hashtags #31days

Awhile back, I saw a bit of hashtag bashing and thought I'd respond.  When I first saw twitter years ago, it was the hashtags that kept me away.  As an outsider, I thought they cluttered up tweets and made them unintelligible.  But now I kind of fancy them. 

I love them as verbal punctuation.  I love them as topic magnets -- especially during Community episodes   But Gizmodo thinks they're overused.  So do Fallon and JT (video below).  I've never seen anyone use them in real life but it could be adorable, like Gary Vaynerchuk overusing air quotes.  [more after the vid]    .   

Well, that's what I wanted to write before Storyline.  Then something happened.  I was sitting in the concert hall on the first day waiting for the event to start and took a picture of the stage.  It wasn't until later when cropping the picture I noticed there was a hashtag for the conference on two big screens.  My brain treated them both as digital noise.  They were this huge part of the stage design and I'd blocked them out completely.  Guess I don't have the friendly relationship with tags I thought I did. 

Maybe context is a factor.  Maybe outside of twitter they're just ads.  In a way, the ones at Storyline were.  I will think about this some more.  #science  #confused  #bummed  .   

What do you think of hashtags?