What to do with Hashtags?

I used to think that hashtags were stupid, something without a real use.  In fact, the only time I ever engaged with hashtags was when I included them in posts ironically to make fun of hashtags.  Over time (before this course), I evolved to see some uses of hashtags (e.g., track what topics are trending), even though I still had no desire to engage with them.  This course has helped me to evolve my position on hashtags further. Earlier in this course, we talked about how we could use hashtags to categorize information and find what we care about.  For example, Twitter chats like lrnchat allow people to discuss a common topic in an organized way.  And as we saw in Dennen (2011), conferences attendees can use hashtags to build their networks with others both attending and not attending a conference.

However, I realized this week that we can get very creative with hashtags.  I was watching the cinematic masterpiece that is Sharknado 3, and as the film was wrapping up, the film encouraged me to tweet one hashtag to save a character and another hashtag to let that character die.  They were using hashtags as a voting mechanism, with the results being revealed in Sharknado 4.  After getting really excited about the existence of another one of these dumb movies, I went to my rarely used Twitter account and "voted."  (You can check my twitter feed).  Now, voting with hashtags maybe isn't the most unique or creative things in the world.  However, this helped me to realize that these stupid pound sign things can be used in a lot of different ways.  They can be really interesting, provided that we get creative with them.

Sharknado 3 may or may not end with sharks in space.

   Image from: http://www.businessinsider.com/sharknado-3-bizarre-ending-2015-7

So what do you think about hashtags?  In what ways have you seen them used?  Any really interesting uses that I should know about?  And have you seen Sharknado 3?  What did you think?  Will Oscar come knocking?