Some Twitter users can a bit like lemmings, retweeting or otherwise repeating exactly what other Twitter users do whenever something cool is going around. Everybody wants to be different, but they still want to exist as part of the in-crowd and participate in a group activity.
Some memes, like #Honk, exist just to be silly and fun.
Sometimes, a meme is grown out of necessity before it takes on a life of its own.
#FollowFriday was the brainchild of Micah Brown. The concept was simple: all Micah wanted was the names of other cool or interesting people to follow on Twitter (since finding those people on your own can be a daunting experience as Twitter doesn’t have a “I’m a cool person” checkbox on the user profile pages that others could search on).
If you want to see the rush of #FollowFriday tweets, you can use Twitter’s built-in search to find all the FollowFriday hashtags. Or you can visit TOP FOLLOW FRIDAY, which not only acts as an aggregator for the FollowFriday meme, but it also shows you how popular an individual suggested for FollowFriday is, or how many others that person has recommended themselves. (Ashton, even after your big push to beat CNN is over, people are still clamoring for you to be followed every Friday. You’re getting to be like Tom on MySpace – you’re going to be everyone’s first Twitter friend automatically.)
One common complaint about #FollowFriday is that on occasion, the people who are suggesting someone isn’t even following the person that they’re suggesting in the first place. While the person being recommended may appreciate the #FollowFriday honor, it could also lead to those newly-popular people having an overly-cluttered Twitter feed as the lemmings flock to follow everyone who was suggested for the day. For their sake – if you’re going to recommend someone for #FollowFriday, at least give those you are suggesting the courtesy of following them yourself.
#canihelp Wednesdays was started by Irene Koehler as a way to leverage Twitter’s ability to help people by using the vast knowledgebase of other Twitter users. Just tweet your question (including the #canihelp tag) before Wednesday and wait for the replies to roll in. Or, if you are a helpful type, visit the #canihelp page to see what this week’s requests are that you might be able to answer.
#datenight offers suggestions on what to do for your own date night.
#moviereview are movie reviews in 140 characters or less.
Somebody has even figured out a way to play Rock Paper Scissors via Twitter by using the #RPS hashtag.
Some other popular Twitter hashtags/memes include:
- #musicmonday: what are you listening to?
- #nopantstuesday: why are you not wearing pants today?
- #winewednesday: what are you drinking today?
- #thankfulthursday: what are you thankful for today?
- #shabbatshalom: tells the world that you won’t be Twittering until sundown on Saturday
- #sexysaturday: a different way to explain why you’re not wear pants, I suppose
- #samesexsunday: a LBGT version of #FollowFriday
Pick a day and something to talk about, and chances are there’s a Twitter hashtag already made for you. In essence, it’s the same philosophy over how TV programming works: years ago, NBC made a big deal over Must See Thursday with their classic line-up of Friends, Frasier, and ER. ABC did the same thing with “TGIF” for their lineup of Friday evening comedies. Fast-forward to today, and the Twitter equivalent would be #mustseethursday for tweeting about TV shows to watch. The difference between then and now is that everybody can actively participate, instead of sitting idly by while the network suits tell us what each day is supposed to bring.
A great repository of all the most popular Twitter memes at any given moment is TWEMES.COM. They have the tags broken out by popularity over the last hour, day, week, month, and year.
If you have an idea for the next great Twitter meme, all you have to do is send out the single request containing a hashtag like Micah or Irene did. If people thing it’s fun and interesting, be prepared to ride the Twitter popularity wave as it catches on and spreads like wildfire.
So what #tags are you using to share your knowledge with the Twitterverse? Post them in the comments below: