Shut The #### Up!

Please.  For the love of the Indiana Jones trilogy, will all of you Instagram addicts out there stop using hashtags?

For full effect, play “Take On Me” by A-Ha, which was rated by Rolling Stone as the Number 1 one-hit wonder of all time, right above Dexy’s Midnight Runners “Come On Eileen”, and Chumbawamba’s “Tubthumping”.  I choose this only because it is the background music that epitomizes hip trends that fade fast, which is exactly what hashtags are. 

Sometimes I lay in bed at night and curse Mark Zuckerburg for buying out the woman’s guide to posting annoying pictures of every waking second of their lives for $1 billion.  No, we don’t want to see your Jalapeno spinach Quinoa cakes, your foot long hot dog at the Atlanta Braves spring training day, or when you drew a mustache on your pointer finger and made a black and white montage of six photos.

Sadly, all three of those have been on my feed in the last 45 minutes.    

Taking pictures is one thing, and I understand the stereotypical female with low self-esteem’s need to document every single snapshot that will ever take place in their entire life, but why do you feel the need to write a novel with no spaces just to get our attention at how AWESOME and UNIQUE your photos are? And what demon that wasn't cast in the film The Exorcist thought it would be a brilliant idea to add the pound sign before every single one of these mini-narratives?

Seriously weirdos, this has to stop.  Do you all really understand the purpose of hashtags?  They are designed so if someone searches for a topic that is similar to what you posted, they may by chance stumble upon your photo and/or tweet.  Tell me this, how many people search the terms #breastpumpingmybostonterrier, #myloveandaffectioncanbeboughtwithhoneydos, or #myhairisthelongest?

Internet Troll: “I really just want to see random photos of people with very long hair.”

NO THEY DON’T! ARE YOU NOT GETTING THE CONCEPT OF THE HASHTAG?!

Again, the above-mentioned hashtags have been lifted from my actual Facebook feed page.  I actually know someone that has tried to breast pump a Boston terrier.  Don’t ask me why I know this person, they just exist. And why they decided to put the pound sign in front of their disgusting action is beyond me.  It’s something I don’t understand at all. 

But that’s the thing, I don’t think all of you actually understand hashtags in the first place.  I think you’re missing the concept of why we use them. You think that by using flashy wit with no spaces and starting it off with a pound sign that we’ll appreciate your photo that much more?  Hashtags are the pet rocks of social media.  Nobody has a clue why we use them, they’re just the trendy thing to be a part of so we might as well join them, right?

Wrong.  Hashtags are pointless. A step in the wrong direction of mankind’s potential intelligence.  A sign that shows we are only using less than 1% of those lumps attached to our necks.  Take my little sister Lunchbox for example, who this afternoon toyed with the idea of giving her soon to be born daughter Raleigh, the middle name of hashtag.  THAT’S RIGHT! My niece’s name would be Raleigh # Bybee.  Who the curse word thinks that’s a good idea?

No one.  She might as well give it a manly middle name like Ross, or Elner, or something weird like that. 

Give it up all of you stalkers that check your feed every six minutes and upload pictures of soggy bowls of Captain Crunch and pink retro granny bikes you rode to work this morning.  We see that you need the attention with thumbs up signs and little remarks about your photos making you feel like we actually care, but must you continually write a four-page essay without using the space bar and think that adds value to your contribution to social media?

Because honestly, it makes you look like a complete jacka##.