Pandemic Related Hashtags and Social Language


I thought the article "Going Viral: How a Single Tweet Spawned a COVID-19 Conspiracy Theory on Twitter" Gruzd, A., & Mai, P. (2020) was a well-written and very interesting read for this week.  Actually, I found it to be so interesting that I googled "#FilmYourHospital" and read several news articles about that former social media hashtag misinformation campaign.  

One article, which was on the AP news website, had a commentary that helped to explain the wildfire effect of that pandemic related hashtag.  The commentator was an investigative researcher for the Anti-Defamation League's Center on Extremism, Alex Friedfeld.  His explanation made me realize that it wasn't just the COVID-19 virus that was mutating and quickly spreading during the pandemic in an unprecedented way.  Conspiracy Theories were also mutating and quickly spreading as people had more free time to spend on the Internet while they stayed home in quarantine conditions.  

Now, here we are in 2025, with numerous lists of pandemic related hashtags that have been banned from social media sites over the past five years mostly because of the misinformation, violence, or cruelty attached to them.  Whether the hashtag phrases are banned or not, each of them carries a new meaning shaped by the social events when they were created.  Studying hashtag phrases like #StayHome, #Lockdown, and #StaySafe would certainly be an interesting topic for researchers in the future to find out the effect those phrases had on social language during this time in history and beyond.  

This is another reason the work at the Library of Congress is so important.  Someone needs to capture and catalog those viral tweets for future researchers!  #LibrariansAreEssential


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