Help ... hashtag ... # ... ???

[kenny]

I know the symbol, #, has various names and uses.
In music it is a sharp, which means to raise a not a half step.
It is used to indicate a number, like the # 8.
On a phone it is the pound sign, which I think is called a hash outside North America. Is that true?

But I increasing read about its use on social media like Twitter, which I've never visited.

Apparently people put # in front of a phrase that gives it special status or usage in social media
Can someone explain this to me?
How does it work?
What does it do?

And what is a meme?

 

[amc80]

It's used to group topics, basically. So say you want to see tweets about diamonds, you could search for #diamonds or whatever and pull up all the tweets that used that hashtag.

 

[rubybeth]

A hashtag is just that... a way to 'tag' a post. They are used pretty regularly on Twitter and Instagram. amc is not exactly right that you'd search '#diamond' in order to find posts about diamonds. It would be more like people using the hashtag #diamonds when chatting about diamonds or ideas related to diamonds, and then you could search "#diamonds" to find all the related posts. If you just search "diamonds" you will get all the posts that have that word in it.

Better example: today, the hashtag #Oklahoma is trending on Twitter (meaning it's being used by a lot of people) because of all the news and tweets related to the tornadoes. News agencies are using the hashtag as well as regular folks who are sending their thoughts and prayers to those in the state. If I just tweeted something like "I have family who live in Oklahoma" without the hashtag, it would not show up in the listing of trending #Oklahoma tweets.

http://support.twitter.com/articles/49309-using-hashtags-on-twitter#
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hashtag

A meme is simply an idea. But I think you mean "what is an internet meme," which is a bit harder to define. It's usually a pretty simple idea or joke that spreads quickly via the internet, and it may be an image, video, etc. It also may be a hashtag itself. A while ago on Twitter, there was the hashtag #TweetsFrom1998 and people posted as though they were living their life in 1998, making references to things they were doing in 1998 (I was in high school) or news events of the time. It was pretty funny to read, since 1998 was pre-social media and the internet hadn't even really exploded in popularity yet. One of my current favorite image memes is called 'Actual Advice Mallard.' If you google it, you'll see what I'm talking about. But even Actual Advice Mallard is a spin-off of another meme, the LOLCat meme.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meme
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_meme
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Internet_phenomena
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lolcat

 

[kenny]

Thanks for taking the time to explain.

Though I'm not on FB, Twitter or Instagram, I increasingly run across these terms in news reports and I was clueless about them.

 

[maccers]

IMO the use of hashtags has really amped up in recent months and often to no effect. I'm seeing the use of hashtags on facebook a lot which doesn't make sense bc fb doesn't have a feature to make them searchable (unless fb has some new feature that I'm not aware of). I have many friends and acquaintances that use them but again a lot of what is being 'tagged' doesn't make sense (e.g. Off to the airport. #going to #see my friends in seattle.)

You're not the only one who is confused by hashtags, Kenny.

https://www.facebook.com/leaveyourhashtagsontwitter

 

[rubybeth]

IMO the use of hashtags has really amped up in recent months and often to no effect. I'm seeing the use of hashtags on facebook a lot which doesn't make sense bc fb doesn't have a feature to make them searchable (unless fb has some new feature that I'm not aware of). I have many friends and acquaintances that use them but again a lot of what is being 'tagged' doesn't make sense (e.g. Off to the airport. #going to #see my friends in seattle.)

You're not the only one who is confused by hashtags, Kenny.

https://www.facebook.com/leaveyourhashtagsontwitter

Yeah, but some people have their Twitter or Instagram posts integrated into their Facebook feeds, so if they post hashtags there, they'll also show up on Facebook, even if they aren't searchable on that site. I post some of my Instagram photos to Facebook and it automatically posts the photo description as my Facebook post. Also, it's probably habit for some people. I know I have a 20-something cousin who posts #love or #happiness along with just about anything positive she posts, because she's just so darn happy.

ETA: Also, just remembered that some people have their Facebook pages open to subscribers, so Google searching would find the hashtag. It's really just a way of tagging posts so they are more searchable. If I search #seattle vs. just 'seattle,' I get very different search results. Tumblr, Keek, and other sites also use the hashtag convention for tagging posts.

 

[kenny]

Sorry ... but what does 'tag a photo' mean?

What is tagging?

Sometimes me thinks it would just be easier to die of old age than keep up.

I saw a website for a vendor that had this WONDERFUL thing on their website (at least they had a website):

 

[sonnyjane]

Sorry ... but what does 'tag a photo' mean?

What is tagging?

If you post a photo of say, you and two friends, you can "tag" them so that they will also, essentially, "receive a copy" of that photo on their page and their name will appear in the photo's caption.

 

[maccers]

But Kenny, the fact that you're curious shows that even YOU will be dragged (maybe kicking and screaming) into these 'fads' (which probably aren't fads but are here to stay in one form or another; just like online dating).

Tagging is when someone posts either a pic, video or blurb and then associates someone/something with the pic by creating a 'tag'. Typically you can then click on the 'tagged' name and see their profile, posts or what-have-you. Imaginary example: If PS used tagging with photos, I could upload a pic of my ring, tag my name to it, tag the vendor to it and tag other PS-ers names to it (let's say as a way to thank PS-ers for their help). How is this useful(ish)? Rather than me write a description about who helped me design the ring, people could just look at the tags and click on them if they wanted more information. The closest thing to it would be when ppl post an html link in a thread to refer someone to something else. Facebook is set up so that if one of my friends 'tags' me in a photo, I would receive a notification about it. Of course, there are serious privacy issues and technicalities with tagging (what if I get tagged in something and don't want to be a part of it)...Anyway, I realize my explanation isn't great but hopefully gives you the gist of it.

 

[kenny]

Sorry ... but what does 'tag a photo' mean?

What is tagging?

If you post a photo of say, you and two friends, you can "tag" them so that they will also, essentially, "receive a copy" of that photo on their page and their name will appear in the photo's caption.

Posting a pic here on PS?

Or are you talking about posting a pic on FB?
If so, tagging is only a FB thing?

 

[kenny]

But Kenny, the fact that you're curious shows that even YOU will be dragged (maybe kicking and screaming) into these 'fads' (which probably aren't fads but are here to stay in one form or another; just like online dating).

Tagging is when someone posts either a pic, video or blurb and then associates someone/something with the pic by creating a 'tag'. Typically you can then click on the 'tagged' name and see their profile, posts or what-have-you. Imaginary example: If PS used tagging with photos, I could upload a pic of my ring, tag my name to it, tag the vendor to it and tag other PS-ers names to it (let's say as a way to thank PS-ers for their help). How is this useful(ish)? Rather than me write a description about who helped me design the ring, people could just look at the tags and click on them if they wanted more information. The closest thing to it would be when ppl post an html link in a thread to refer someone to something else. Facebook is set up so that if one of my friends 'tags' me in a photo, I would receive a notification about it. Of course, there are serious privacy issues and technicalities with tagging (what if I get tagged in something and don't want to be a part of it)...Anyway, I realize my explanation isn't great but hopefully gives you the gist of it.

So tagging is assigning links to photos.

I can quickly visualize offensive tags that jerks could tag onto photos ... like big boobs, or MILF, etc.

 

[sonnyjane]

Sorry ... but what does 'tag a photo' mean?

What is tagging?

If you post a photo of say, you and two friends, you can "tag" them so that they will also, essentially, "receive a copy" of that photo on their page and their name will appear in the photo's caption.

Posting a pic here on PS?

Or are you talking about posting a pic on FB?
If so, tagging is only a FB thing?

FB, Twitter, Instagram I think are all examples? I only have FB.

 

[rubybeth]

'Tagging' exists on lots of social media sites, not just photo sites or Facebook. It just means you are putting a label on something. It might be a friend's name in a photo so they see themselves in your photo on Facebook (if you tag someone, it will show up on their page--they can untag themselves if they want to), or it might be a word that describes link. It's kind of like putting labels on your flour, sugar, salt, baking soda, etc. except instead of making the item easier to identify in your kitchen, you are making the item more searchable online.

I work for a library and we have LibraryThing (a book tracking website similar to GoodReads) integrated into our online catalog so that you can see 'tags' for books and movies that people who use LibraryThing have added. The tags are just links to lists of other items that have the same 'tag.' So the book 'Pride and Prejudice' has tags like '19th century,' 'classic literature,' 'romance,' 'British literature,' 'history,' 'regency,' etc. If you click on the '19th century' tag, you are taken to a list of titles which includes 'Great Expectations,' 'Anna Karenina,' etc. Some sites have tagging built in (a lot of blogging sites do this so you can tag each post you write and then it's easier for you and others to find similar or related posts later) and some don't, but people find ways of labeling just about everything.

Originally on Twitter, hashtags weren't common. Neither was the @username convention of directing a message to someone specific on the site, but these were basically memes that spread across the whole site and came into common usage, and so they were then made better by the site developers (you can now click on a hashtag and it will link you to search results for the hashtag so you can see similar posts quite easily, and you can click on a username when somebody does the @username thing and go directly to that user's page). This is one of the reasons I find social media so interesting. Someone builds a site, but then the users sometimes turn it into what they want it to be or make it more useful by coming up with new ideas.