Unnecessary hashtagging #sobadit'sgood

474

"#Sorry4partyinnn," "#RealTalk" and "#PartayPrince$$" are names of Facebook albums I made up. But if you are anything like me (breathing), you were most likely immediately annoyed the second you saw a hashtag outside of Twitter.

In recent months, it seems like Twitter's hashtags are spending more and more time in places where they don't belong, such as Facebook and text messages. Although we all seem to find them more annoying than when a Kardashian marathon is on and the remote is all the way over there, we still cannot seem to stop ourselves from doing it. 

Twitter's hashtags started out, simply and logically enough, as a search helper and a way to track what was "trending" or popular. But somewhere along the line, probably because of one internet dweller trying to impress a girl by making a joke, the hashtag was used as a punch line.

The hashtag has now become the lazy comic's dream, making any attempted joke seem successful and clever. Now anyone can tack random words and phrases onto the end of a sentence and make a joke appear ingenious and witty.

Things like, "Two and a half men is just awkward now lol #cmonson #pumpthebreaks," "I didn't think my mascara was that noticeable #awksteeze" or "Will Smith please serenade me to sleep. #will2k #willenium #willyoumarryme" are now appropriate Facebook and Twitter jokes by the Internet's standards. And we made it that way. We did this to ourselves.

Abuse of the hashtag system to gain easy comedic credibility has caused the hashtag to lose its power. It was secondarily used, for a very short while, as a relatively successful joke. But its days were numbered and it did not take too long to lose its novelty.

So why is it that we love to hashtag things unnecessarily? One could say it is because, as a nation, we love symbol equality. Power to the ampersand.

But more realistically, one could say this trend is a sign of the times. Internet fads are fast moving and always changing. We want the coolest, funniest thing to do and once it is popular, we find it tired. The tech savvy internet crowd has realized that this trend has come and gone, just like Aaron Carter's popularity. In a completely serious (and minimally hipster) way, the hashtag has become too mainstream and lost its power. 

There are some social trends we all hate, but for whatever reason we keep them alive: wearing Ugg boots and shorts, talking in abbreviations, taking Myspace photos. Hashtagging is just another example of our society's lack of cultural control. We hate those hashtags so much.We cringe at the sight of them, but they are so popular we cannot stop ourselves.

Just like a narcissistic aspiring hip-hop star, if the hashtag could talk, it would say "haters make me famous."  

—McDonough is a freshman from Glen Ellyn, Ill., planning to major in communication and creative writing.

opinion@thedepauw.com