Social media activism – how much of a difference does it actually make? Is changing your profile picture to a solidarity colour actually effective? Or does it provide more satisfaction for the conscience of the person posting than actual change? Well, like anything else, it’s a start. It’s a spark that can ignite ideas in others and form unions between people. A lot of the problems with this world are huge issues existing on a global scale, so it can be difficult to know how to tackle them. The idea behind hashtags is to use them as a tool to start a worldwide conversation about issues that have been ignored or overlooked by general media. When a person uses a hashtag, it can ideally be used as a hook to catch onto these issues, to clear a space for oneself in an online argument. Whatever your opinion on how effective they are, there are certain hashtags that have created a storm in the media and brought ideas to the general public’s consciousness, each encapsulated in a short, memorable phrase. Here are the most talked about hashtags of recent years:
#BlackLivesMatter