What is with the #hashtags

A Mashable article written by Jillian Kumagai listed out the top 10 most cliché hashtags that people are guilty of overusing(but still does). As I was going through that article I found myself going, “ Yep I do. This one too… that one too.. but not too much I guess.. woah definitely this one… hell yeah..” At the end of the article I started wondering why has hashtags really been overused. Why did its existence just boomed up? Suddenly my perspective of hashtags totally reversed its polarity. I found it crazy to use a random guy's hashtag in a middle of a conversation. The tweet was like this, “Today seems to be a #pleasant day at #my_locality.” Does someone even care about #my_locality ? I wouldn't take time to use that underscore unless and until it has a reasonable reason.

While some hashtags are stupid and overused without any need (like #lol #rofl) I feel there are few instances where a hashtag really does its job like a boss. A hashtag at the end of a tweet – a meaning full tweet. Sometimes they might be sarcastic. But seriously hashtag obsession has raised the limit of the sky.

Now where do we find hashtags ? damn sorry that was such a rhetorical question. Duh, everywhere. Even in whatsapp. Seriously even on whatsapp? Yes my fellow netizens, I find people using hashtags in whatsapp staus not realizing the very purpose of hashtag. Whats even worse? I get to watch pictures with hashtags embedded on to them.  Twitter is where I get to see a tweet fully with hashtags. Followed by Instagram. Lemme give you an example; A picture of a coconut tree with the horizon has hashtags such as the following hashtags

#tree
#coconuttree
#talltree
#tendercoconut
#sand
#bluesky
#withsomewhiteclouds
#andsomedarkclouds
#sun
#sunnyday
#haveahappyday
#weather

Now you tell me would you or would you not get annoyed by this picture. If you didn’t then I guess its most probably one of your pictures. I bet will everything I own.

What does hashtag really do? Why did it come into existence ? Hashtags were first used to make searching of photos, files and articles related to what you want to see easy. Like in case if you want to search topics regarding a restaurant, you use #<name of the restaurant> and you find what you wanted. But now due to the advent of hashtags in almost every social media, you would find plethora  of related as well as non related search results. Now that’s a heads up for you(which you probably would have known due to your experiences). Now that being said I find it sometimes justifiable to use hashtags when and where it is required. Because honestly even I use hashtags but not like these. I would sum up that entire picture with #scenery( which I mentioned above). I hope we all  use Hashtags when it has to be used. 

I really recommend you people to watch this video #hashtag with Jimmy Fallon. This one is so crazy I laughed more than i should have. Trust me it highlights the obsession of today's netizens.

Signing off,

#Scatteredthoughts (sarcasm intended)