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June 25, 2010

the hashtag parenthetical

Filed under:, , — cwage @ 9:36 pm

There have been a lot of weird emergent side-effects of twitter's unique 140 character limit, e.g. the viral spread of @[name] as reply shorthand. I think one of the more bizarre, though, is the nameless phenomenon that I am now calling the "hashtag parenthetical".. What is a hashtag parenthetical?

This is a good example of a hashtag parenthetical. #maybenot #badexample #usuallyfunnier

It's this emergent form of derived humor by adding in a hashtag on twitter what would, in a more traditional form of writing, be placed in a parenthetical of some sort. But I see it cropping up all over the place lately. Weird, isn't it?

  • http://twitter.com/jimreams Jim Reams

    #goodobservation #youhadtoknowthiswascoming

  • http://dancedivam.blogspot.com @dancedivam

    I heart hashtag parentheticals. #noreally

  • http://www.dailytechnology.net Brian D.

    This was common pre-Twitter (ala fark.com). It was often a slash back then.
    http://fark.wikia.com/wiki/Slashies

    When writing a comment, users will frequently add a postscript prepended by a forward slash (/). Just as people can get carried away with PS, PPS, PPPS, etc., so can users go crazy with their slash-notes.
    Sometimes the phrase "slashies" is itself used as a postscript to indicate the user if aware of their going overboard.
    This is a corruption of the older internet meme of closing a fake HTML tag after a block of text.

  • http://chris.quietlife.net Chris

    Interesting, yeah, I didn't make that connection.. I still often use the HTML tag thing myself..

  • http://Freakyweasel.wordpress.com Freaky Weasel

    You seem to have come up with an episode title for Big Bang Theory. Well done.

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