The #history of #hashtag

It would be an understatement to say that social media has become popular over the past few years. Social Media has infiltrated almost every aspect of our lives. We tweet about how are are feeling, we Instagram the food we eat and we vent on Facebook. One of the unifying factors across all social media outlets is the hashtag.

The first hashtag was used in 2007 by Chris Messina (@MrMessina) who tweeted "?how do you feel about using # (pound) for groups. As in #barcamp [msg]??" Messina is credited as a social technology expert and came up with the idea for #hashtags as a way to group discussions on Twitter. Since then #hashtags have been used in every kind of social media outlet. They are relevant on Facebook, Instagram, Flikr, Twitter and others. By tagging a message that message is linked to other message with the same tag. These are used for a wide variety of things such as in marketing campaigns like #I'mlovingit for McDonald's, for showing support such as #ParisAttacks as well as random thoughts or ideas such as #history.

These tags are not limited to a set list of words, you can easily create your own hashtag like #pocketturtle. There are also very few rules to hashtags. The only rules being that there must be no spaces in between words (for some reason) and there of course must be a # in front of the words.(#justcuse) For companies who would like to register their hashtag they need to register with Hashtag.org in order to group the messages that use those tags.

Hashtags are just another way for people to express how they are feeling in the moment. That is really what is at the heart of social media, expression at a moments notice. Of course social media has also been used a tool for bullies, trolls and generally mean spirited people who have nothing good to say about anyone.

The tie in to local history is that social media has become a way to display local history. Many historical societies have a variety of social media accounts and use hashtags as a way to advertise for themselves. (#ohiohistory) In the technological based world we live in, the greater social media presence you have the more chances people will come and visit your institution. I this day and age is it all about the hashtag and what it can do for your local history institution. #wrightbrothers #wsuspecialcollectionsandarchives #blessed

Sources: https://www.hashtags.org/featured/hashtag-history-when-and-what-started-it/