The modern-day hashtag has come a long way. From its birth name, the octothorpe, to being called the pound symbol used when dialing phone numbers to now being referred to as a hashtag, used to categorize topics on social media, that little symbol has been through a lot.
The hashtag’s first appearance on the web was found on the Internet Relay Chat (IRC) application in 1988. Within the IRC, people could chat with one another about specific topics in channels labeled with hashtags. Example: if you wanted to chat about flowers for your yard, you’d go to the channel “#gardens”. Pretty simple, right?
