There is a popular trend that's bothered me for quite some time now, but out of courtesy to the many friends of mine who are guilty of following this trend, I've never said anything. Well, it is a crime against English, and as a writer I can no longer hold my tongue. Pen. Fingers. Whatever.
So at the risk of alienating my friends, as well as my entire readership of 11 people, here it is:
Using hashtags on websites that don't support hashtagging is stupid.
On Twitter, a hashtag links to a search query that populates tweets similar to yours. On almost every other website in the world, a hashtag is just an eyesore that doesn't do anything. See? #eyesorethatdoesntdoanything
Try clicking on that. Oh, you can't.
I'm not exactly the biggest Twitter fan, but I do understand that a 140-character limit requires a few workarounds to get all the information out to your followers. At the very least, a hashtag used on a supporting website will actually take you somewhere.
But what the hell is everyone's excuse for using hashtags on Facebook?
Most people write poorly enough as it is. The last thing we need is an excuse to string together a bunch of words without any spacing, capitalization, or punctuation. There is far too much ugly plaguing the English language already, now that text-message shorthand has made its way into our writing. Let's not add to the cancer.
#dinosaurloversunite
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