Jordan Blog 2

              If you have used any sort of social networking site you’ve seen a hashtag. They started on twitter but we see them everywhere now. From teenage girls talking about the newest episode of teen wolf to corporations making unnecessary hashtags for marketing reasons. Hashtivisim is all around us, using hash tags as a way to advertise or promote a social issue is something that has become very popular in the past couple of years. Some stretch as far back as kony in 2012 to the als ice bucket challenge that sprung up this summer and seemed to take the nation by storm. Hashtivisim has been widely used by students and stars. Michelle Obama even got behind #bringbackourgirls. Although many people get behind certain hashtags they aren’t always effective much like the bring back our girls. Many times hashtags aren’t even made to spread popular social issues.

                Corporations are known for being in your face with advertising, commercials, billboards etc., but now that hashtivisim is a big thing in our social culture corporations have taken to twitter to supply us with their “input”. They like to make puns and jokes about trending hashtags to make themselves seem cooler and more in touch with our younger generation, but usually it just adds another uncalled for comment by someone who shouldn’t even be hash tagging. A flesh light company made a reference to 9/11 on its anniversary, as nice as that is, I think they need to take the path of silence when something like that is trending.  

                These corporations inappropriateness to promote themselves through hashtags that they really shouldn’t even be using is becoming a reoccurring problem in our social media. Because they have no social identity they will face little to no repercussions.  Our identity is our expressions of ourselves, which nowadays we provide through our social networking usage. By doing it through social media we can alter and change our identity slightly to make ourselves into who we want to be or look like instead of who we are actually. This can lead to issues, much like corporations people can hide behind false identities to make themselves more liked by people. For example the show catfish. This show takes people in person to meet face to face with people they have meet and started talking to on Facebook or dating sites. If you haven’t seen it, it can be quite the shit show. People will expect the person to be like their profile when in fact they are very much different.

                I would like to believe that things like hashtivisim is good for the world, because well it is. Yet there’s always something to make me hate it like corporations or tacky and uncalled for humor. I know that it is not leaving anytime soon, so I guess we should make the best of it. As far as identity goes people really need to learn to be happy with themselves instead of hiding behind a computer screen.