a trend or are hashtag messages becoming a part of our everyday lifestyle?

Yes. It's gotten to the point where artists are naming their songs with hashtags. Will.i.am has a song called "#thatPOWER" and Mariah Carey has a song called "#beautiful". So why are artists incorporating the hashtag into their songs? Because it's easier to share amongst their fans.

In a pre-Facebook age, believe it or not, not too long ago, the only social networks I remember were MySpace and MSN Messenger. What a wasteland, right? These are the places we went to hang, to chat; these were our resources for updated information, and gossip within the world. Through pictures and status updates, the public even had access to some of the most intimate moments of people’s lives. Then the trend started; the internet and technology advanced to Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, and even Instagram. And no, Instagram is not when your grandmother gives birth to her daughter's baby.

We've come a long way since the time MySpace was the Apple of the online world. In fact, I'm losing track of all the technology I have to keep track of.

The one thing that has stayed consistent over the years is the ability to update one's "status" and share it with the online community. However, the experts have re-vamped everything and now, with one click on a single hyperlink, (whatever is "trending"), we now have access to millions of people’s thoughts and opinions on the same subject. Thanks to the #hashtag.

In 2012, if you can remember, some of the top trends, or as we now know them as "hashtags" were; #syria , #Kony2012 , #AintNoBodyGotTimeForThat and ofcourse, #YOLO . These were the most favourite topics that were discussed through the online world during that year. Information was shared when Syria was dealing with a crisis of its own and many people in the county used social media to convey their messages; when Sweet Brown got everybody's attention by that hilarious news goof; or when everybody and I mean everybody started using the tag, #YOLO (You Only Live Once).

And while Y.O.L.O. is currently the M.F.T.M.A.T. (Most Frequently Trending Meaningless Acronym on Twitter), I regret to inform the young people of the internet that it's not correct at all. You live everyday, you only die once. Anyways, that's another ramble.

So are hashtags just a temporary obsession?

Social networks have a habit of eventually dying out in popularity and significance. It goes well with the idea of “out with the old, in with the new.” If Twitter were to become unpopular, that would probably mean hashtags will fade to black as well. As long as Twitter continues to grow stronger, hashtags will remain and may even become something more independent. Its independence depends on how long Twitter is trending.

However, there are possibly a few who think hashtags will trend until the day no one pays attention to them anymore. The popularity will fade away and something bigger and better will take its place in the headlines of news articles or on the bottom corner of your television screen during series finales, i.e. Breaking Bad or Desperate Housewives.

Trends come and go, and this year, I can predict there are going to be quite a few new ones that have to do with the US government shutdown.

But very few things nowadays are timeless. Will hashtags weather over time? Probably, but that's up to the twits out there to figure it out.

For now, I'll leave you with a short video brought to you by Jimmy Fallon and Justin Timberlake.



Signing off... #Andrew

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