When taken to the extreme like this, it can be annoying, but it does also in a way show some human psychology and how the mind connects ideas to each other, as Sam mentioned in his post. But one of the reasons why I found this video so funny, is that Jimmy Fallon is poking fun at hashtagging, he also promotes it for other segments of his show. He tells viewers to tell funny stories, via Twitter, about things like parent fails, misheard lyrics, and others, and with each hashtag he starts, they get thousands of tweets with those hashtags.
This is a different kind of manipulation than what Sam talks about because when we see these hashtags, we purposefully try to connect it to something that we have seen or heard, but when I was thinking about these two different types of manipulation together, it made me think that there isn't really a way to make hashtagging original. However, it gives people something humanlike to hold on to in the digital world through connections of thought processes.
Is hashtagging supposed to provide a way for people to think that they can come up with something original, like Jimmy Fallon giving ideas, or is it simply meant to help people connect? Can there be other, deeper reasons for hashtagging, or is it simply superficial?
I have noticed that hashtagging on facebook has been a tool that bands use as a way of getting themselves discovered by more people. They post something on facebook and then put on a few hashtags such as #newmusic or #provomusic and then all the other people using those hashtags are creating a page that might bring more people to see that post than otherwise would have. I think this might qualify as deeper in the sense that it is fostering ways of connecting with fans that previously didn't exist.
ReplyDeleteI agree with Sam that hashtagging has more levels than simply grouping posts together. It enables people to connect with each other in a way that they wouldn't have before or otherwise. It makes me think of Paul's most recent post when he talks about how people who play video games desire to connect more, not less. People who use hashtags want to connect with others who share their interests. They want the world to know what they are involved in and who they are involved with, and hashtags enable them to simultaneously publicly join a group and meet others who share their enthusiasm for different groups.
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