MWN Mailbag: #BamaHateWeek Edition, Hashtags

Oct 11, 2014; Starkville, MS, USA; Mississippi State Bulldogs fans hold up a sign during the game against the Auburn Tigers at Davis Wade Stadium. Mississippi State Bulldogs defeated the Auburn Tigers 38-23. Mandatory Credit: Spruce Derden-USA TODAY Sports

Today is the second mailbag I will do for #BamaHateWeek. I had so many questions come in, I thought it was appropriate to just make two versions of it this week. Today’s mailbag is all about the hashtags.

There has been a lot of discussion about hashtags this week. Thanks to the 2012 game against Alabama, Mississippi State has been forever labeled as a school that goes overboard with hashtags. As a result, the editor of Lightly Buzzed and huge Alabama fan, another FanSided site on our network, decided to create a hashtag and troll Mississippi State fans and see how many of them would start using it. Most of the people that saw the hashtag he created thought it was dumb, and only used it to show how ridiculous it was. There were a few State fans that bought into it.

Here is the deal with this perceived notion about Mississippi State loving hashtags: it’s not true. There is one hashtag that is commonly associated with Mississippi State, and it is #HailState. The reason so many think that people assume Mississippi State is head over heels in love with hashtags is simply because we put that hashtag in our endzone a few years ago against the Rebels in the Egg Bowl. The NCAA has since put a rule in place that hashtags can’t be put on fields. Mississippi State then simply dropped the # and started using Hail State in the end zone. The only other time that we have ever used a hashtag is when we started using #WeBelieve.

#WeBelieve will forever live in infamy among Mississippi State fans. It spread so quickly heading in to the game against Alabama that it made national headlines. Had Mississippi State won the game or even been able to keep it close, then I think #WeBelieve takes on an entirely different legacy. As we all know, that didn’t happen. The Bulldogs were down 21-0 at the half and never really threatened in the game. It was a disaster.

We have picked up a few recently #DakAttack has become popular with the emergenee of Dak Prescott as a star. We have adjusted #HailState to #Ha1lState since we have been ranked number 1 . In support of Dak’s Heisman Trophy candidacy, we have used #He15man as well. Some might say that’s overboard, but it’s not like State fans are putting every single one of those in their tweets and Facebook posts.

Let’s just be real honest about hashtags. They have jumped the shark. The original purpose of hashtags was an ingenuous idea by Twitter. The idea was to create a way that people could connect to people talking about the same topic. If Mississippi State fans are talking about our athletics teams, simply putting a #HailState on your tweet instantly connects State fans with each other. When I did our piece on #BamaHateWeek, I simply went to Twitter and typed that hashtag into the search fields, and there was a plethora of things to choose from.  The problem is people will throw a # infront of anything and make it into a hashtag. It’s just dumb. I occasionally use hashtags when I want to connect it to a larger topic. I will use them as well when I want to mock what they have become.

Here’s the lesson we need to learn. There are lots of ways to be creative as a fan. There a numeorus ways you can dress up, decorate your cowbell, or any number of things out there for fans to show their support. We’ve been burned too much by hashtags. Let’s just steer away from those from here one out.