Sometimes, with the absolute best of intentions, people or brands will start hashtags that at first glance seem innocent.
The thing is, the internet is anything BUT innocent! So, with that in mind, here are 15 times a hashtag got started on Twitter, Insta, or wherever, only for it to be totally misinterpreted... With some mostly ~hilarious~ results!
1. #nowthatchersdead
We must never forget this image of her battleship in the Falkland islands #nowthatchersdead
In 2013, divisive British politician Margaret Thatcher passed away, and the good people of Twitter decided to discuss the future of the UK using this hashtag. The problem was that not everyone knew Thatcher had died, or even who she was, so users instead deciphered that is was music icon CHER who had passed. And the gays FREAKED OUT.
Interestingly (if you find grammar interesting like me) confusion also arose from the fact that in British English, the word "now" can be used as a subordinator by itself, but in US English you need to use "that" as well. Ergo, "now Thatcher's dead" became "now that Cher's dead" to our American friends.
2. #molestationnursery
@joeybagovdonuts Reminds me of #molestationnursery that's mole station nursery, lovely garden supplies.
The Mole Station Native Nursery in New South Wales, Australia was forced to change its name when both the domain for its website and the associated hashtag used by customers brought up some pretty ~unfortunate~ connotations.
3. #LoveDP
I bet she did!! 😈 #loveDP
It was a hallowed day when British fashion retailer Dorothy Perkins used the hashtag LoveDP to promote their brand. This time, it wasn't a case of erroneous capitalisation that confused people, oh no. The brand shortened their name to DP not realising that they were inadvertently alluding to the act of... erm... double penetration. Well, I say inadvertently... This was either a colossal error or a stoke of genius to get people talking about DP again. Dotty P, that is! ;)
4. #RIMJobs
😱
Another sexy mix-up, BlackBerry maker and Canadian tech giant Research In Motion once decided to innocently advertise a few job vacancies on Twitter, as you do. The hashtag? #RIMJobs. Let's just say their tweets got lost in a sea of 🍑. I do believe this is a compelling argument for companies to hire more diversely, because a gay would've known better.
5. #susanalbumparty
Susan Boyle has officially the most unfortunate hashtag. Are we all looking forward to Susan Boyle's #susanalbumparty ?
This really is a classic of the genre. Back in 2012, Susan's PR team decided to promote her new album, Standing Ovation: The Greatest Songs from the Stage, using a hashtag they really didn't study beforehand. So #SusanAlbumParty became #SusAnalBumParty, which – let's be honest – is hilarious. It was swiftly changed to #SusanBoyleAlbumParty, but the damage was already done.
6. #CLITFEST
One year the Cheltenham Literary Festival wanted to be trendy & came up with the tag #CLITFEST (Attendance was low, no one could find it)
I mean, really? The Cheltenham Literary Festival must've been tripping the day they came up with this one! The event is actually quite a big deal here in the UK, and takes place every October in the English spa town of Cheltenham. It has attracted the likes of Hillary Clinton, Salman Rushdie, Toni Morrison, and Stephen Fry over the years, but apparently those luminaries aren't enough. So in 2013, organisers decided to spice things up with a new hashtag. I think they went too far?
7. #hobbitch
Swiss ad for the Hobbit movie has quite a controversial hashtag: #hobbitch
Why is this SO funny?!? When promoting the 2012 movie The Hobbit in Switzerland, Swiss marketers decided to fuse "hobbit" with "CH", the country code for Switzerland... And so, "hobbitch" was born! #NeverForget.
8. #doitonthebus
I'm wondering if everything the @hfxgov & @nsgov promotes will have some sort of sexual innuendo? #doitonthebus
This was supposed to be an innocent campaign to promote the Halifax region of Nova Scotia's new Metro Transit. Intending to highlight the "many leisure and work activities you can do as a transit rider that you can't (or shouldn’t) as a driver", I guess marketers didn't really think about the OBVIOUS one.
9. #lesbocages
Wow, i'm now a big big fan of #lesbocages !!!! http://t.co/SSyGf8Sq1w
I can totally forgive when other languages (in this case French) make mistakes like these, but that doesn't make it not funny! Designed to promote the website lesbocages.com – a site that offers tree maintenance in the Brittany region of France – this one conjures images of gay women behind bars, rather than rural French countryside.
10. #powergenitalia
@Pandamoanimum @richardmills18 The UK company Powergen bought an Italian energy group and branded it PowergenItalia, with a domain name and logo.
Much like #lesbocages, poor Powergen Italia didn't see it coming when they put out this hashtag using no capitalisation whatsoever!
11. #AskJesus
Did you become a winger because of your previous experience with crosses? #AskJesus
It's quite common – apparently very common in the world of sport – to create a hashtag so that fans can pose questions to famous athletes. Well, I guess no one was thinking when they came to work a few years ago, because right winger Jesús Navas isn't ~exactly~ the most famous Jesus in the world!
After a Man City PR person decided to have people use #AskJesus to pose Navas questions, the English club ended up getting a LOT more responses than they bargained for, as well as some pretty funny wisecracks!
12. #WaitroseReasons
I shop at Waitrose because the butler's on holiday. #waitrosereasons
One of the earliest examples of a brand marketing itself using hashtags, back in 2012, upscale British supermarket Waitrose asked its customers to tweet why they shopped at the store using the hashtag WaitroseReasons. Well, I guess they should've anticipated that the Great British public are fundamentally incapable of sincerity, because most of the responses were totally unserious, with Twitter users making fun of Waitrose's infamously "posh" brand image.
13. #CrumpetCreations
14. #CoalisAmazing
The Coal Industry: bringing families together for centiries #coalisamazing
Here's one for the Australians... Aussies might remember the "Little Black Rock" campaign by the Minerals Council of Australia back in 2015. In a series of TV ads and social media messages, the council claimed that coal provided "$40bn" to Australia's economy, that coal could now "reduce its emissions by up to 40%", and asked people, "isn't it amazing what this little black rock can do?"
This messaging enraged eco groups, who were fighting against the approval of large mines across the country at the time. Environmentalists started using the hashtag ironically, ridiculing the campaign and flooding the feed with anti-coal tweets. The council would ultimately deny the campaign's failure, citing the ol' "all press is good press" line... Sure, Jan.
15. And finally, #pokemonmastersex
Pokémon Masters EX Hashtag trending for the wrong reasons #pokemonmasterex #pokemonmastersex #pinoygamer
I guess when Pokémon rebranded Pokémon Masters, they kind of forgot that we all have our minds in the gutter! To celebrate its first anniversary, the company changed the mobile game name to "Pokémon Masters EX", and used the hashtag #PokemonMastersEX. The use of CamelCase was smart, but unfortunately many still parsed (whether deliberately or not is up for debate!) the hashtag as "Pokémon Master Sex."
American video game developer Brianna Wu said at the time, "I log onto Twitter, I see what's trending, and I see Pokemon Master Sex... Then I see the official icon next to it, meaning that they paid for it. I'm like, 'What the hell is going on?'" Willful manipulation for hilarious gain, Brianna.
16. BONUS: #amazonshitcarshow
No one should ever have to see this. We apologise. #thegrandtour #amazonshitcarshow
Prime Video wanted to be super clever when they came to promoting the third season of The Grand Tour featuring former Top Gear stars Richard Hammond, James May, and Jeremy Clarkson. Admittedly, it's a pretty eye-grabbing hashtag, but the irony is that everyone presenting this show is a massive tool, so it kind of works anyway.
Did we miss out any hilarious hashtags fails? Let us know in the comments below!
#pokemonmastersex : Gets meme’d on Twitter due to poor capitalisation. #susanalbumparty :