... this one goes out to all of you hashtag haters.
Oh yeah, I've seen your side conversations and I've gotten the reports of your eye-rolls (perhaps you didn't hear -- that's the latest Facebook facial recognition technology ... it can monitor how you instinctively respond to what people say in their statuses [or is that statii?] and then it reports it back to the original author [by the time 2016 rolls around, it will be enhanced to also detect rage, which is how Facebookers will be flagged for some NSA oversight of their profiles]). Sure ... until the Supreme Court rules that hashtaggers are a protected class, then I guess we'll just have to join the other categories of human identification and classification where it's deemed socially OK to mock them openly (I'm looking at you, hipsters).
But I don't have to take your ridicule without responding. In my defense, I am slightly addicted, and my hashtagging behavior has been fueled by the mild case of OCD that I'm developing as a mid-age malady (in my free-standing Facebook posts, I have to do it in threes in order to get a sense of closure). Even more in my defense, it's not like I'm #yellingfireinacrowdedtheatre. And even most in my defense, I choose to do so as just another tool in my self-expression toolbox.
I know part of the derision I've felt is that hashtagging was supposed to be just for Twitter, which I can't join. (It's not that anyone has barred me, per se ... but it is because there is absolutely no way I can accept the tyranny of character limitation in that which I have to say.) As a matter of fact, I started experimenting with hashtagging before it was allowed on Facebook, and then I did it *ironically*, to mock the younger generation that is so plugged in electronically (and so often exclusively so such that they have isolated themselves and are seeking some kind of social validation in the aggregation of their social network status comments as a "hey - look at me -- I do belong to a group of people, as evidenced by my shared #kimye connections").
Then the great Mark Zuckerberg caved, and brought it to the Facebook in an official capacity, and I decided to embrace it -- but still to do so in my own unique style. As a matter of fact, it is rare that I would ever offer up a hashtag that might be used by another -- I prefer to use it to bring subtext forward, or to offer up my comic commentary (I know, I know ... "comic" is in the cranium of the beholder), or to have a dialogue with myself (I do hashtag in triplicate) or, lately, to even represent the rim shot (#nottherimjob).
So, on the Facebook, I'm a gonna keep on being me. If you get too easily confused by my choice to #runawholesentencetogetherasifitisoneword, well then, move along, as there's #nothingforyoutoseehere. And may I suggest that you turn your hatred elsewhere, maybe, for example against #hipsterswearingskinnyjeans.
THE OFFICIAL WORD ON FACEBOOK HASHTAGGING:
https://www.facebook.com/help/587836257914341
NOW *THIS* (& NOT ME) IS A LEGITIMATE OUTLET FOR YOUR HASHTAG HATING:
http://forward.com/articles/173479/twitter-faces-m-suit-over-hashtag-haters/
HEAR HEAR ...:
http://bigthink.com/the-proverbial-skeptic/in-defense-of-hashtags
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