Word on the street is that hashtags are taking over the world of social media.
United States news outlets agree and have grabbed ahold of the hashtag in recent media stories and often feed them into mainstream news. There has been an increased effort from the media to view these hashtags and the content behind them.
Hashtags are a powerful conversation tool and are a beneficial way to connect, but only when they are used correctly and the meaning behind them is known.
In practice, using a hashtag often entails becoming part of a conversation via social media which leads to the recent string of hashtags that brought light to powerful stories of domestic violence and allowed women to speak out about experiences that often remain secretive and behind closed doors: #WhyIStayed #WhyILeft.
DiGiorno’s Pizza piggybacked off these hashtags as a PR stunt to promote their brand. What actually happened was a PR fail and outraged Twitter users. This emphasizes the importance of understanding the meaning behind a hashtag.
As these hashtags have gone viral, the issue of domestic violence has become more topical. It has been brought up in classrooms, between colleagues, and everywhere accessible rather than being shut up and out of everyday speech. It has sparked blogs, articles and essays. It has broken through barriers meant to keep the topic at bay.
Though this issue was brought to light because of the Ray Rice incident, domestic violence is now being seen because of these hashtags and brings forth a sense of commonality that most refuse to recognize concerning the issue. The intent of the hashtag was to expose the experience that victims suffer, and how it is both mentally and physically harder to leave than one might expect. According to the National Coalition Against Domestic Violence, “70-80% of intimate partner homicides, no matter which partner was killed, the man physically abused the woman before the murder.”
It took an NFL player and his then fiancé, now wife, to allow this topic to be spoken about so passionately and freely. America finally had a visual to what domestic violence looks like and it stirred a gut-wrenching response. But domestic violence has always been awful. Having visual exposure to the issue does not make the offense worse. The hashtags suggest this.
These hashtags have essentially acted as a microphone for both victims of domestic violence and those organizations seeking to help them. America is hearing the stories and responding in a way that was not possible before the hashtag epidemic hit. The hashtag in this instance has proven to be effective in cultivating conversation rather than being a branding or marketing scheme in the advertising world.
These hashtags have allowed an issue that has long hiddenin the shadows to be brought to the forefront of American conversation and are allowing not only new voices to emerge, but community as well.