Friday, August 24, 2012

Interview with June Thomas, creator / coiner of the air quote ''air hashtag''

[•Making an air hashtag (#) with two fingers (down and then right) is the new air quotes for nerds. That joke killed at dinner. (Air hashtag) “Winning.”]


QUESTION: June, according to our sources and online googling, you were the first person in the known universe to come up with this idea of an air quoted AIR HASHTAG body language hand sign gesture. When did you first come up with the idea, when did you take the first online twitter pic photo and post it, and HOW did you come up with this idea?
2. How long did the idea germinate with you before you actually created it and photo'd it?

3. any feedback yet worldwide from viewers online or at Twitter?

4. Steve Martin is generaly credit with inventing the AIR QUOTE. see Wiki on this. Can we now
credit YOU with creating the AIR HASHTAG for all eternity to see, do and enjoy? And if Steve Martin saw your AIR HASHTAG, what do you think HE would say about it?

5. Can you foresee a time for PR perhaps when Steve Colbert or Jon Stewart or David Letterman invite
you in their shows to illustrate the AIR HASHTAG. Not the Jay Leno show, but maybe COMEDY DAILY?

6. did you ever create any earlier body language gestures or was this your first stab at such a thing?

7, Will you make a YOUTUBE video one day illustrating the AIR HASHTAG, in much the same way
as scare quotes and the scrotation marks videos are there now?

air hashtag ONE

http://www.adlibbing.org/wp-content/uploads/2011/03/CrowdTap-300x200.jpg
1.


Air Hastag! Love it. That is hilarious.







Trish @dayngr


Community Manager
Radian6



Comment by Trish F. — March 22, 2011 @ 4:24 pm


http://www.mcgilltribune.com/polopoly_fs/1.2713566!/image/1846784391.jpg_gen/derivatives/landscape_260/1846784391.jpg

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

How to say 'hashtag' with your fingersSo addicted to Twitter you need to tag your every spoken word? Here's how to add the social media equivalent of air quotes to your conversation
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A finger hashtag: "a bizarre attempt at semaphore without flags." Photograph: Sarah Lee for the Guardian
People have started speaking with hashtags. Not often, and not, in most cases, people anyone really likes, but people nonetheless. And the problem – beyond the fact that this is happening at all – is that no one seems to be quite sure how to say, for example, #spokenhashtag.

Abruptly inserting the word "hashtag" mid-sentence just won't do. It's far too clunky, like having to shout out "inverted commas!" before and after a suspect sentence, instead of forming a pair of air-quote bunny rabbits.

An "air hashtag" also looks tricky: attempting to draw out the # symbol with a finger takes four time-consuming strokes, and makes you look as if you've paused mid-thought to bust out a hand-jive to the imaginary music in your head.

Trying it with two fingers and two quick strokes – one horizontal and one vertical – just looks like an effete mimed raptor attack, while going all-out with two slashes of both hands risks being mistaken for a bizarre attempt at semaphore without flags.

They would all also require you to say "hashtag" while doing them anyway. At least at first, until people caught on.

No, we need standardisation. We need – drumroll please – a hashtag tone of voice. Sarcasm, after all, has one. Why not the humble hashtag?

DANIELBLOOM said...

There is also the unofficial Hashtag Mafia, people who flash one another the hashtag sign — crossing their index and middle finger of one hand over the same two fingers of their other hand to create a physical hashtag. #IronicGesture #WeHope

“I have pictures of people actually using the actual hashtag symbol, and it’s like they’re flashing a gang sign, but they’re doing a hashtag,” Ms. Wilcox said. “That gets really geeky.”

Mr. Messina takes a more philosophical, albeit lighthearted, view. “The great thing about hashtags is that anyone can join the Hashtag Mafia by using hashtags,” he said. “You’re not really in the mafia unless you do air hashtags.”

Anonymous said...

June here. In answer to your questions:

1. Sheer genius.
2. About 30 seconds.
3. None--until now.
4. I cannot say.
5. No.
6. This is my one and only gesture coinage.
7. I have released air hashtag into the world. My work is now done.

DANIELBLOOM said...

love it , JT, thanks for answers. will add to interview above. BTW, since you were raied in UK, right, is SCARE QUOTES a UK term and was it coined there long ago and by whom? I am doing major research on SQ now but so far cannot find who coined term or when , but signs point to UK and maybe 1920s or 1880s......first USA ref is 1946 book by Carey McWilliams titled CALIFORNIA......do you know. ? can you write blog tweet about the ORIGINS of the scare quotes TERM, the name, one day? and why are they called SCARE quotes???????