Hashtags are used for everything from connecting people with like minded political views to
grouping pictures of Pintrest fails.
But after posting a slideshow of your dog's birthday party with the caption #blessed,
have you ever wondered: Where does
that symbol come from?
Whether it's knowing what's trending on Twitter or trying to remember impossibly long
wedding hashtags, we can all admit that our favorite little symbol serves an important
function: grouping things together online.
But let's play a little game with our #bestie the Hashtag.
Because when you see it here: it's a hashtag.
But what about here.
And what if we switch that.
Or how about if you see it and you happen to be a programmer.
Or A chess player.
Or a coal miner.
Or a doctor.
But before you get there you have to #askyourself:
Where did that little sign come from and what are all of it's meanings?
And how did its current and most popular iteration, the infamous hashtag, get its start?
Plus how long are they going playout this #weaksauce hashtag joke?
We're done.
So it seems like the first iteration of the hashtag goes back all the way to ancient Rome.
Romans used the abbreviation "lb", short for "libra", to mark the measurement for
pound by weight, or "libra pondo".
Which coincidentally explains why Libras are represented in astrology by scales.
Over time scribes and writers started drawing a line through the top of the "lb" to
note that it was a contraction.
And because not only doctors have bad handwriting, over time this contraction started to look
more and more like the "pound sign."
In the late 17th century Isaac Newton, of the infamous apple mythology, started using
the "lb" sign a lot.
So much so that it was added to the early printing press.
The dates of the exact shift from the pound contraction to the pound sign are fuzzy but
most agree it was around the 19th century.
And what's interesting is that the # sign has always had a unique relationship to technology.
In the mid 20th century developers at Bell Labs started to transition the old rotary
phones to a new style of keyboard where people could just push the buttons.
After fiddling around with different designs, they settled on a 3 by 4 square.
But they were worried about the poor lonely little zero hanging out on the bottom row.
So they decided to place our good buddy the asterisk on the left side, and a diamond on
the right.
But the diamond didn't last.
In the 1960s Bell Labs started trying to get phones to communicate with computers and the
diamond wasn't really a part of programming language because it wasn't on the QWERTY keyboard.
So they swapped out the diamond for another symbol on the keyboard: the good old
pound sign.
Except for some weird reason they called it an "octothorpe."
Those of you old enough to remember when phones had buttons and not just touchscreens, know
that the pound sign was a pretty important key when dialing moviefone or any other kind
of automated phone system.
And in my case, it was the last button you pushed to find out if it was a snow day.
So how did this humble symbol become arguably the most important and trendy sign of the
21st century?
That's all thanks to a guy named Chris Messina.
In the ancient history of Aug 23rd 2007, Messina pitched an idea on Twitter:
"How do you feel about using # (pound) for groups.
As in #barcamp [msg]?"
Messina, who was a developer at Google, thought that the hashtag had staying power since it
would allow Twitter to create hyperlinks between groups.
He said, "Twitter didn't support groups, so I figured the next best thing to do was
to use the text of a tweet to indicate topicality."
Messina also thought it sounded like a cool idea because there was some precedent for
using the pound sign this way.
But Twitter shot him down because they thought
the idea was "for nerds."
But we'll just have to call this #revengeofthenerds because the hashtag exploded and all of us
nerds are still using it today.
Ok so we've figured out the #history of the hashtag (I promise I won't do that again).
But why does it matter?
Well if we take the origin of the hashtag one step further it actually becomes a very
interesting example of Semiotics.
And trust me, just like the early hashtag, this is definitely nerds, but still actually
pretty cool.
In its most basic form, semiotics is the study of how language makes meaning.
And according to early semiotician Ferdinand de Saussure, there are two key components:
The signified: the concept or object being represented or referred to.
This can be abstract or concrete like "anger" or "love" or ...well concrete.
The second key part is: The signifier: This is the word, symbol, utterance,
etc. that is used to refer to the signified.
Okay, to understand this, think of an object or concept in your head, whether it's a
chair, an apple, or the vague feeling of listlesness that is ennui.
Now think of the thing itself as separate from the word.
Because those words/images you're using to describe the signified ('chair' 'apple'
or the more fun to say 'ennui') are NOT the thing itself.
Language never is.
In fact, many would argue that the utterances are somewhat if not entirely arbitrary.
We use signifiers as modes of communication to express both simple and complex thought,
but they're not inherently tied to the thing they describe.
So imagine a world in which your word for "chair" was not linked to what we consider
a chair but actually lined up to the feeling of dissatisfaction we call ennui.
So the sentence, "I feel ennui while sitting in this chair" could just as easily be,
"I feel chair while sitting in this ennui."
And why does that matter?
Well let's go back to our friend the hashtag.
It represents an interesting case study in semiotics for many reasons:
First: it developed alongside the evolution of new technologies like standardized measurements,
the printing press, QWERTY keyboards, and touch tone phones.
But when the 21st century brought us Twitter, the hashtag shifted again.
So what the hasthag or pound sign or octothorpe signified was always changing.
If you went to someone in the 1960s and told them that the pound sign on their telephone
would one day be useful for people sharing memes on smart phones… they would have no
idea what you're talking about.
Because Richard Dawkins wouldn't even coin the word "meme" until 1976 and the only
thing a phone could do was let you talk to someone else.
But that same person who wouldn't understand that concept in the 1960s is now your cool
aunt hashtagging your baby pictures online.
What's weird is that we think of words and symbols as stable because that's how we
use them to communicate everyday.
But both words and the people who articulate them express a certain amount of evolution
and instability as symbols are used over time.
That evolution can be slow (like the "lb" sign) or rapid (like the hashtag).
That's why etymology traces both the changes in words like spelling/appearance, alongside
the changes in human usage over time.
And the hashtag is a pretty great example of this.
It's shape and meaning had to be stable enough for people to use it in a given era.
But it was also capacious enough to encapsulate new concepts as they emerged, even if those
concepts rendered older meanings of the word out of date.
So to paraphrase Shrek, "words and symbols, are like onions.
They have layers."
So how does this all add up:
We started with a sign for measuring weight in ancient Rome and evolved into a ubiquitous
little square that dominates our social media.
But the humble hashtag is also an example of how meaning exceeds the bounds of the signifier
itself.
Because even though both the signifier and the signified of the hashtag have changed
through time and usage, there is a common feature in the pound sign, and that's the
grouping together of both objects and concepts.
So whether it's adding up numbers, measuring weight, marking the end of a code, distinguishing
the qualities of a sound, or even linking together people with similar interests online,
this symbol is pretty great for holding things together.
So what do you think?
Any other unknown meanings of the hashtag we missed in this episode?
Anything to add to the hash sign's semiotic history?
Leave them in the comments and we'll see you next week.
Last week we looked at why 18 is considered adult.
So let's see what some of you had to say.
some of you were wondering when the legal drinking age became 21.
Well around the same time congress was lowering the voting age, some states experimented with
lowering the drinking age to 18, 19, or 20.
But people in that age range are still developing and maturing, which is probably why it's
so hard to rent a car until you're 25.
As a result, those states saw an increase in drunk driving accidents involving teens.
And that made advocacy groups like Mothers Against Drunk Driving well….MAAD.
In 1984 the Minimum Drinking Age Act was passed in congress, raising the drinking age to 21
in all states.
And the states that didn't comply risked losing 10% of their infrastructure budget as a result.
Marcia Mooney Meyer asked how many 18 year olds actually head out to the polls.
That's a great question.
According to a 2015 washington post article, even though people in the 18-25 age group
vote at a lower rate than the rest of the population, people who are 18 actually have
a higher voter turnout than their slightly older peers in the 20-25 age group.
I'll drop the article down in the works cited page so you can read more.
We got some comments from teachers who said they'll be sharing our videos with students
and that's awesome!
So if you think our episodes can be helpful teaching aides feel free to share them and let us know
how they helped your lesson plans!
Also remember to follow us on Instagram @pbsoriginofeverything for all your GIF content and history memes.
And we'll see you next week.
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