What's up with the Hashtags on social media?

[Amy R]

Maybe I'm just getting old, but I just don't get it. I know the Hashtag has been used on Twitter for a while, although I don't understand the meaning of it. I don't use Twitter but I do use Facebook, and now a lot of my friends are using Hashtags on their posts. So somebody tell me what it's supposed to mean, what the purpose is.

[Bordeaux]

Hashtags on twitter connect different tweets all into one post. On Facebook people just type it just because.

[Lag]

its a metadata tag, if you did a search on yahoo answers in the search query it would generator the same word that you just typed in that search. If I searched hashtag your post would come up because the word hashtag is a association with what I just search. also could be a play on words to be cleaver.

I hate dogs #(some guys name)

or when you posted this question you went to Home > All Categories > Social Science > Other - Social Science >

each one of these are hashtags. so if you went to social science it would generate questions from social science search query and this question would come up.

[Darwin Flores]

I think the purpose is to discuss a certain topic.
For example, take the Hashtag trending yesterday, #PaxEast.
This was a Hashtag for people going to Pax East.
So it's just a way for a topic to standout.

[Random Guy]

hashtag is basically a keyword. It lets people find other posts about the same thing.