Satire

7 Hashtags That Prove Twitter Activism Can Change Human History

REUTERS/Dado Ruvic

Daily Caller News Foundation logo
Blake Neff Reporter
Font Size:

A mighty hashtag emerged days before Super Tuesday that threatens to blow the Republican presidential race wide open.

#NeverTrump is the decisive rhetorical weapon that establishment Republicans opposed to Donald Trump’s candidacy have been looking for.

“#NeverTrump is the unifying movement conservatives needed,” declared former Eric Cantor spokesman Rory Cooper on Medium. “Trending worldwide non-stop since it began. Writers like Matt Lewis, Jonah Goldberg, Stephen Hayes, [Erick] Erickson, [John] Podhoretz and [Bill] Kristol are all there. Early adapters like Rick Wilson, Liam Donovan and too many others to mention; legions of activists; bloggers and voters are shoulder-to-shoulder.”

Marco Rubio is on board with the campaign, and breathless write-ups have appeared in Politico and elsewhere.

The effect of #NeverTrump has already proved decisive. In polls before its emergence, Trump held a national lead of about 15 points. After the hashtag emerged and helped solidify GOP unity against Trump, Trump’s lead fell to 33 points.

Here are six other popular hashtags that changed the course of world history:

1. #BringBackOurGirls: The world, led by first lady Michelle Obama, rallied behind this anthem demanding the liberation of Christian Nigerian girls who were captured by Islamic extremist group Boko Haram. The girls weren’t brought back, but they were later used as suicide bombers and sex slaves.

2. #WhichHillary: This hashtag took off after its appearance on a banner used by an activist who crashed a Hillary Clinton fundraiser. Users of the hashtag bashed Clinton’s shifting political views by contrasting her earlier opinions with more modern ones. The biting satire of the hashtag highlighted Clinton’s inconsistency and invited a contrast with her more consistently progressive presidential opponent, Sen. Bernie Sanders.

After the hashtag’s emergence, Hillary obliterated Sanders in South Carolina’s Democratic primary, making her victory in the primary race a near-certainty.

3. #Kony2012: This hashtag was concocted by the group Invisible Children and was intended to rally global opposition to Ugandan warlord Joseph Kony with the intent of having him captured by the end of 2012. A video accompanying the hashtag campaign got over 100 million views and he became, at least temporarily, a household name. The U.S. Senate even passed a resolution condemning him.

Currently, Kony remains at large. Also, one of the campaign’s leaders was arrested for masturbating in public.

4. #BanBossy: Everybody from Condoleezza Rice to Beyoncé to Sheryl Sandberg got on board this effort to encourage women to show leadership by trying to abolish the label “bossy,” which is supposedly used to belittle assertive women.

Currently, bossy is not banned.

5. #OccupyWallStreet: This hashtag was adopted by the thousands of protesters who descended on lower Manhattan to protest against Wall Street in 2011 and demand vague, undefined changes. The “Occupy” label was adopted by sister protests across the country that came together demanding widespread systemic reforms in the American economy.

Eventually, police broke up the Occupy camp in Zuccotti Park before they settled on a clear set of actual demands.

6. #JesuisCharlie: Meaning “I am Charlie,” this hashtag was used millions of times across the globe to show solidarity with the French magazine Charlie Hebdo and opposition to Islamic terrorism. Cowed by the overwhelming condemnation of their deeds, Islamic terrorists responded by launching a massive attack on Paris that killed 130 people.

Follow Blake on Twitter

Send tips to blake@dailycallernewsfoundation.org.

All content created by the Daily Caller News Foundation, an independent and nonpartisan newswire service, is available without charge to any legitimate news publisher that can provide a large audience. All republished articles must include our logo, our reporter’s byline and their DCNF affiliation. For any questions about our guidelines or partnering with us, please contact licensing@dailycallernewsfoundation.org.

PREMIUM ARTICLE: Subscribe To Keep Reading

Sign up

By subscribing you agree to our Terms of Use

You're signed up!

Sign up

By subscribing you agree to our Terms of Use

You're signed up!
Sign up

By subscribing you agree to our Terms of Use

You're signed up!

Sign up

By subscribing you agree to our Terms of Use

You're signed up!
Sign up

By subscribing you agree to our Terms of Use

You're signed up!

Sign Up

By subscribing you agree to our Terms of Use

You're signed up!
Sign up

By subscribing you agree to our Terms of Use

You're signed up!
Sign up

By subscribing you agree to our Terms of Use

You're signed up!
BENEFITS READERS PASS PATRIOTS FOUNDERS
Daily and Breaking Newsletters
Daily Caller Shows
Ad Free Experience
Exclusive Articles
Custom Newsletters
Editor Daily Rundown
Behind The Scenes Coverage
Award Winning Documentaries
Patriot War Room
Patriot Live Chat
Exclusive Events
Gold Membership Card
Tucker Mug

What does Founders Club include?

Tucker Mug and Membership Card
Founders

Readers,

Instead of sucking up to the political and corporate powers that dominate America, The Daily Caller is fighting for you — our readers. We humbly ask you to consider joining us in this fight.

Now that millions of readers are rejecting the increasingly biased and even corrupt corporate media and joining us daily, there are powerful forces lined up to stop us: the old guard of the news media hopes to marginalize us; the big corporate ad agencies want to deprive us of revenue and put us out of business; senators threaten to have our reporters arrested for asking simple questions; the big tech platforms want to limit our ability to communicate with you; and the political party establishments feel threatened by our independence.

We don't complain -- we can't stand complainers -- but we do call it how we see it. We have a fight on our hands, and it's intense. We need your help to smash through the big tech, big media and big government blockade.

We're the insurgent outsiders for a reason: our deep-dive investigations hold the powerful to account. Our original videos undermine their narratives on a daily basis. Even our insistence on having fun infuriates them -- because we won’t bend the knee to political correctness.

One reason we stand apart is because we are not afraid to say we love America. We love her with every fiber of our being, and we think she's worth saving from today’s craziness.

Help us save her.

A second reason we stand out is the sheer number of honest responsible reporters we have helped train. We have trained so many solid reporters that they now hold prominent positions at publications across the political spectrum. Hear a rare reasonable voice at a place like CNN? There’s a good chance they were trained at Daily Caller. Same goes for the numerous Daily Caller alumni dominating the news coverage at outlets such as Fox News, Newsmax, Daily Wire and many others.

Simply put, America needs solid reporters fighting to tell the truth or we will never have honest elections or a fair system. We are working tirelessly to make that happen and we are making a difference.

Since 2010, The Daily Caller has grown immensely. We're in the halls of Congress. We're in the Oval Office. And we're in up to 20 million homes every single month. That's 20 million Americans like you who are impossible to ignore.

We can overcome the forces lined up against all of us. This is an important mission but we can’t do it unless you — the everyday Americans forgotten by the establishment — have our back.

Please consider becoming a Daily Caller Patriot today, and help us keep doing work that holds politicians, corporations and other leaders accountable. Help us thumb our noses at political correctness. Help us train a new generation of news reporters who will actually tell the truth. And help us remind Americans everywhere that there are millions of us who remain clear-eyed about our country's greatness.

In return for membership, Daily Caller Patriots will be able to read The Daily Caller without any of the ads that we have long used to support our mission. We know the ads drive you crazy. They drive us crazy too. But we need revenue to keep the fight going. If you join us, we will cut out the ads for you and put every Lincoln-headed cent we earn into amplifying our voice, training even more solid reporters, and giving you the ad-free experience and lightning fast website you deserve.

Patriots will also be eligible for Patriots Only content, newsletters, chats and live events with our reporters and editors. It's simple: welcome us into your lives, and we'll welcome you into ours.

We can save America together.

Become a Daily Caller Patriot today.

Signature

Neil Patel