Do you know what you should be talking about right now? A TV show just told me what I should be talking about. Most shows implicitly hope that you do talk about what you see, but this one told me–explicitly–to talk about it, and how to talk about it.
I used to watch quite a bit of the Food Network, and I credit Mario, and Emeril, and Alton, and David Rosengarten for whatever cooking ability I have. I don't watch much of the network anymore, but I just watched an episode in the series that promises to answer the very pressing question, "Who will be the next Iron Chef?"
The episode featured a lineup of chefs I've seen on other cooking shows over the years competing in standard Top Chef/Iron Chef-type challenges, but it featured a new element. Throughout the show, there was a line of text sitting in the top left corner: #NextIronChef.
The #hashtag started as an interesting, original concept to aid searches. It's a new step to have a show take up screen real-estate telling me just what #term I should use just in case I should happen to mention it on a social network.
