The recent Twitter boom has seen the invasion of a certain little symbol into every day coversation. The hashtag. It started out Twitter specific, with most not knowing its true power. We would insert it over-cautiously, thinking to ourselves as we clicked the ‘Tweet’ button, ‘Did I do that right?’ or ‘Am I accidentally saying something I didn’t mean to say?’. But gradually as we became used to its effect, we became more confident. Tweeters of the world began to add more and more hashtags, often outnumbering the length of the original text, with some tweets composed entirely of hashtags.
Was that the end of it? No. Since then the hashtag has weedled its way into the world of Facebook, and now, like the text-message-made ‘lol’ and ‘omg’ before it, crept stealthily into our daily speech. A shocking business, and one that has been picked up recently by pop king Justing Timberlake and hit US TV host Jimmy Fallon. Late Night with Jimmy Fallon this week featured a sketch between the talk show presenter and his off-screen pal in which they talk together in generic Twitter language. Needless to say the result is fabulous! #sofunny #laughedsomuch #ilovejustin #justinisthebest #takebackthenight #suchatune #hashtag.