23 August 2007 Chris Messina, a former Google employee of San Francisco, first used a hashtag. Today about 125 million are shared a day on Twitter, not counting the other social networks, from Instagram a Facebook. It ended up in songs and movies, record covers, t-shirts and artwork (and even in the Oxford English Dictionary). The hashtag allows you to order conversations on social networks, a bit like the Kantian category cataloged and related the phenomena of the world. Except that everyone can invent their own hashtag, involve others in the conversation or take part in the flow of information firsthand. Some have gone down in history, like #JeSuisCharlie, #terremoto, #MakeAmericaGreatAgain, others have been exploited by advertising or by those in search of popularity on social networks. But the hashtag is not a neutral tool, and in fact from metadata, label (“tag”), it is now frequently used as text itself. It adds depth to the 140 characters of a tweet, suggesting different readings of the message: ironic, profound, funny, sometimes poetic. And so, even if Twitter were to disappear, the hashtag will not end anytime soon: at the beginning it indicated a number on keyboards, today it is also a common sign of non-verbal language, such as quotes made with fingers.
The hashtag is now a symbol of the digital age and in the 14 years since its creation it has profoundly changed the world of communication, allowing people to inform themselves and share information in a different way, and to participate in exchanges of views and discussions independently. from the physical place of residence. From January to June 2021 there were 12.6 billion tweets with at least one hashtag, of which 140 million unique. And today that the last birthday of the famous gate is celebrated, Twitter has launched a new emoji for the#HashtagDay, available in multiple languages to allow users from all over the world to participate in this anniversary.
The most used hashtags in Italila
As in other countries, also in the Peninsula hashtags have been used to promote political and social battles, to celebrate international victories, to comment on celebrity feats. television, but also to discuss current events with light tones. In the social world of sport, the most popular hashtag among Italian tweets was that of #Euro2020, with the victory of Italy at the European football championships which generated a huge number of conversations. The virtual celebration of the fans took the form of many memes and images, posts and videos accompanied by the hashatg #itsComingRome.
Even music, driven by the most famous and followed musical events, represented the center of an impressive volume of conversations on Twitter. Among the trending hashtags in 2021 there are #Sanremo, the latest edition of Eurovision with the victory of Maneskin (with hashtags #Eurovision e #Escita), and the now consolidated musical phenomenon K-Pop of the Korean band #Bts.
But Italian users also gather on Twitter to discuss politics, finance and technology. The cryptovalute are now an increasingly frequent topic in conversations, especially when people who are very popular on social networks (such as the founder of Tesla Elon Musk) intervene on the subject by publishing posts with hashtags #bitcoin. Furthermore, beyond the conversations related to the Covid-19 and those relating to individual political personalities, one of the hashtags that fueled debates, reactions and comments on Twitter was #ddlzan, which refers to the bill proposed by the deputy Alessandro Zan against homotransphobia. Finally, in the ranking of the most used hashtags by Italians there are also # amici20, #gfvip and #isola, which refer to television programs, reality shows and talent shows.
In short, the hashtag is now a digital passepartout that allows access to a variegated universe of well-ordered conversations: so we can read them, share them and maybe even participate, offering our point of view, in a simple way and with a few clicks from our smartphone. An invention that has certainly contributed to transforming us from passive readers to active and creative users of the web.
Social network
Ddl Zan, the Italian influencers have entered the field (and will remain there)
by Vincenzo Cosenza
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