Unsung Heroes of Literature: #Annoying: Fifteen Minutes with Hashtag

I caught up with Hashtag during the last days of the Toronto International Film Festival. While they weren’t promoting a film, Hashtag had swung through Toronto as a stop on his current twenty-seven city media tour. They had rented a suite at the Germain, a boutique hotel just across the street from the Bell Lightbox. I was one of twenty-three interviews they did that day. I was slotted between 2:45 and 3:00. As it turned out, I didn’t need that much time. Hashtag’s assistants buzzed about the room the entire time. Each time I brought up their past, Hashtag  looked at his manager before answering. I guess what I’m trying to say can be summed up by one simple detail: Hashtag wore mirrored aviator glasses during our entire conversation. The following interview is a transcript of our conversation and has not been edited.

Open Book: How’s your day?

Hashtag: #Awesome. #Super. #Can’tcomplain. It’s a pretty good time for me.

OB: How would you want me to address you? Number sign? Pound sign? Octophrorpe?

HT: No, no no. No! Hashtag. Please: call me Hashtag.

OB: When I was in high school you were Number Sign.

HT: A lot has changed since then, baby.

OB: Any regrets?

HT: About what? About being on the forefront of information technology? Being an essential part of social media? Taking center stage in the quick march future? #No. #IthinkI’mokay.

OB: What about being true to your roots? You started during the Roman empire, an abbreviation of the term Libra Dondo, or “pound weight.”

HT: #BeforetheFame. Listen — nobody cares about any of that.

OB: That’s why the British still call you Pound Sign. But here in North America you were picked up by bookkeepers in the late 1800s who started to use you to mean “number.”  

HT: This all is so far in the past. Who cares about this?

OB: And in 1968, inside the Bell Telephone Laboratories, you were given the name Octothorpe…

HT: Don’t call me that! Please! Nobody calls me that anymore. Nobody cares about any of this! Octophrorpe is dead. Number sign is dead. Pound sign is dead. I’m Hashtag now! That’s who I am. That’s how you refer to me!

OB: So you define your purpose solely through social media?

HT: Ah, yah?

OB: But that usage is very arbitrary. Isn’t it?

HT: What is?

OB: Well, on August 23^rd 2007, when Chris Messina used you for the very first time, when he invented the idea of organizing content and comments on Twitter by putting Number Sign next to a descriptive word or phrase — basically a simplified form of indexing — he could have gone anywhere on the keyboard. No? It could have just as easily been Caret or Obelus or Tilde. Couldn’t it?  

HT:: Okay. A couple things. First, I had already earned my place on the keyboard. It’s not like I’m Interrobang.

OB: True enough. But you could say that about Square Bracket. Or Ampersand. And they’re actually on the keyboard too.

HT: Second – who the fuck cares? It’s too late to turn back. I’m it! I’m Hashtag! I’m what you use! I’m what everyone uses!

OB: Are you worried about what comes next?

HT: What do you mean?

OB: Well, you know, it’s not like Facebook and Twitter are going to be around forever.

HT: Oh, I don’t know about that…

OB: My kids are already using Instagram, Snapchat. Social media platforms come and go. Even Fliker and Tumblr are getting long in the tooth. There’s no guarantee that when the new one hits…

HT: I’m already on all of those. We’re in talks for all the coming up platforms, the ones you haven’t even heard of yet. You don’t get it do you!? My meaning has changed. I’m beyond Number Sign now. I’m one of the big five now. You got period, comma, exclamation and question marks and me. I mean what I mean now. Just feel proud that you were around to witness the birth of a brand new punctuation mark. You’re not talking to Irony Mark. I’m Hashtag. I have an important, essential usage. I fill a need. Hashtag isn’t just a novelty.

OB: Let’s hope so. Because…

HT: Because?

OB: I guess you can always fall back on being number sign again. No? What’s wrong with that?

HT: We’re done here.

Unsung Heroes of Literature is a series of interviews with the most under-appreciated or routinely overlooked aspects of the book. Next up, a conversation with the Parenthesis Siblings; Round, Curly, Angle and Square.