Why?:Is there a hashtag on my TV screen

Okay, so I'm watching TV on a Tuesday night; I'm settled in my couch, resting from the hard days work I've done and watching what appears to be a drama. I'm focusing my eyes, I'm engaging in the action; there is one thing that's distracting me at the bottom right hand corner of my TV screen, but I've learned to live with it.

Just suddenly, after a pivotal moment during the show I was watching. Something had appeared in the left hand corner of my screen. It started with a pound sign of all things followed by one word. I was dumbfounded by what I saw, it was a mystery to me what it meant, the sudden appearance of the "thing", the detailed word that appeared in that "thing"; I asked my internet savvy son what I was seeing and he told me that it was a "hashtag".

A hashtag? They should term these things "visual distractions".

So why is it on your screen?[edit | edit source]

I just want to watch TV, dagnamit!

I don't know! I asked my son about it, but all he said was that it was "something that people use on twitter to indicate that they like something else." So it's up there in order for people to indicate they like it? Whatever happened to the old fashioned methods of mailing the network or calling up your friends to discuss the show... whatever happened to that?

Maybe the networks are trying to feel hip and new; this thing called Twitter is like revolutionary. I don't know much about Twitter, but I do know about being hip. Why, back in the 60's we used to dance to all kinds of music; swing, rock, big band. Ah, those were the days. Nowadays, people like me are trying to figure out what Twitter is and I've heard that the networks are about 50 years old or something.

Maybe they think that the audience is stupid and feels that it needs to remind them of something. I mean come on, when you've seen a guy throwing a pie at some guy's face; you don't need a hashtag to tell you "oh this guy got creamed in the face" No, you just knew that some guy got a pie thrown in his face. Seriously, back in my day you kids had something called common sense, you knew when something was happening and you knew what was happening at the time as well.

Why don't you just change the channel when it appears?[edit | edit source]

I tried that, but it just keeps appearing on my TV. I've seen thousands from #FancieSkateboards to #TerribleBubbleBath to even #YourEveningNews. It's like these networks are trying to figure out how many words they can combine at once and where they can place these hashtags.

I swear it's such a visual distraction, why does everybody jump on it when they know that it'll ruin the viewing experience. A TV show is supposed to be about the characters, the situations, the drama, the comedy; it shouldn't be about reading text on the bottom of your screen nor encouraging you to post that hashtag on some website which I have no idea about.

If you don't like it, why don't you complain?[edit | edit source]

I had it up to here!

I did, I complained to the network, I complained to my son, I even started up a petition to rid these hashtags from the television landscape but every response I've gotten is "stop being such an old geezer and get with the times." Everybody thinks that I'm crazy for being so bothered by a piece of text on the bottom.

These days, it's so complex with your iPods and your computers... it seems like with every device that comes on, you latch to it as if it were the next best thing and by the time that I've gotten one of your "devices", I find out that it's outdated beyond belief. I miss the time when we didn't have internet, where all you had was family and close friends; ah, those were the days, I could actually communicate to people and my opinion truly mattered; not like today where my opinion isn't worth crap.

If you don't like hashtags, why not go outside?[edit | edit source]

What's with all of the questions? Do you not have anything to say?

And yes I did go outside, I tried to forget about the evils of that pound sign but even outside I faced that dreaded hashtag when I looked up and I saw a promo for some station's 11 o'clock news; did you know what it said? It said #Best11oclockNewsinTown.

I have had it; it seems like everywhere I go, I can't avoid the hashtag. You want to describe a scene, you want it to be simplified? Here you go. #OldGuyGoesCrazy, does that accurately describe how I'm feeling? It should because I'm old, I'm crazy and I had it up to here with hashtags!

You'll see, I'm going to form a group and we're going to call ourselves the "Anti-Hashtagers" and we're going to march to whatever this Twitter thing is and demand that they remove hashtags permanently.

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