By Stefano Blanca Sciacaluga

I've been spending a lot of time on Instagram lately, as a way of putting off getting out of bed in the mornings for a while longer. It's also the perfect thing to browse when you're on the toilet, I've found. I've been on Instagram for a few years now and although I started with a strict policy of not following more than one hundred people, to be able to keep up (because I checked it maybe once a day) I now find that although I have no desire to follow four hundred people (I'm up to a cool, manageable, comfortable two-ten right now) I check it so regularly that I actually end up in the explore section; a tab I never, ever clicked on. Oh and the things I see! From memes, to memes, to memes...just kidding I see more than just memes, also photography, posts from things like National Geographic and my favourite of all, local Instagram users. Because I really do think, and I don't want to sound like an idiot, that all the people worth following, or those I know of, I follow already. Then there's a huge amount of Gibraltarians (mainly girls in their teens and twenties) who think their lives are exclusive and exciting enough that people would want to follow them to see #blessed sunsets and #mipollo drunk selfies. And then, once you've taken those two groupings out of the picture you end up with the best local Instagram users, the cringiest bunch and the ones that mostly haven't got a clue what they're doing. It's a good way to start my day.

But before I delve deeper, into more detail, I think it's necessary to cover the history of hashtagging and how it came to be what it is today. Believe it or not 'hashtags' have been around for longer than you think; just think of how payphones, landlines and even mobiles' numerical keyboards have # on them. And even longer than that, apparently it's been around for hundreds of years, but I won't go into that as I'm not even sure of it myself, but if you're my age or older you'd know the # as the pound sign, or the number sign and more recently the hash key.

Yes, that t-shirt Jerry gives his dad says number one dad not 'hashtag one dad'.

The first time I remember # being used on the Internet has to be on IRC when I was in my early teens. I'm sure a lot of you remember. If I'm not mistaken the hash went in front of chat rooms and if you think about it it was a way of grouping people together who were interested in the same topic #gibraltar. Then for a number of years it lay low, I forgot about it and didn't see it again until Twitter came about. And that wasn't even at the beginning of Twitter; Twitter launched in July 2006 and more than a year later some clever dude called Chris, inspired by the use of the hash in IRC decided to tweet something like "why don't we use # for groups", as in, you search for that hashtag and find other people talking about the same subject. Great idea, not sure of the timeline from then on if I'm honest but I'm guessing "it was a pretty great idea so we're going to carry on doing this" is accurate. Just over nine years later and think of how many important events in these years have been covered on the Internet with the use of hashtags. They are incredibly useful, if you know how to use them.

'If you know how to use them', being very important here; because from what I've gathered the vast majority of people out there, or maybe in here, as in in Gibraltar, seem to be clueless. What I've learnt my extensive use of the Internet and in particular Twitter, where hashtags are more useful, there are three clear ways of using them. Or perhaps, three kinds of people that use hashtags. 

1. The serious hashtagger

These are the people using hashtags for what they were meant to be used. They want to click on #NobelPrize and kick up a fuss that Bob Dylan won the prize for literature when you can't understand half the things he's singing. What I'm saying is, good on them, making use of hashtags is a great way to find things out. They're probably the kind of people that read multiple sources for the same news item and that's fine. It's also OK that they're really anal about capitalising the N and P in the Nobel Prize hashtag, for fear of the tag not working out if it's all in lowercase (it does) #ChillOut

2. The ironic hashtagger

These are the people who don't take hashtags seriously, the demographic I feel I fall into best. I know how useful they are, I know how to use them and have used them in a serious way, but I also know that Twitter is good enough that I can simply search for keywords without the need to put a # on the front and I'll get a result. Plus, I rarely go out of the comfort of my timeline and the people I follow. Ironic hashtaggers are also the kind of people that were probably hashtagging on Facebook before Facebook make hashtags on Facebook a thing, on Facebook. The kind of people that will #yaaaas today and #yaaaaas tomorrow, knowing full well that they'll never click on the hashtag, that there's no consistency because an extra A cancels that out and that truthfully we really don't expect people to click on these hashtags because they either have no cultural significance or it's just obvious that nobody else would hashtag that #yeppa #jarjarbinkspayaso #pizzalyf 

3. The downright clueless hashtagger

These are the kind of people that aren't even funny anymore. I used to laugh at people who had no clue, now I can't even do that, it's got too out of hand, people are too dumb. Without meaning to offend anybody I'd place most of these horrible hashtaggers within the following parameters:

50+ Speak Freely keyboard bashers trying hashtags for the first time

30+ Hip divorcees trying to appeal to the young'uns

-25 Who've never left Gibraltar

-18 Who've grown up with the Internet already there, with no need to learn anything about the Internet or have to put up with the struggles of a dial up connection.

These people, in this last group are actually the worst of the bunch. You might think it was the 70 year old man on Speak Freely writing #sPain #self determanation (the space that cancels out the hashtag); but no, it's the under 18's, those kids that really should know how to use the Internet better any anybody my age or older but in reality think the Internet ends at Facebook, Instagram, YouTube and (now) Netflix

The kind of people that will ask you about something with their phones unlocked in their hand instead of Googling it. The kind of people who don't know you can type your Google search into any browser's address bar and it'll redirect you, and instead type out www.google.com (they don't know you can skip the www either). It's strange, and I really don't understand how young people can be so computer illiterate but I've had to deal with some people under 18 and even under 25 that send shivers down my spine remembering a time when I had to spend hours and hours teaching my dad what Google is (not how to use it, that came later). This bunch are the kind of internet users I hate most. They are the kind of people that have heard of hashtags and how useful they can be, and how using them wisely on a platform such as Instagram can mean the difference between three likes and three hundred likes (because I'm here busting my butt taking photos and get three likes and these half naked kiddos get three hundred in ten minutes). And it's only Instagram, because these people don't use Twitter and trends show that less and less young people are using Facebook these days.

So they go on Instagram. And this is where I've found them. I'm not actively seeking seventeen year olds, I'm not a creep, but they appear in my Instagram explore section thanks to some algorithm or something. Now these kids are exposed to all sorts of things in the media, they know all of the Kardashians’ makeup rituals but don't know where Armenia is - where they came from - and all they want is to have as many follows as the Biebs. So they emulate the poses they see in photos (girls AND guys), they follow a ton of people and ask for #followback and carefully curate an image of themselves for Instagram that is extremely far from the reality of getting carried down the street passed the Line Wall Road NatWest being propped up by another guy and a girl, drunk out your skull, at 11pm on a Friday (I saw that last week). I've seen teenagers half in the nude on Instagram! It's a little out of hand. But really the biggest crime of it all is, of course, the hashtagging.

I'm sure if you search for one of the Jenner/Kardashian chicks you'll see something like:

"fun night out in #westhollywood with my #besties outfit by #chanel #lanvin #prada..."

And like maybe twenty more hashtags. Which really, you never know, a lot of these celebrities might be using them in an ironic way (not comedians and musicians because they definitely do). You never know. But the fact is they have things to hashtag about, they're making money out of hashtags. Hashtagging everything means for them that they'll continue gaining followers and endorsements and money in the bank. But that's certainly not the case for seventeen year olds from Gibraltar. Especially not when they're hashtagging ironically without even meaning to (#conmipollo #sumervibezz #alwaysmakinmemorieswithmygirls); making whole sentences into hashtags and misspelling things in Spanish, or English, or both in one hashtag which makes it even more pointless.

But there are two ultimate crimes of hashtagging, committed by this demographic. This is the kind of hashtag misuse that makes me want to quit the internet so I never have to see it again. The kind of thing that makes me wonder what the person is truly thinking and trying to achieve. And these are the people that:

1. Think you have to hashtag every single word and that's the reason why you get a lot of likes in your photos and not because your butt is out and you follow 3000 accounts so you're bound to get a bunch of likes anyway.

#great #night #out #with #friends #love #them #friday #feeling #lol #many #laughs #memories #bring #on #winter #no #filter #hashtag 

2. The ultimate worst. The people who have heard of hashtags from someone who heard about them from someone else who didn't have a clue anyway who told them about it at two in the morning on a Wild Wednesday. So they think just putting a # in there is good enough, essentially replacing the spaces in sentences by the hash key, like so:

#so#good#to#be#back#gib#my#girls#yolo#drinkz#cocktels#long#hair#dont#care#short#skirt#whos#burt

Which is definitely mental, but not only that, it doesn't even work as a hashtag, it doesn't register the hashtag because there's no space before the #. I can't stand either of these two kind of people but if you're going to be annoying and bad at hashtagging at least make sure you're making hashtags. Maybe there's somebody out there looking for #cocktels and you want to be able to help them out. So they can find your lonely photo of you with your nasty tongue out in the search results.

And so, to end and round up thoughts I'd like to offer some guidance. To these people, and all the others who are feeling lost in this world of hashtags here are some tips: 

1. Quit hashtagging if you're doing every single word, or whole sentences in one it's just not for you
2. Make sure you have spelt things correctly
3. Make sure there are no spaces, or punctuation within your hashtags or they'll get messed up
4. Think of what you would like to see, what you would search for, and use appropriate hashtags
5. Remember that if not done properly you could have a million hashtags but none of them will work
6. By all means hashtag ironically, have a laugh with them, actually say "hashtag" followed by whatever you want, if you want
7. If you want to learn to use them observe how others use hashtags, especially companies on the internet, as they actually have professionals in charge of their social media accounts and know what they're doing
8. Ultimately hashtags don't make you cool or edgy. They have a very specific purpose, they're very useful and are really not that difficult to understand.

#seacabo #yata

Stefano Blanca is a writer, artist, photographer and musician living and working in Gibraltar

Email me at: [email protected]