#outofmyleague

Recently I was an unwitting participant in a conversation about hashtags.  It involved three generations of participants, of whom I represented the oldest of the three.  To add to the discomfort of the situation, the conversation took place in a driveway on a muggy, buggy late afternoon . Now here is the dilemma.

I know what a hashtag is. # See?  I have, for practical purposes, no idea what they are used for today.  All this time, I was the innocent who was content to use # to mean number… as in #5 on some list or as a (lb.) sign.  Therefore … I am sure that you can imagine that I had no idea what the conversation was about.

It all started when my grandson, the ever-brilliant representative of the youngest generation involved in this mess, created an Instagram account for me to put forth my blog – known up to this point as From Pencil Box to Keyboard on BlogSpot and shared weekly on Facebook as well. The concept, if I understand correctly, was/is to further “boost” my blog. I had no idea how Instagram works and still don’t.  From what I can tell, it is mostly about sharing pictures and not blogs, but what do I know?  We have not, up to this point, figured out a way to even share the link to Pencil Box on Instagram without a series of hold and move (swipe), screen shots and assorted other miseries – so confusing to me that I have no idea why he even thinks my blog belongs on that platform.  I watched as his thumbs flew through a series of fast moves, trying this and that.  It was spellbinding.  He is most impressive in his thumb texting skills. I confess that there were times while he was at work on my phone, (all the while sputtering inside his head that I have an Android and not an iPhone), that my eyes rolled up into my head. I simply could not follow and wasn't sure that I wanted to.  

Meanwhile, my daughter, his mother – the middle generation of this conversation that occurred in their driveway… was suggesting that I use hashtags to get more followers.  Mistake.  Apparently, according to the youngest generation, hashtags are not used on Instagram. Ever. It was an emphatic -- never ever. Who knew?  Furthermore – I was innocently thinking that I had plenty of views on my blog already and was already wondering how I could delete my Instagram account.

Now the difficulties of the situation were then further confounded by the fact that my daughter and I found the whole hashtag concern to be hilarious.  Perhaps we were tired. Perhaps it was the look of frustration on the youngest generation’s face. Much laughter ensued.  Anyway – she then suggested that I post the blog on Pinterest…. Now… I thought, heretofore, that Pinterest existed only to share crafty "stuff".  What do I know?  Obviously, I was/am out of the loop. Unfortunately, with the mention of Pinterest, the terms "platform" and "search engine" came into play along with the "hashtag" concerns, and I knew at that point that I was totally useless and out of my league. I just wanted to go home and throw together a meatloaf and read a book while it was in the oven.  

Oh, how I sometimes yearn for the simplicity of the past when # meant number or how many pounds of something ... and a platform was something on which one stood, off which one dived, or perhaps a short-lived shoe style. As for search engines… I will just stick with Google.  I have that one figured out. 

#outofmyleague. 

Oh -- I have also learned that one does not use spaces between words in hashtags. Apparently, Twitter made that "rule" which gives you some idea of Twitter wisdom validity. I also read the other day that one does not use punctuation in texts.  Now that is just asking for trouble.

#Stupidityisrampant

#let’smakecommunicationevenmoredifficultandconfusing. 

#oldfart.