Welcome to 2013, or rather, welcome to Generation Y territory. We don't use digital to aid our lives - we LIVE by digital. I'm the worst culprit - I can't sit for two minutes without my FOMO (fear of missing out) kicking in and then I go through my cycle: instagram, twitter, tumblr, facebook and finally, blog stats. I repeat this until there is literally nothing to update myself on. When I wake up in the morning - phone. When I'm going to sleep at night - phone. During the adverts - phone. Honestly, I'm obsessed and I don't know what to do about it.
Anyway, this isn't a therapy session. My point of all that was to preface this post with the statement that in my view, when it comes to social media, I know my stuff. I have also had the
Originally, hashtags were invented as a way of linking, grouping and further communication. It is a metadata tag. So for example, I often tweet my thoughts on Eastenders (don't judge me, I have no excuses, I know) and end the tweet with a rather obvious "#eastenders". I do this for two reasons:
- So other people talking about Eastenders can read my tweets and appreciate my words
- So I can easily click on the hashtag to what others are saying rather than searching it organically.
That, to me, is the correct usage. However, I have been noticing on Instagram people are abusing the poor hashtag to get more "likes" and gain popularity. Take the picture below for example - a shameless "selfie". A normal and proper use of hashtags would either be none (what I usually opt for) or something humorous I suppose like "shameless" or even something appropriate like "makeup" or "fashion". I don't know. However underneath the picture I have posted some of the stuff I'm seeing lately and I'm not exaggerating on this one.
#face #pretty #blonde #girl #lips #eyes #freckles #hair #blue #nose #makeup #revlon #igdaily #instafashion #iphoneonly #iphone #instadaily #instagram #me #love #sexy #fringe
It's insanity. Pure and simple. That's not even the half of it. The worst is when the hashtagging goes a little something like this:
#I #went #on #holiday #to #cancun #with #my #boyfriend #and #had #a #blast #love #my #boyfriend
I mean, who even searches the hashtag "to" and "had"?? What is the point in getting 26 "likes" on a picture when they're all from spammers? Aside from that, it's just irritating to read.
Can everyone just take a step back and start using things properly? To link, to communicate. It's not about gaining "likes". It's about joining in with a mass conversation or finding relevant pictures/debates/content.
So any guilty people out there reading this - cool it, yeah?
/rant.
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