In the spirit of newsprint, we’re addressing this issue pretty late in the game, but when “#’s” were presented as a potential topic for the opinions section, I was the first to come to the fore.  I myself am not a fan of hashtags, and it is not because I am a hipster who likes to seem like I like I do things with the sole purpose to be ironic and countercultural, I don’t like them because I do not understand them. In my humble opinion, hashtags serve no real purpose in the world of social media.

“What about ‘@’ tags to get your friend’s attention in Comments and to associate that guy you only kind of know from a party you went to?” you might say. Those are great and they serve a purpose that is very useful. I like to know when my buddy Andrew posts those pictures of me from the time we dressed up like the Beastie Boys last winter, that was awesome and I’m glad those pictures are forever attached to my digital identity. “*’s” have become  a symbol in social media to show that some kind of narration is going on and that’s a useful addition to internet language. I think it’s pretty neat when you can show you turned your head dramatically during a conversation by typing “*turns head dramatically*’ in the description of your Instagram pic. There are all sorts of other symbols that have taken on new lives on Reddit, 4Chan, Facebook, Instagram, Tumblr, and YouTube, but the one I cannot stand for is the “#’.

It is my fear that “#” will eventually no longer mean “number sign” or “number” and I know for a certainty, a day will come when you call an automated phone call service and the lovely robot lady on the other end will ask you to dial your extension followed by a “hashtag”. As teenagers get better at typing on phones, they slowly abandon doing things like using “2” when they mean “to” or “too”. They no longer drop vowels like the old tradition in the Hebrew language. They however adopted the intensely grammatically incorrect habit of Ebonyx, and they’ve incorporated “#” in this evolving language.

I think it would be great if “#’s” were used only to associate pictures of certain subjects with one another in online databases. If I searched “#yolo” and only found pictures of teenagers doing reckless and adventurous things, that would be great, but I end up on some girl’s selfie from the time she decided to go with some winged eyeliner for her date instead of her regular do-up “because #yolo”. When my friend Ashley let’s everyone know that shes “#excited to that she’s #justengaged and is #love with her fiance,” we’ve reached a point that we can confirm the “#’s” are overkill.

There are other things that are propelled into popularity and the public’s focus by hashtags like “#handsupdontshoot” and the short lived “#kirbydelauter” and those movements deserve credit for what they achieve, but these are the very rare crowned gems in the world if hashtags, and skits of people like Jimmy Fallon and Justin Timberlake  show just how few and far between these important hashtags really are in the sea of utter nonsense that is the internet. No matter how socially important “#kony2012” or “#indiana” gets, the point will always be made moot by hashtags like “#cutforbeiber” and “#alwaysinourheartzaynemalik.”

Tumblr is only half way there with their use of “tags” instead of “hashtags” and they get shoveled off into their own little section of a post, but people still manage to abuse it by letting me know they “#don’t even know why they are making this post” or tagging “#artists on tumblr” on the identical picture of  a sunset that everyone else is posting that same night. Tag “#NSFW” so that my browser pics up on it and doesn’t show me a “Not Safe For Work” post while I’m surfing the web at work. Tag “#OOTD” so I can see your great sense of style and get some good ideas from you. Tag “#recovery” so I can be encouraged by your journey to give up drugs or alcohol or self harm. Tumblr has a huge infrastructure to take advantage of these tools, much more so than “#’s” on Instagram, but they are close enough to just rub me the wrong way.

I’m very concerned that I’m already on my way to being an old man who doesn’t understand why teenagers do what they do and how technology is meant to work, but I can’t help but feel I’m not that crazy feeling the way I do now. You can make all sorts of interesting symbols on a computer like “↛” and “↺” but that is absolutely no excuse to put #tagsforlikes #yolo #instamood #instalike #instaswag #pinoy #body #asianfresh #swag #dope #fresh #follow4follow #hatersgonnalike #like4like #instadaily #instafresh #instagramer #instagood #chill #gym #abs every time you post a picture of you and your abs after you hit the gym.