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Twitter celebrates hashtags turning ten

Twitter is today celebrating the tenth anniversary of the hashtag with a 24-hour custom emoji.

First suggested by software designer Chris Messina, the company now claims an average of 125 million hashtags are shared each day, despite Twitter’s management being initially being sceptical of the idea.

Chris Messina, inventor of the Twitter hashtag

In a 2011 Quora post, Messina described how Twitter originally dismissed his idea: “I never imagined that hashtags would catch on as they did — especially since Ev[an Williams] specifically told me that Twitter would instead use machine learning to group tweets and that hashtags were too “nerdy” to ever go mainstream.”

Globally, the most tagged TV show is #TheWalkingDead and #StarWars is the most popular movie. Most tweeted gaming hashtag of all time is トレクル (TreCru/Treasure Cruise), with over 269 million posts

In Australia, political junkies have used the #auspol tag 3.5 million times while music fans have tagged boy band 5 Seconds of Summer in nearly half a billion posts.

“When you look at some of Australia’s top Twitter hashtags, you’ve got everything from social movements like #illridewithyou to passionate fans of #5SOS, iconic sporting events like the #MelbourneCup and the ever-trending #auspol. It’s a mix that speaks to our unique culture, sense of identity and sense of humour. It’s #whatshappening,” said managing director of Twitter Australia, Suzy Nicoletti.

Australian Twitter users will be able to activate the emoji from 2pm eastern time by tagging their post with #hashtag10.

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