Hashtag

For the group, see HashTag (group). For the typographical symbol, see Number sign. For the EP by Candy Shop, see Hashtag (EP).

A post on the social media platform Twitter. Several hashtags are used in this post, including "CCCCWI", "TeamRhetoric" and "AcademicTwitter".

A hashtag is a metadata tag that is prefaced by the hash symbol, #. On social media, hashtags are used on microblogging and photo-sharing services such as X (former name as Twitter) or Tumblr as a form of user-generated tagging that enables cross-referencing of content by topic or theme.[1] For example, a search within Instagram for the hashtag #bluesky returns all posts that have been tagged with that term. After the initial hash symbol, a hashtag may include letters, numerals or other punctuation.[2]

The use of hashtags was first proposed by American blogger and product consultant Chris Messina in a 2007 tweet.[3][4] Messina made no attempt to patent the use because he felt that "they were born of the internet, and owned by no one".[5][6] Hashtags became entrenched in the culture of Twitter[7] and soon emerged across Instagram, Facebook, and YouTube.[8][9] In June 2014, hashtag was added to the Oxford English Dictionary as "a word or phrase with the symbol # in front of it, used on social media websites and apps so that you can search for all messages with the same subject".[10][11]

  1. ^ Chang, Hsia-Ching; Iyer, Hemalata (2012). "Trends in Twitter – Hashtag Applications: Design Features for Value-Added Dimensions to Future Library Catalogues". Library Trends. 61 (1): 248–258. doi:10.1353/lib.2012.0024. ISSN 1559-0682. S2CID 34506239.
  2. ^ "What Characters Can A Hashtag Include?". hashtags.org. Retrieved September 21, 2017.
  3. ^ Messina, Chris [@factoryjoe] (August 23, 2007). "how do you feel about using # (pound) for groups. As in #barcamp [msg]?" (Tweet) – via Twitter.
  4. ^ Parker, Ashley (June 10, 2011). "Twitter's Secret Handshake". The New York Times. Retrieved July 26, 2011.
  5. ^ "Chris Messina's answer to Why didn't the creator of the hashtag patent the concept?". Quora. Retrieved November 10, 2018.
  6. ^ "The Inventor of the Twitter Hashtag Explains Why He Didn't Patent It". Business Insider. Retrieved March 19, 2016.
  7. ^ Panko, Ben. "A Decade Ago, the Hashtag Reshaped the Internet". Smithsonian. Retrieved November 10, 2018.
  8. ^ Christina Warren (June 12, 2013). "Facebook finally gets #hashtags". CNN. Mashable. Retrieved May 16, 2016.
  9. ^ Zachary M. Seward (October 15, 2009). "Got a #tip? Gawker Media opens tag pages to masses, expecting "chaos"". Nieman Journalism Lab.
  10. ^ "'Hashtag' added to the OED – but # isn't a hash, pound, nor number sign". The Register. June 13, 2014.
  11. ^ "New words notes June 2014". Oxford English Dictionary. June 2014. Archived from the original on October 7, 2014.