Hashtags: Are the four lines crossing the line?

[dropcap]H[/dropcap]ashtags: a way to get more likes on your Instagram photos or a dangerous, alienating symptom of a society that is running out of time and space to talk? Maybe that’s taking it a little too far, but, now more than ever, in light of #JeSuisCharlie, it seems necessary and relevant to consider whether the elusive ‘#’ is doing more harm than good.

Undeniably, hashtags are an effective way to keep tabs on recent trends, and can often be entirely trivial, harmless, and hilarious. Yet #JeSuisCharlie, coming closest to home in its adopted form ‘The Boar Is Charlie’ featured in the paper a few weeks ago, has sparked great controversy. Having read Rebecca Myers’ article which explicitly includes the statement that “we have – and must – raise our voices against islamophobia,”

it initially seemed strange that people were offended by the headline and hashtag “The Boar is Charlie.” However, on reflection and through conversation, the offence became understandable.

Regardless of whether the hashtag was motivated by a desire to represent solidarity against terrorist attacks on journalists, to promote Charlie Hebdo or otherwise, it could be interpreted as: I am a French satirist magazine that often expresses anti-Islamic views. That, at least from my knowledge of the paper, is not what the Boar is. The problem with hashtags seems to be that in trying to attract readership and get things trending whilst they are still relevent, we hasten to create and use terms and use terms and phrase which when looking from the inside out seem  harmless enough, but which fail to translate correctly in literal terms. The hashtag becomes loaded, so to speak.

#CopsOffCampus is another example. Those ‘inside’ saw it as a statement concerning the protection of campuses as places of free speech. Those ‘outside’ saw a call to remove police from campus and allow riot to ensue. Ultimately the issues addressed by such hashtags are far more complex than anything that could be expressed in a 140 character tweet, let alone anything shorter.

Yet our efforts to condense these issues into bitesize on-the-go chunks often have the reverse effect; instead of ganing support for a cause, they alienate people from it.

#CopsOffCampus was so alienating that it sparked a smaller, but nonetheless existent, #WeHeartLawEnforcement campaign at Warwick; similarly, #JeSuisCharlie was countered by the following trend #IAmNotCharlie. While the existence of these responses clearly shows the failings of hashtags as misrepresenting, misunderstanding, and alienating, they perhaps offer some hope for the world of social media. A flatmate asked me why the Boar bothered to run an article on Charlie Hebdo because of its controversial nature. Why didn’t the paper stay silent and save ourselves the backlash?

But honestly, now, I’m grateful for it. I have been exposed through discussion surrounding the article both in seminar and on Facebook to a whole world of issues I was unaware of before. The nature and meaning of #JeSuisCharlie consequently changed for me and, from this newfound knowledge, I was able to reconsider whether I was, in fact, Charlie at all. The important point was that the hashtag created conversation; the ‘arguing’ was not an endless clashing of heads over an irrelevant matter, but, rather, enlightening and constructive discussion about important issues.

Just because what we say now seems inescapable once carved in the virtual stone of the internet, that does not mean we cannot change our minds.

To tweet #JeSuisCharlie in a moment, from your understanding at that point, is not to say#JeSuisCharlie forever. It literally has a time stamp. Despite its dangers the hashtag remains powerful, prevalent and, arguably, necessary in the modern age. So, by all means start with a ‘#’, just remember to keep talking.