quietlife.net

the hashtag parenthetical

25 Jun 2010

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?

Comments

Jim Reams — June 25, 2010 at 21:39 · reply

#goodobservation #youhadtoknowthiswascoming

@txmere — June 25, 2010 at 21:41 · reply

I heart hashtag parentheticals. #noreally

Brian D. — June 25, 2010 at 21:45 · reply

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

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.

cwage — June 25, 2010 at 21:49 · reply

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

Freaky Weasel — June 26, 2010 at 00:57 · reply

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

Thanks! Your comment has been submitted and will appear shortly.

Leave a comment