by Rich
I thought I’d already put in my 2¢ on this subject, but my name keeps popping up, my tweets are being referenced, so I’d like to, at least on my end, put this to rest.
You will find the logic in my post flawless and beautiful, like a bird in a tree, singing some genius shit on da mic. And you will have no choice but to ignore it, and continue on with the battles you guys have chosen. I, on the other hand, prefer to be done with it.
Step One: Define Hashtag:
http://support.twitter.com/entries/49309-what-are-hashtags-symbols
Step Two:
Acknowledge that the neighborhoods of “Inwood” and “Washington Heights” have a very active social media/twitter/online community, so having to find a hashtag, or several hashtags, to help us find each other online, or to tag certain tweets with a more hyperlocal hashtag to identify tweets relevant to a particular neighborhood, was something that was needed.
Step Three:
Come up with a hashtag for local tweets:
Since Twitter has a relatively limited amount of characters (unlike blog posts, Facebook posts, etc), it’s typical to use acronyms in order to use the space most efficiently. Ideally, the hashtag should be as intuitive as possible, but that’s not always necessary. Sometimes just using the whole name, instead of an abbreviation, is also a good hashtag.
So, short on space? Use an acronym:
ac·ro·nym
[ak-ruh-nim]
–noun
1.a word formed from the initial letters or groups of letters ofwords in a set phrase or series of words, as Wac fromWomen’s army Corps, OPEC from Organization of PetroleumExporting Countries, or loran from long-range navigation.
2.an acrostic.
–verb (used with object)
3.to make an acronym of: The committee’s name has been acronymed MIKE.
http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/acronym
Step Four:
Come up with a hashtag (acronym) for tweets relevant to Washington Heights and Inwood.
Here’s what’s needed:
A hashtag that references a tweet relevant to BOTH Washington Heights and Inwood.
For instance, the Uptown Arts Stroll is relevant to BOTH neighborhoods, so if we want to tweet information about it, then a hashtag that references BOTH neighborhoods would work nicely.
“Blah blah, Arts Stroll, oh lookey art stuff.
#WashingtonHeightsAndInwood”
Wow. That’s a shitty tag. You can use up half your Tweet space using that thing, eh?
Hmm. What can we use instead? Well, some of us folks have been interacting with other locals from BOTH Washington Heights AND Inwood for quite a few years now, before Twitter even existed.
And what did we use? WaHI? Why?
Because when the rest of the online community was ignoring our local area, one person, Eduardo Gomez, took it upon himself to form a local blog to deal with issues and events relevant to BOTH of our local communities.
Thus the name WaHI.
WaHI = (Wa)shington (H)eights + (I)nwood.
It’s a great, short little acronym that includes BOTH neighborhoods.
That’s where it originated. That’s where it came from.
Now, as local Twitter use started to gain momentum, some Twitter users were (sorta) complaining that some tweets were confusing, because the hashtag used (#WaHI) tagged a tweet as relevant to their particular community, when in fact it wasn’t.
If I recall correctly, this happened around the time when there was a local fire in Inwood, but people kept tagging the tweets related to the fires as #WaHI.
So the Washington Heights resident asked why there wasn’t a more localized hashtag so there would be less confusion.
The local online community was asked to come up with ideas.
I, along with some others, suggested #WashHts.
The idea being that:
#WaHI: Would be the tag for tweets relevant to BOTH communities.
#Inwood: Already in use, would be for tweets relevant to MOSTLY Inwood.
#WashHts: Would be used for tweets relevant MOSTLY to Washington Heights.
Problem is, people are lazy. You, me. Your mom. But especially you.
So people start doing this:
“Tweet tweet blah blah
#WaHI #Inwood”
or this:
“Tweet tweet blah blah
#WashHts #WaHI #Inwood”
These are all redundant hashtag procedures. #WaHI already includes #Inwood.
Now, why do people keep doing this?:
#1: Because they keep thinking that WaHI means “Washington Heights” only.
They’re wrong.
#2: Because even though some people know that it does include Inwood, they use it because #WaHI has gained so much use, they want to reach out to those familiar with the hashtag.
This is likely to continue, even after you’ve read my undeniably gorgeous logic, because:
#1: You can’t be bothered to read my long-winded ass posts, and I write like a trained asshole monkey
#2: You have been caught up in this ridiculous hashtag drama, and don’t want to appear to take sides
#3: You’re one of those lazy people I just mentioned not too long ago.
Step Five:
Dispel all the myths, legends, falsehoods, mistakes, misunderstandings and everything else about these hashtags.
This article, which was written by my good friend Claudio, and which fanned the flames of this absolutely ridiculous hashtag drama, is absolutely, 100% completely wrong in it’s assumptions of the origins of the WaHI name.
Quotes from the article:
“I started a club called the “Wahi & Inwood Brunch and Supper Club.”
The name chosen is redundant.
“WaHI” (with a capitalized “I”) already includes the “Inwood” part.
Therefore, he named his club the ”Washington Heights/Inwood & Inwood Brunch and Supper Club”.
Redundant.
Quote:
“I thought that Wahi would attract more people than WashHts because it identified with a certain segment of the population – the new population.”
This is a false assumption. It was the old segment of the online population that was using WaHI. The “new population” just did what happens naturally; they adopted what they saw was already being used.
Claudio expressed a dislike of the hashtag “WaHI” based on a false premise.
Tell me otherwise.
Another individual, and good friend of mine, Led Black, also jumped in on the debate.
To use the quote provided by @UptownHoops, which gets right to the meat of his view on the subject:
“My whole issue with #WaHi is that it is not a real entity, it doesn’t refer to an actual place, called by that actual name. Conversely, it has the odor of one of those words created to negate something else. A catchphrase that thrives virtually but not IRL.
Whether it was created by a real estate agent or Eduardo Gomez, WaHi, in my humble estimation, is a moniker without substance.”
— Led Black, Editor of Uptown Collective
He is absolutely, 100%, undeniably entitled to his subjective opinion.
But it must be 100% clear that this is ONLY that; an opinion. There is zero fact in that statement. His analysis of the acronym #WaHI is based on his own personal interpretation of what he thinks it means.
I, personally, using my own opinion, based on my own personal, subjective observations, totally disagree with his opinion.
The only “odor” I detect is that of age. WaHI has been around for a while. And it’s a pretty efficient little fellow. And it happens to be short, which made it great for it’s purpose as a hashtag.
I propose that the rest of his statement is neutralized, at best, and contradicted, at worst, by his adoption of the new hashtag in town, that of #WHIN.
WHIN is the SAME EXACT THING as WaHI. Four letters to describe two neighborhoods.
There is no difference. None. At all. You can take Led’s quote, and switch out #WaHI for #WHIN, and you couldn’t tell the difference.
It doesn’t mean what Led is saying is wrong. Just that his premise for why he dislikes #WaHI is inconsistent if he’s ok with #WHIN.
(Not just Led. Anyone that has adopted this line of reasoning for choosing WHIN over WaHI).
WHIN is also not a real entity. It also doesn’t “refer to an actual place, called by that actual name”. It was created to ‘negate’ something else. (a perception of what WaHI means). It’s also a catchphrase that thrives ‘virtually, and not in real life’. And so on and so forth.
Manhattanspeak, also having an opinion on the matter, has had a few things to say about it:
Quote:
“A question nobody has the balls to answer publicly: why is #WHINbetter than #WaHI if they both mean the same exact thing?”
It isn’t better. It’s also not worse. It’s just different. Therefore, it doesn’t matter.
If people want to use WHIN because they have a misguided idea about what WaHI means, then more power to ‘em.
If people want to use WHIN because they think they’re gonna differentiate themselves from WaHI by using a different hashtag, then more power to ‘em.
If people want to use WHIN because they’re doing it to annoy you, or they want to pay homage to Charlie Sheen, or they want to be different, or whatever other 12,573 reasons they’re using it, then more power to ‘em.
If people want to use WHIN because they feel it’s a better hashtag, and it better represents them, or their goals, then more power to ‘em. That’s how the internet works. That’s how ideas work. They either remain relevant, or they die off. As individuals, we often have little say in the matter. As a collective, we say much.
Them using WHIN has not affected my ability to communicate, share, express, or interact with my local community in any way, shape or form whatsoever.
What has affected it is this dragging on of this hashtag dispute. Of the need for one side or the other to prove their point, while never really putting effort into their argument, but just wanting us to accept their viewpoint by fiat.
If the majority of the online/social media/twitter community suddenly started using #WHIN to identify tweets relevant to BOTH Washington Heights and Inwood, then I’d start using it, too. That’s how irrelevant I think the hashtag is.
But for now, as far as I’m personally concerned, #WaHI is the hashtag I associate most with both neighborhoods.
#Inwood is the hashtag I associate most with Inwood tweets.
#WashHts is the hashtag I associate most with Washington Heights tweets.
#WHIN sounds cheesy to me. It sounds like Whine. As in whiney. Which I guess in some ways it’s perfect.
It also sounds like the still fresh corpse of Charlie Sheen’s #Win #WINNER meme, which, as one might imagine, I have little motive to want to be associated with a druggie idiot who ruined his own career and proved how unfunny and unentertaining he was live on the internet.
But who cares what I think? I’m just one person. And that’s just my opinion on the matter. No more important than anyone else’s.
Step Six:
Reach the inevitable conclusions:
#1) If your opinion about a hashtag is based on a misguided/misinformed premise, then your resulting conclusions about that hashtag are misguided/misinformed.
#2) If you are trying to use, or not trying to use, a hashtag because other people that use it bother you, or you don’t like them, then you are absolutely free to do so. But dragging the fight out in public is not conducive to harmony in our community, and only brings about more bad vibes as people who are friends with all the parties involved feel frustrated, confused, or, more likely, let out a collective moan for having to hear about it for another day.
#3) If you are willing to let something as ridiculous as a difference of opinion on a hashtag become motive to divide us, then that motive needs to be called into question.
If you are not willing to personally engage the people with whom you have a disagreement with, but instead use passive aggressive messages, or indirect puyas, then at least be honest and state that you are more interested in the fight than in the resolution.
I have yet to see a genuine effort on behalf of anyone involved in this to actually engage the other side. None. All I see are statements made by both sides as indirect opinions of what the other side actually means or intends. That is the quickest way to get no where.
#4) If you are not willing to respond to my statements directly, but instead decide to attack me personally, or to take me completely out of context, or start tweeting passive-aggressive puyas at me, or so on and so forth, then let it be noted that you have no interest in actually exploring a resolution, or interest in bringing down the rhetoric that’s dividing us, and that the rest of the online community should take that into account when deciding, on their own, what to make of all this.
While I may be long-winded, or a jerk or loud mouthed, or whatever, I believe that at least I put the effort to be objective, and fair, and open-minded about these issues.
I try to openly express my disagreements on hashtags/politics/whatever with Led, Claudio, Zaida, Tony, Jason, Chris, and everyone else that I care about, and do so publicly, on Twitter, on Uptown Collective, on your blogs, etc, because I’m confident in the argument I’m making, and at least I’m willing to be proven wrong in public, because at the end of the day, it’s not about me being right, but about me learning from all of you guys.
Maybe there isn’t even the need to be “proven right or wrong”. Somethings subjective opinions are to remain just that: subjective opinions, and therefore, not facts, or ‘truths’.
But I can’t help but wonder why my arguments are not ‘argued’.
Instead, they’re either ignored, or simply dismissed all together.
—————————————————————————————————————
I believe there is talent, and intelligence, and positive energy, and excitement about our local potential.
But I believe some of you guys are completely and totally responding to this hashtag debacle in the wrong way. It’s only bringing about negative vibes, it’s changing no one’s mind, and it’s balkanizing our community into awkward cliques.
It’s ridiculous. It’s really ridiculous.
I made my stupid little video about Inwood not long ago. And at the end of that video was a series of shots of all the local talent, artists, bloggers, residents and beautiful people that make up my neighborhood.
And at that time, and when you all first watched it, we were excited, and anticipating what was going to happen, and how we were going to harness all the energy and creativity we possessed to make ourselves, as individuals, and as a collective, into something better, and use it to unify our voices for art, local politics, and the issues that concerned us.
Instead, now we’re shooting spitballs across the schoolyard.
Well, fuck that.
I have no interest in that. And have no reason to lose faith in that original potential.
I’m gonna just allow myself, and allow others that are like-minded, to be drawn to each other, naturally, as it happened once before.
And I’m gonna allow the negativity, and passive aggressiveness, and fighting to be marginalized, and ignored, naturally, as it happens in every community that’s drawn to unity, rather than conflict, as it’s always happened.
Now, if you can disagree with me on any particular point I’ve made, in the context I’ve made it, and want to discuss/debate me on it, then please, feel free to do so.
I’d be happy to do it publicly, privately, over a beer, on a mic, on a stage, in your living room, at the park, with others around, with no one else around, etc.
If you don’t like what I had to say, and just want to call me an asshole for saying it, then I could’ve saved you the effort and told you that myself.
My motive is to bring the conversation into the open, and invite and engage all of you to participate. If you say you have no interest, then you’re saying you only have an interest in hearing yourself talk, and don’t care about what anyone else has to say.
I’m willing to engage you guys. I’m willing to rationally, and in a civil tone, discuss this, and end it. I’m not willing to keep up and waste time and energy rehashing old, disproven arguments. And Im certainly not willing to choose sides, because that’s juvenile.
Your move.
