You know the little tic-tac-toe board located above the ‘3’ key on a standard keyboard? We called it a ‘pound sign’ growing up, or a ‘number sign’, today they call them ‘hashtags’ and they have a purpose, but i don’t think my Facebook friends understand.

A little history - hashtags really started on Twitter. They are hyperlinks used to provide searchable words, terms and phrases across the interwebs. Eventually they became a way to track the social connections between users and track the trends of popularity. They have become a measurement of the social impact of ideas and thoughts.

In more recent history hashtags and the ability to use them has spread across nearly every social platform - Instagram, Facebook, Pinterest, Tumblr, etc, etc. But with the proliferation of hashtags has come the proliferation of hashtag stupidity. Hashtags are NOT LISTS. Hashtags are not for your kids names. Hashtags are not for how many calories you burned today. Hashtags are just not for things that have no chance of trending.

Cooking dinner with the family - #332caloriemeal #yummychickenbydoug #callieandgavin #ijustfarted #englishishardforme

The chance of any of those hashtags being used by ANYONE other than me is SLIM TO NONE.

And that my friends is the purpose of a hashtag - to see how many use it, not to make yourself feel important.

If you hate to speak in complete sentences, and feel that one mashed together word at a time is enough to say what you need to say - then USE A COMMMA! That is what they are for. Because nobody cares about your personal hashtags! #douggiestyle! (sorry I just had to)