social media – Afthead

Prepare yourself readers, for your new favorite word. It will change your modern day existence. The word is octothorp. Now, before you go rushing to Google or your dictionary, be honest. Do you know this word? I did not. In fact, it’s even missing from my Webster’s Ninth New Collegiate Dictionary: nothing between octosyllable and ocul-. Now that I know this word, I love it.

What is an octothorp? It’s a pound sign. A #. A symbol that has taken on such an important role. Imagine with me, if you will, calling into any automated phone system. Maybe you are refilling a prescription, joining a conference call, or calling your bank. Inevitably you are requested to:

enter in your something followed by the pound sign

I bet reading that you can hear the computer’s voice in your head, and feel the anxiousness. Was that the right number? Should I have pressed the 2 menu instead of the 4 menu? Now just replace that computerized request for a pound sign with the word octothorp. It’s still accurate, but what would people do if such a request was made? Imagine the chaos.

Octothorp confused. Octothorp hatemybank.

Right? People would race to Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and write about their bad customer experience using the newest, most succinct way to convey emotion, sarcasm and cynicism. The hashtag, which are denoted by the preceding octothorp.

Do it now, go to your favorite social media site and just enjoy reading all those octothorps. My Twitter feed has Octothorp persist. Octothorp champs. Octothorp amwriting.

Oh yeah. I’m writing. About Octothorps.

Octothorp awesome.

#NewFavoriteWord #Octothorp

More Afthead upgrades came with the new year! Can you believe it? I mentioned in my last post that I started list of books I’m reading because I “can’t handle another social media time sucker like Goodreads.” Well, I snubbed Goodreads because I had already started another social media time sucker. Yes, dear readers, Afthead is now on Twitter and Instagram! (Instagram is the new one.) So exciting!

I picked Instagram because the past year I found myself taking pictures with the thought “I’m going to write a blog post about this.” However, life and time move on and I don’t always write the post. Instagram gives me a platform for writing microstories about little things that tickle my Afthead.

So if you want to follow my Instagram feed you can either check it out on my blog – I added the Instagram widget – or you can click the Instagram button in my “Socially Inept” section or you can just look for “Aftheaded” on Instagram. (This is all if you just didn’t click the links in the post already.) Already there are sixteen pictures ranging from a snowchicken, bird poop, a threek, and inappropriate rocks: note only two of my pictures actually made it into blog posts, so my experiment is working. (I mean, if you ignore this post…) Join my 16 followers for a peek into the visual Afthead world.

Oh, and if anyone else has ever wanted to add the Instagram widget to their blog and ended up weeping in frustration, let me direct you to this support post. I had to add the widget from the WordPress Admin, not from the page where you customize your theme. Ah, the work I do to keep things fresh and interesting around here.