Tara Conley 12/10/14 Tara Conley 12/10/14

[INFOGRAPHIC] Top Feminist Hashtags of 2014

This post originally appeared on December 10, 2014 written by Tara L. Conley.

This year’s top feminist hashtags would not be complete without a visual. See how each hashtag came about this year, and how others covered the story. Compare this year’s top tags to last year’s Top Feminist Hashtags of 2013. Let us know what you think!

2014 Top Feminist Hashtags – Honorable Mentions

#bellhooksTNS first appeared on Twitter on October 23, 2013 when Twitter user @lolaschild tweeted the tag linking to bell hooks artist in residence series at The New School. The New School has since purveyed the tag on Twitter to promote hooks’ talks.

#Fem2 remains the longest running, widely used, and consistently referenced feminist hashtag to date. #Fem2 was created during an exchanged between Liz Sabator (@blogdiva), Victoria Pynchon (@VickiePynchon), and Stowe Boyd (@stoweboyd), and first appeared on December 15, 2008. Niambi Jarvis (@hiyaahpower) is the most widely recognized purveyor of the hashtag.

#GirlsLikeUs first appeared on Twitter on September 2, 2009 when user @mieke_veedeo tweeted a link to Glu Magazine. The hashtag has since been used to promote Rachel Lloyd’s book, Girls Like Us. Most recently, writer and contributing editor of Marie Claire, Janet Mock used the hashtag to create a campaign to empower trans women of color.

#IStandWithJamilah and #IStandWithAura first appeared on Twitter on March 27, 2014 and September 14, 2014, respectfully, in support of EBONY.com’s senior editor, Jamilah Lemieux and Colorlines’ News Editor, Aura Bogado after both writers were singled out online for speaking out against racism.

#IStandWithJamilah because "racism" against white people isn't racism, it's a logical reaction to the oppression of people of color.
— Maladapted (@Malatestamony) March 27, 2014
@aurabogado is the best. @FCKH8 is the worst. #IStandWithAura
— @Pissdrinker (@OTSWST) September 15, 2014

#MarrisaAlexander and #FreeMarrisa first appeared on Twitter on May 3, 2012 and July 18, 2013, respectively, in response to the Stand Your Ground ruling that initially sentence a Black women, Marrisa Alexander to 20 years in prison for discharging a weapon in the presence of her estranged husband and children. As of November 24, 2014 Alexander accepted a plea deal to serve three years in jail.

Disclaimer: We do our best with limited capacity to ensure that tweets are fairly represented. If you feel as though you or your tweets have been misrepresented and wished to be removed from this year’s curation, please do not hesitate to contact us at inquiries [at] hashtagfeminism [dot] com.

This post was created over a year’s time. If you appreciate this work and our labor, please donate. Your donations go directly to writers and operation costs. Thank you!

Tara Conley 12/30/13 Tara Conley 12/30/13

2013: The Year of the Feminist Hashtag #FeminismMeans #F

This post originally appeared on December 30, 2013 written by founder, Tara L. Conley.

On December 23, 2013 Hashtag Feminism released a comprehensive analysis of this year’s top feminist hashtags. Among the most widely cited hashtags of 2013 include, #TwitterFeminism,#NotYourAsianSidekick, #fem2, #femfuture, #BeyonceThinkPieces, #MyFeminismLooksLike,#SolidarityIsForWhiteWomen, and #FastTailedGirls. I explain more about the meanings and evolution of these hashtags HERE.

The list is in no way meant to represent a definitive statement about which feminist hashtags were considered “the best” of this year. Rather, the purpose of the analysis was to trace how the meaning of these hashtags evolved over time, along with celebrating the most widely used feminist hashtags that primarily functioned to gather information, share stories and wit, and talk back to the status quo.

Now that our stories are arguably more visible than before, I wonder, as does blogger and self-identified Generation Y-er, Jenn of @reappropriate wonders, how might hashtag-ing in this millennial moment impact broader social movements concerned with equality and justice?

#Feminism

It is often noted that the primary uses of hashtags are to build brands, campaigns, and follow trends. As we enter into a new(er) era of social activism and advocacy, what meta meanings do we attach to feminism by way of the hashtag?

When #BlackPowerAsianPeril debuted last week as a way to talk about “shared goals” and bridge-building between Black and Asian American communities, I wondered about how this hashtag, or rather critical conversations around the hashtag, might impact how we go about addressing racism (colonization and discrimination) poverty, and mental health issues (access and stigma) shared among both diverse communities.

I think #BlackPowerYellowPeril will REALLY scare the white supremacists tomorrow. I'm even reading up on historical divide.
— Suey (@suey_park) December 25, 2013

The archiving of feminist-leaning thought and practices didn’t begin in 2013, but this year marked a moment in history when nuanced critical conversations traveled outside of Twitter and into online and offline mainstream media contexts. That #NotYourAsianSidekick appeared in Time, Al Jazeera America, ABC, and BBC, and that #solidarityisforwhitewomen and #solidarityisforblackmenappeared on NPR, among other outlets, might indicate that broader audiences are paying more attention to our stories than ever before.

But this sort of online political and social activism isn’t without criticism. Often when we see critics come out against hashtags as a mark of new activism, we find arguments that set up what I believe to be a false binary between real vs. not-really-real change.

Kai Ma’s uninformed piece on #NotYourAsianSidekick in Time may be an example of a critique that presents a false binary without further exploration. Ma writes,

I’m all about not being your Asian sidekick — I support and applaud the platform — but can we please move from digital activism to social change?

I’m not sure what Ma mean’s when she asserts that we “move from digital activism to social change” Does she mean change as in legislative impact (see #StandWithWendy)? Community impact (see #RenishaMcBride)? Societal impact (see #Jan25, #Arabspring, #Egypt)?

Maureen O’Connor’s piece in NYMag.com asks can feminist hashtags dismantle the state? setting up a similarly polarizing argument. Sure enough, the Twitterverse responded:

#TheMediumIsTheMessage

Perhaps critics of the medium have a point about how meaning, particular associated with certain hashtags, gets lost in often contentious spaces of #Twitterfeminism. I’d argue, however, that heated exchanges about the lives and politics of individuals have always been contentious. If you sit two people in a room, face-to-face, with different life stories and political philosophies, chances are they’ll likely at some point disagree with one another. And if these same individuals enter into the room with their minds already set on how the other person thinks and experiences, then surely finding shared goals between the two will be difficult to accomplish. The absence of mediated channels doesn’t necessarily mean the absence of ego.

Twitter doesn’t make it more difficult for people to understand one another or build movements, people do.

In a moment of 140-character thoughts and context-driven hashtags with lack of context clues, the medium actually requires more from us. We have to sit with Twitter just as we would with an epic poem, yet we marinate on these texts for different reasons. I’m not as quick to blame Twitter as I am more thoughtful about the way I use Twitter to think through personal and political issues with complete strangers. At times, for me, some things are better left untweeted, and instead quietly reflected upon.

We’re all trying to situate our selves in this moment, always trying to carve out a digital space, sometimes at the cost of our sanity. Twitter isn’t for everyone, nor should it be, and that’s OK.

Because Twitter asks more of me as I grapple with meaning, I tend towards an observational and reflexive stance. And because the hashtag exists, I can better parse through the myriad of constantly updated conversations related to how others grapple. Now that we have the ability to search and archive these conversations with tools like Topsy, Keyhole, and others, it makes for an even more enriching observational experience. For the very first time since I joined Twitter in 2008, I can temporarily leave Twitter to sit with the feminist media of Twitter.

Parsing, observing, and curating is how I grapple with #Twitterfeminism.

#FeminismMeans

I have a pretty good working definition of what #FeminismMeans to me, which is largely informed by my experiences,

growing up in a Midwestern working class interracial family, taking care of an aging parent.
fighting for fair and equal treatment as an elementary, middle school, high school, and college female athlete.
studying Chicana feminism, Black feminist thought, and feminist spiritualities at a Texas state graduate institution.

Though I’m not so sure about how my working definition of feminism fits in with the 1,847+ other working definitions of feminism, informed by the 1,847,000+ other life experiences out there in the ether.

I readily admit that I don’t exactly know what #FeminismMeans to others with which I share a digital and social community. I suspect that how we understand and do feminism varies according to how we grew up and came of age.

I also suspect that my “brand” of feminism isn’t shared by others, which is why, at this point in my life I try very hard to first relate my life experiences to another individual rather than falling prey to policing someone else’s “brand” of feminism. It’s not easy, and I’m not always right.

#FeminismMeans different things to different people at different moments in their lives. And because language changes and evolves #FeminismIs, at times, a moving epistemological and ontological target. #FeminismIsNot, especially in 2013, an homogenous concept. The genre of feminist hashtags is proof that conceptually, feminism consists of many different, and often fluctuating parts. #Feminism, at times, amounts to an abstraction, a “thing” that many of us continue to grapple with because “it” isn’t something easily reflected in mainstream contexts.

Maybe #twitterfeminism hasn't built part of mvmnt you participate in but Feminism is not so flat that you can make that general statement.
— Jessica W. Luther (@scATX) December 23, 2013
"Allowing only women you agree or identify with to have a voice is not feminism or sisterhood, but something else. It's spite" @TanyaGold1
— Stephanie (@ArtfullyAdored) December 27, 2013

#HashtagFeminismIs

This is why Hashtag Feminism exists, so that as a collective, we zoom out and then parse through the conversations, debates, and dialog to build a picture of what feminism might look like during an Obama and millennial era. Hashtag Feminism is for the futurist feminist archivist who, in 100 years looks back at this digital moment and understands why the hashtag marked an important meta political stance in 2013.

Though someone like Maureen O’Connor might view Hashtag Feminism, a website primarily dedicated to archiving and exploring critical conversations, as greeting card folly, I think otherwise.

[T]rend-chasing websites that arrange The Best Tweets From #WhateverHashtag into listicles only seem to amplify the giant-stack-of-greeting-cards perception of Twitter activism. Even the most profound of one-liners start to seem vapid when you’re reading Bartlett’s Quotes cover-to-cover like a novel.

Hashtag Feminism isn’t so much about listing for the sake of listing, or calling out people for the sport of it, it is (as @BattyMamzelle so poignantly tweeted) about ‘collecting receipts’. We are a space that allows for more time to observe and reflect upon a wide range of personal and political issues that emerge by way of Twitter and other social media spaces.

Hashtag Feminism is my little digital space carved out.

If 2013 is the year of the feminist hashtag; the year that we grappled and reckoned with the Other’s lived experiences, then let 2014 be the year when #FeminismMeans actively and deliberately transforming so we can be better to ourselves and for our shared communities.

Tara Conley 12/29/13 Tara Conley 12/29/13

Top Feminist Hashtags of 2013 (Explained) #F

This post originally appeared on December 29, 2013 written by founder, Tara L. Conley.

In case you need a quick reference guide about what some of your favorite feminist hasthags of 2013 mean and how they evolved over time, here ya go!

#TwitterFeminism – First appeared three years ago but it’s meaning has since evolved into an umbrella term that, depending on who you ask encompasses all that is right, or all that is wrong with feminist discourse on Twitter.

The #twitterfeminism backlash isn’t really about social media vs. “real feminism.” It’s a few white cis ladypundits fearful it’s working.
— Melissa Gira Grant (@melissagira) December 19, 2013

#NotYourAsianSidekick – First appeared on December 14, 2013 and was created by @suey_park as a way to engage in a critical conversation about Asian American feminism. To date,#NotYourAsianSidekick is one of the fastest growing feminist hashtags to spread globally.

I will never apologize for being angry about your racism. #NotYourAsianSidekick
— Alyssa Wong (@crashwong) December 16, 2013

#fem2 – First appeared on December 15, 2008 when @blogdiva responded to a tweet about what to call feminism on Twitter. Ever since, the hashtag has grown and continues to be the longest running, widely used, and consistently referenced feminist hashtag on Twitter.

Justice Sotomayor will trigger ball drop on #NYE! Love that an amazing woman will help ring in 2014. #Fem2 #NYE2014 http://t.co/ho0HGucdza
— Jaclyn Munson (@OnwardnFword) December 30, 2013

#femfuture – First appeared on December 18, 2009 when @shelbyknox tweeted a request for a hashtag that describes the work of young feminist activists. The hashtag is now widely associated with Femfuture.com.

Launch of something like femfuture once again reminds me how centered most of feminism is in a single location, even when talking online.
— Jessica W. Luther (@scATX) April 8, 2013

#BeyonceThinkPieces – First appeared on December 18, 2013 and was created by @adriananova_in response to the flood of articles, blog posts, and analyses published about Beyonce and her latest album. The hashtag is perhaps one of the most humorous and witty feminist-leaning hashtags to come out of 2013.

I Woke Up Like This: How Beyonce Is Erasing The Voice Of Women Who Wrap Their Hair At Night #beyoncethinkpieces
— Brokey McPoverty (@brokeymcpoverty) December 18, 2013

#MyFeminismLooksLike – First appeared on December 14, 2013 and was created by @prisonculture, again inspired by Beyonce’s record-breaking album. The hashtag celebrates the various ways feminism looks according self-identified feminists.

This evening, #myfeminismlookslike (I don't do photos so…) pic.twitter.com/dSsAwJDi9b
— Prison Culture (@prisonculture) December 15, 2013

#SolidarityIsForWhiteWomen – First appeared on August 12, 2013 and was created by @Karnythiain response to status quo feminism and Hugo Swytzher. The hashtag continues to evolve.

.@anidifranco holding a retreat on a plantation exemplifies #solidarityisforwhitewomen in the worst way possible.
— mj (@munachao) December 28, 2013

#FastTailedGirls – First appeared in 2010 but it’s meaning has since transformed from a commonly used pejorative to demean Black girls, to now cited as one of the fastest growing hashtags that explores the lifestories of Black women’s sexuality, thanks in large part to its primary purveyor @Karnythia.

At it's core, #FastTailedGirls is blaming children for the actions of grown men. Don't wear this, don 't move like this…just don't exist.
— Reagan Gomez (@ReaganGomez) November 30, 2013

Tara Conley 12/23/13 Tara Conley 12/23/13

Top Feminist Hashtags of 2013 #F

This post originally appeared on December 23, 2013 written by founder, Tara L. Conley. It was the first post of its kind to rank top feminist hashtags of the era.

Yesterday I posted about the life stories of our favorite feminist hashtags. Today I breakdown the top feminist hashtags of 2013, including:

#TwitterFeminism #NotYourAsianSideKick #fem2#femfuture #BeyonceThinkPieces #MyFeminismLooksLike #SolidarityIsForWhiteWomen and #FastTailedGirls. Yes, honey, I created an entire infographic. #Geekshit.

If you really appreciate the work, then donate to my labor below. Between working on my dissertation research, consulting projects, and this lovely little start up Hashtag Feminism, it’s fair to say I’m working hella hard this holiday season. Your donations are very much appreciated.

Each hashtag represents it’s own unique entry into conversations dealing with race, gender, sexuality, economic justice, global citizenship, and Ms. Yonce Carter. The infographic below is a visual representation of how the numbers tell these unique stories. The metrics are based on a 30-day sample set ranging from November 22, 2013 to December 22, 2013. Though the sample set does not fully represent exact totals of each hashtag, the sample is representative of the larger qualitative impact these hashtags had over the past year.

Don’t be afraid to click on the infographic, it’s interactive!

Sources: Topsy, Keyhole

Primary takeaways:

#TwitterFeminism has picked up steam over the past few days, but lags quantitatively in comparison to some of the other hashtags listed below.
#NotYourAsianSidekick is the fastest growing feminist hashtag to spread globally.
#fem2 continues to be the longest running, widely used, and consistently referenced feminist hashtag to date.
#femfuture has lost some traction over the past few months, but continues to remain popular among female [sic] users.
#BeyonceThinkPieces are especially loved by dudes (or at least that’s how Keyhole’s algorithm represents it).
#MyFeminismLooksLike is the most image-referenced feminist hashtag.
#SolidarityIsForWhiteWomen not only sparked a national conversation but birthed a new generation of critical hashtags in 2013 that talked back to the status quo.
#FastTailedGirls is one of the fastest growing hashtags to date.

What do you think? Given the data and takeaways above, how do you think each hashtag represents the social, political, cultural, and spiritual climate of feminism in 2013? Were your favorite hashtag represented? Where were you when Suey Park (@suey_park) and Mikki Kendall (@Karynthia) tweeted out the first #NotYourAsianSidekick and #SolidarityIsForWhiteWomenhastag, respectively?

Now that we know tweets and hashtags have power, where do we go from here? Share your brilliance in the comments section below!

**Update. I’ve received an overwhelming response about this post and it’s only been up for a few hours. I sincerely appreciate the support. Please donate! I’ve also received responses from a few folks about how and when a particular hashtag was created. I want to acknowledge again that I used Topsy’s tracking to locate the first time each hashtag appeared on Twitter, assuming Topsy’s algorithms are correct. For instance #FastTailedGirls first appeared three years ago, but the term itself did not share the same meaning as it does currently, thanks to Mikki Kendall. Similarly, the hashtag #femfuture first appeared on Twitter four years ago when Shelby Knox tweeted out a request to highlight the work of young activists. Currently #femfuture represents FemFuture.com, an online feminist venture from Vanessa Valenti and Courtney Martin. I wrote about the life story of #femfuture HERE. I want to acknowledge that I understand meaning and context give power to words. I also want people to be aware of the germinating processes involved in creating hashtags. As I tweeted earlier this morning:

Thanks for chiming in everyone! FYI – I’ve explored what it means to invent, create, give meaning to something and make impact previously.
— Tara L. Conley (@taralconley) December 23, 2013
I talk about webs here: http://t.co/g58fMpB7OQ I talk about impactfulness/whirlpooling here: http://t.co/yqE2KddXE7
— Tara L. Conley (@taralconley) December 23, 2013
I acknowledge my methods/methodologies aren’t everyone’s cup of tea, but they’re how I currently understand digital worlds+media ecologies.
— Tara L. Conley (@taralconley) December 23, 2013

It is not my intention to misrepresent the work of those who have in fact given meaning to these hashtags. If anything, I hope to celebrate all those involved this year who purposefully transformed the meaning of words through hashtags.

As such, I’ve amended the infographic to state “first appeared” instead of “creator”. I hope that clears things up.

What does it mean to create or give meaning to something? I hope to explore questions further via #hashtagfeminism http://t.co/MFFou7kVzV #F
— Tara L. Conley (@taralconley) December 23, 2013

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Tara Conley 12/21/13 Tara Conley 12/21/13

Ever Wonder How Your Favorite Feminist Hashtags Started? We Compiled a List #F #TwitterFeminism

This post originally appeared on December 21, 2013 written by founder, Tara L. Conley.

The Internet is all-knowing. While this may be an unfortunate reality for folks like Justine Sacco, a.k.a the inspiration behind the #HasJustineLandedYet hashtag, fortunately for us, Internet tools like Topsy allow us to track the moment when your favorite feminist hashtag was born. Check back later this week for more Top Feminist Hashtags of 2013. We’ve got infographics!

Here’s a rundown of our top five most prolific and most talked about feminist hashtags to date.

1. #Fem2 – One of the original hashtags to appear on Twitter that archives topics related to feminism. Niambi Jarvis (@hiyaahpower) is perhaps the most commonly cited purveyor of the hashtag, but did you know the hashtag finds its roots dating back 5 years ago when Liza Sabater, better known to the Twitterverse at @blogdiva, tweeted a response to @vpynchon (an account that no longer exists)? Sabater’s #fem2.0 was then clarified by web anthropologist Stowe Boyd (@stoweboyd) who reminded us that “dots don’t work well as hashtags”. And there you have it. the celestial birth of #fem2, according to Topsy.

@vpynchon so what would you call it? #fem2.0
— Liza Sabater (@blogdiva) December 15, 2008

@blogdiva PS dots don’t work well in #hashtags so use #fem2 — Stowe Boyd (@stoweboyd) December 15, 2008

2. #Femfuture – The official hashtag of Femfuture.com, founded by feminist bloggers Courtney Martin (@courtwrites) and Vanessa Valenti (@VanessaValenti). Though this hashtag is often associated with the brand #femfuture, did you know that feminist activist Shelby Knox (@shelbyknox) actually tweeted out the hashtag 4 years ago while requesting ideas for a hashtag that would describe the work of young activist?

Needed: a hashtag to highlight the work/words of young activists as we’re often disappeared. #youngactivists #gennow #femfuture Ideas, plz!
— Shelby Knox (@ShelbyKnox) December 18, 2009

3. #Solidarityisforwhitewomen – One of the most talked about hashtags of 2013 created by writer Mikki Kendall (@Karynthia). With #Solidarityisforwhitewomen, it’s fair to say Kendall birthed a new genre of hashtags that function as a way to talk back to what some believe to be as status quo feminism online. The hashtag started 4 months ago when Hugo Schwyzer was the topic of conversation around various feminist circles both online and offline. I also had a chance to talk with Mikki Kendall on Huff Post Live this past summer about the controversy. Here’s the tweet that started it all.

Convo between @Blackamazon & @JillFilipovic = “your abuser got traction from me until I felt unsafe, so what?” #SolidarityIsForWhiteWomen
— Mikki Kendall (@Karnythia) August 12, 2013

4. #NotYourAsianSideKick – To date, #NotYourAsianSideKick hashtag, created by writer and organizer, Suey Park (@suey_park) has garnered the most tweets globally than any recent feminist hashtags to emerge within the last four months. It’s been incredible to watch this hashtag spark generative conversations about racial and gendered stereotypes both inside and outside of the Twitterverse. It all started on December 14, 2013 (only 8 days ago!), when Park warned us about having an honest conversation about Asian American Feminism, and she most certainly delivered.

Be warned. Tomorrow morning we will be have a convo about Asian American Feminism with hashtag #NotYourAsianSidekick. Spread the word!!!!!!!
— Suey Park (@suey_park) December 15, 2013

5. #TwitterFeminism – Finally, the hashtag that inspired www.hashtagfeminism.com,#TwitterFeminism has been one of the most talked about feminist hashtag within the last week. Similarly with Niambi Jarvis (@hiyaahpower) and #fem2, writer and radio host Meghan Murphy (@MeghanMurphy) brought #TwitterFeminism back to life after publishing her much debated article, The Trouble With Twitter Feminism. But did you know that the first person to tweet the hashtag in 2010 was sociology student Indira Stammes (@IndiraStammes)? Yeah!

Yeah! #TwitterFeminism @MJ_in_my_Heart
— Indira Stammes (@IndiraStammes) July 6, 2010