The one thing that separates old and young people online

One of the great things about following your friends’ parents on Instagram is that it’s a nostalgic throwback to a simpler time online. On ParentGram, there are no heavily curated (but purposefully chaotic) Insta-dumps, no invitations to GRWM (Get Ready With Me), and definitely no AMA (Ask Me Anything) about their recently diagnosed ADHD.

Instead, it is primarily pictures of pets, pictures of things they’ve eaten, and pictures of them with their adult children, which invite comments from other parents on ParentGram (“OMG, Scott is so big! I remember when he was a baby”) and, of course, pictures of them on holiday.

Once the darling of social media and a powerful tool for mobilising the masses, the humble #hashtag must now be used only ironically, or preferably not at all unless you’re a parent.Credit: Michael Howard

The holiday photos are my favourite. I would much rather scroll through a carousel of my friend’s parents’ trip to Machu Picchu than watch a carefully edited Reel of an influencer exploring Uluwatu.

In addition to being wholesome content and serving as a miniature history lesson (I have learnt so much about the world from their captions), ParentGram is single-handedly keeping alive a social media relic: the #hashtag.

Once a staple of the internet, the hashtag now belongs to the Boomers (like everything else #LOL), who bravely continue to use (and abuse) the system. Only on your friends’ parents’ feeds will you see posts accompanied by hashtags like #whataview #livemusic #lovethem and, my personal favourite, the hashtag interrupted by punctuation #it’s5oclocksomewhere.

Of course, it wasn’t always this way. In 2007, Google product designer Chris Messina created the hashtag, proposing using the # symbol on Twitter to group tweets by topic. Despite initial pushback from Twitter, the idea quickly took off, becoming a universal tool for organising conversations, tracking trends, and amplifying campaigns.

And, at first, it really was a handy tool.

Shortly after its creation, a fire in San Diego led to the first widespread use of the hashtag, in this case #sandiegofire, which allowed users to easily track updates about the fire in their feeds. By 2009, the hashtag became a central part of the turbulent protests responding to that year’s presidential election in Iran, regularly dubbed the Twitter Revolution.

According to Twitter, in the decade since it was launched, an average of 125 million hashtags were shared every day around the world. So ubiquitous was the hashtag that any significant event felt incomplete without one. Whether at a wedding, a 40th birthday, or a work conference, the first question was usually: “Wait, what’s the hashtag?”

Arguably, the hashtag’s most powerful moment came in 2017 with the #MeToo movement.

Demonstrators supporting the #MeToo movement at a rally for International Women’s Day in Seoul, South Korea, in 2018. Credit: AP

Gaining global attention on the back of allegations against Hollywood producer Harvey Weinstein, #MeToo became a rallying cry against sexual assault and harassment. So crucial was the # to the movement that the phrase “Hashtag Me Too” worked its way into the vernacular.

Despite the big wins, there were signs along the way that the hashtag was destined to become a victim of its own success. Inevitably, brands and corporations got involved, which always signals the death knell of any good idea.

In 2011, during the Arab Spring uprising, #Cairo was trending, which seemed like the perfect time for American fashion retailer Kenneth Cole to jump on the #bandwagon, posting: “Millions are in uproar in #Cairo. Rumour is they heard our new spring collection is now available online.”

#OwnGoalCredit: Screenshot

Closer to home, in 2015, the Victorian Taxi Association launched #YourTaxis to encourage people to share their taxi experiences, but the campaign was flooded with reports of harassment and negative experiences, leading to a PR crisis.

There were less serious mishaps, too. Who can forget when Britain’s Got Talent winner Susan Boyle promoted her new album launch with the unfortunate hashtag #susanalbumparty (read it slowly) or when the English town of Chester promoted the Chester Literature Festival with #CLITFest?

Hilarious #fails aside, the real culprit responsible for the death of the hashtag is an all too familiar enemy: the algorithm. Now that AI-powered algorithms know us better than we know ourselves, there is no need to follow the cavoodles hashtag, because you’re already being repeatedly force-fed cavoodle content.

This situation is so dire that Elon Musk, part-time politician and full-time boss of the internet, took to X last year to issue a call to arms: “Please stop using hashtags. The system doesn’t need them any more, and they look ugly.”

Taking advice on what looks ugly from a man who constantly wears a trucker hat might seem jarring, yet Elon is on the money for once. Initially conceived to unite people, the hashtag is now a symbol of division, a line in the sand separating young and old.

The good news is that much like the Facebook status, my parents, your friend’s parents, and everyone else’s parents will continue to hashtag with abandon, oblivious to its obsolescence.

And quite frankly, why shouldn’t they? As my mate Cam’s dad, Alan, reminded us all during his most recent holiday post (a 10-day cruise to Antarctica), #YouOnlyLiveOnce.

Find more of the author’s work here. Email him at [e-mail] or follow him on Instagram at @thomasalexandermitchell and on Twitter @_thmitchell.