Your Hashtag Sucks: Oct 7
The Internet screams at itself in a never-ending, terrifying wail about stuff that probably doesn't matter. Occasionally, there's sense to be found within the ceaseless screaming, and we'll look for it each week in Your Hashtag Sucks.
#NationalCoffeeDay
For one day, Internet denizens were assaulted by coffee facts that everyone heard last year, coffee-drinking selfies, and an unending barrage of comments about how coffee is the life-giver, the morning-maker, the god-killer, and the soul-awakener. Perhaps the lonely people on the Internet were just celebrating a banal commonality, but coffee awareness is not something that needs a boost. Perhaps you'll come to your senses after a cup or three, you caffeine-addicted sheep.
#StandwithPP
It could have been a hashtag about using a urinal, but #StandwithPP was a momentary phenomenon during which people turned their profile pictures pink and branded them with the #StandwithPP hashtag. Another slacktivist move by those who care lots, but do not care enough to actually do anything, #StandwithPP, didn't explain itself enough to be useful. It's about Planned Parenthood, by the way. What about #GoodInThePHood, or heck, even #SupportPlannedParenthood? Why make sense when you need to save precious Twitter characters?
#HalloweenWhopper
Burger King brought their A1-infused hamburger buns to America just in time to be spooky for Halloween, and with the unnaturally black bread came waves of premature derision from fast foodies everywhere. While A1 is the undisputed king of all meat condiments, dollar menu diners reported that the buns tasted burnt, and that they turned the eaters' excrement green. The #HalloweenWhopper hashtag quickly turned from photos of the burger to public photos of the intestinal aftermath, and mankind stumbled closer to the void.
#MakeASongFeelSick
Gaggles of failed comedians took to Twitter to change a single word of a song title to make it refer to an illness instead of its original subject, making not only songs feel sick, but anyone following Twitter. Started by @MusicalHashtags, because rhyming things is apparently a fun and challenging game for adults now, #MakeASongFeelSick included gems like "Everybody's Gone Barfin'" and "Barfin' USA." Here's one: "Gastroenteritis." It's Ben Folds' "Gone", but with the title changed to "Gastroenteritis." Now please shut it down forever.
#peeple
Peeple, an app that was designed to rate people, exploded on Twitter when one of its co-founders described it as "Yelp for people," which seemed to position the app as fertile ground for cyberbullying. While the company later stated that the app would only include people who opt into the program and was designed to share love, the duo seem to remain oblivious to the evil implications of their work, and that fake profiles are pretty easy to make. Unfortunately, the company also seriously derailed an existing company called Peeple which manufactures a security camera for peepholes, which is now desperately trying to clear its name.
#selfieforseb
It took some digging to figure out what #selfieforseb actually meant. Apparently, 15-year old YouTube karaokist Sebastian Olzanski has leveraged the hashtag to get thousands of young girls to send pictures of themselves to him every week. As though young girls needed more excuses to take pictures of themselves and post them online in a self-destructive miasma of stupidity, Sebastian manages to not only inspire dangerous behavior, but profit from it. #socialsecuritynumberforseb.
#BGC14
A hashtag to promote Bad Girls Club, a reality show which follows a group of women who, and we quote Wikipedia here, exhibit violence, "rascally" behavior, and dangerous mental illness issues. The first things that the #BGC14 tag brings up are images of nudity and violence, so there's your collective psyche, America. This is who you've become, and why #positivebehavior or #selfawareness will never be a trending hashtag.
#MakeAmericaMoreAmerican
This hashtag was unsure if it was about making fun of Americans, racism against any group of people deemed "not American enough," gun control, or just making up extremely excessive fast food ideas, as though Hardee's didn't have that covered already. A deep-fried hot dog shoved up in a teriyaki chipotle burger between two Doritos tacos? Sure, but it's never a good idea to summon a hashtag which generalizes or isolates any group of people, no matter how deserving they might seem. #YesAllWhatever.
#WhenIWasYourAge
Another self-righteous hashtag meant to emphasize how incredibly difficult it was to grow up in a time before anyone knew it was difficult, #WhenIWasYourAge also exists to criticize younger generations for how easy they have it. Because cyberbullying, increased social pressures to embrace antisocial behaviors, wealth inequality, and the death of the American dream are all super easy to deal with. #WhenIWasYourAge, things sucked in different ways, and Super Mario didn't run his mouth all of the time.
#AllDayBreakfast
Because Burger King can't be the only distributor of meat-like patties to get a hashtag this week, McDonald's paid to promote their own. #AllDayBreakfast exists to remind people that the McChain will now be serving their morning grease-feast all day, as if those guys don't have a hard enough time getting the order of my Big Mac right. It goes bun, burger, bun. If you do anything but this, you have ruined my day... but I bet yours is still worse. They got rid of the Bacon Clubhouse burger for all-day egg discs?
#MPRBooksDay
An excuse for people to pull the one book they own off of their dusty shelf and take a selfie while they pretend to read it. We all know that the only reading anyone does is on the toilet, that's just the instructions to that dumb Farm Heroes game. While promoting the fading art of reading is important, stopping to take a picture of yourself behind a book is surely disruptive to the process. It's like putting your moment of silence on Vine. Don't do it.
#TheCure
The dark wave pop band from West Sussex announced a 2016 tour, and old goths everywhere dug out their eyeliner. Though frontman Robert Smith pulled a reverse-John Popper and now looks like a ball of pizza dough that someone found in a shower drain, he'll haul himself on stage for at least one more tour and warble out his echoey, depressing classics.
#AskShay
Pretty Little Liars star Shay Mitchell co-wrote a book about being young and dumb in Vancouver, and as part of her promotional tour, she took to Twitter to answer fans' questions. The quality of the book is questionable, judging by Amazon's trusty "Look Inside" feature, which reveals that one of the main characters is described as having "high, hard melon boobs." The story also includes Sophia, an aspiring "Irish and Filipona" actress who is very obviously Mitchell herself, but who cares what happens to her after hearing the phrase "hard melon boobs"?