Hashtags are used as a tool for organizing and categorizing content on social media platforms. The use of hashtags can be seen with trending topics. On many social media platforms, there are lists of trending hashtags that show the most popular or widely used hashtags at a given time. Users can join conversations around these trending topics, increasing the visibility of their content. As mentioned in How social Media content works to control content Visibility, Hashtags play a significant role in the algorithms of many social media platforms. In short, algorithms are complex sets of rules that dictate what content users see in their feeds. Our guest speaker for the class Jodie Dublin mentioned many ways she gets her content to be discoverable and make her content become user engaged. One of those ways was the use of hashtags that are popular giving her a greater opportunity of her content being visible.
Although I have no issue with the use of hashtags as I believe it can be used as a beneficial tool, the way Jodie in particular used her hashtags for her content that sometimes had no relevance to the content posted is something I believe to be dishonorable. Taking advantage of hashtags, specifically ones used to bring awareness to on-going social movements or issues is just wrong. Many creators use hashtags like BLM (etc), because their content directly relates to the social issue that viewers want to see the content based around. Under no circumstances should anyone including Jodie use these hashtags for their own benefit just for the potential of views to go up. Although I would not do it, I do see it from the other side but recommend content creators not to do so.