why are people putting the sign # on facebook statuses?

[Mystery Mystert]

i dont get it. lately i see people putting # before they put words like for instance:

going to the bar this weekend #winning. or something like that. just wondering why ppl do that?

[Katy]

that's something on Twitter that people do when they want to trend a certain topic? maybe they're doing it by #accident?

[JB]

It is called "hashtagging" (# is called a hash, and it is a tag). It was originally a Twitter thing to categorize the topic of your post (tag it) and since FB statuses are basically the same thing as Twitter, it is slowly being used there too.

The #winning hashtag is specifically a reference to Charlie Sheen who joined twitter shortly after his meltdown began and uses the #winning hashtag incessantly, creating a quasi-forced meme.