Hashtags have, surprisingly, existed for about 10 years or so. Personally I feel as though hashtags have only just been born into the online world but to others, they feel like hashtags have been around since forever, nevertheless, surprising in two very different ways that it is in fact, the 10th birthday of the ‘#’. 

It’s completely changed up modern culture and how people type and voice opinions on the web. 

It first began when a product designer at Google suggested the idea in a tweet saying ‘how do you feel about using # (pound) for groups. As in #barcamp [msg]?’ And since that point, Chris Messina created the massive hashtag trend. This happened to also fall into a similar time period to when social media was on the rise, so they both pretty much came hand in hand. This feature itself has allowed people to connect and discuss the things they love from #nofilter to #blacklivesmatter. People are able to partake in an online conversation debating and conversing in important matters in many areas like politics and this is why I feel as though this trend is one of the greatest developments in online history. 

According to Aja Romano on a blog piece he had written, there has been a correlation between the rise of social media and the number of Americans without a television set. This is a huge factor into why social media being able to connect you to live events, has significantly increased. You no longer really see the family gathering around the TV to watch a major historical event like it used to be, people tend to now catch the latest hashtags, gifs and results based on the event without having to even watch it at all. In this sense, it’s amazing and eye opening to know that you CAN bond with millions over the internet with a simple ‘#’.