I found love in a hopeless place. Yeah, some would argue that a Twitter hashtag is something terrible. They can be manipulated by bots and trolls (#ReleaseTheMemo). They can be hijacked by angry users (#TellingItLikeItIs). They can be just all around strange (#KanyesAnalPlaylist). 

The hashtag’s intended purpose — what Chris Messina pitched to Twitter in 2007 — was to bring people together. They do, my relationship being a case in point. I won’t bore you with all of the details, but TL;DR TechCrunch’s annual conference uses the hashtag #TCDisrupt and including those 10 characters in a tweet is how I met my friend turned significant other.  Read more…

More about Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Hashtag, and Trending Topics

Source: Mashable | What's in a hashtag? A spark for our passions, in love and in war

Paul Ryan is boasting on Twitter about all the good the G.O.P. tax plan will do. In related news, the House Majority Leader might not understand how money works for most people.

Ryan, tweeting from his personal account, earned himself a good, old-fashioned public shaming on Saturday after he tried to hype the recently passed tax bill. The extra $1.50 in one “pleasantly surprised” Pennsylvania woman’s weekly paycheck is enough to cover an annual Costco membership, he wrote.

The tweet was so astoundingly dumb that Ryan actually deleted it while we were in the process of writing about it. But let his original intent sink in for a minute. This was Ryan’s idea of a positive outcome for the new tax plan. Read more…

More about Politics, Paul Ryan, Web Culture, Tax Plan, and Us World
Source: Mashable | The internet is having a field day with Paul Ryan's oblivious #GOPTaxScam tweet