It’s A Frikkin Hashtag Birthday… One year of SA’s #1 game

HAPPY ONE YEAR ANNIVERSARY AFRIKKIN HASHTAG!!!!! Wow, how did that happen?

Just about a year ago i stumbled on to this weird phenomenon called Hashtagging Games and it felt like it had been created for me.

Shortly after that, a girl called Breezy Puffs let me co-host a game she ran and i think about a week after that Jeff and Robyn and the crew at @HashtagRoundup who run the game app, found a space for me on the app.

Then shortly afterwards i was introduced to @BadRonen who was an absolute legend in terms of designing the graphics for my cover and profile pic [and very patient with me] and really set me up for a good game as well as teaching me some tips on how to do great design.

Early on in the games i discovered another South African, @KeshaTedder and K Dawg and i immediately became nemesises nemesies nemississes a nemesis to each other, at least in the online Hashtagging gaming world, but in real life she has been a good friend and a great supporter [even though she will never admit it and claims i like sugar free chocolate just because i outed her and her love of Jar Jar Binks] and there from right near the beginning.

And in fact she has co-hosted with me more than anyone else… so thanks K Dawg – best nemesis ever! Except raiSINS. But i like them less.

The other biggest supporter i’ve had since almost day one who has been incredible in terms of encouraging and mentoring players all over the Hashtagging world and bringing new players into games is the Zenmeister Zen.

He creates a whole new additional promo for each game i do and has a particular set of skills in that regard:

And then there are The Technically but not really UnNamed Ones who are my crew of mostly former co-hosts who got invited to stick around and decided to do just that. From Australia, Holland, Canada, the UK, South Africa and Americaland we truly are a diverse bunch and it is amazing.

Their pay is virtual Buckets of Cheerful Banter and they help RT and HEART and provide all of the banter to fill up said buckets. They help me locate the best tweets for the F.L.O.P. list and are just a generally great bunch of people. i won’t try mention names cos i am sure to leave someone out, but they know they are and are a huge reason that AFH is such a great game.

WHAT IS THE F.L.O.P AND WHY AM I HAPPY TO BE CALLED IT?

So firstly, if you have not yet said @AFrikkinHashtag out loud or figured out the double meaning, take a moment and slap yourself, cos COME ON! AFH is both a frikkin hashtag and also an African Hashtag as i, your host, brett “fish” anderson and proudly South African.

Secondly, after each game i confuse and befuddle people by sending them tweets telling them they F.L.O.P.ped or made it on to the F.L.O.P. list. Some of you have been playing for almost a year and STILL don’t know what that means.

Well i was looking for a fun name for my TOP TWEETS list and with my nickname being F.I.S.H. figured another Acronym would be fun and so the Fish List of Prizeworthyness [or F.L.O.P.] was born. These days most of you are actually fighting to be on the F.L.O.P. list and many of you are proud to call yourselves F.L.O.P. and we REALLY should have a t-shirt that says that. #ConfuseTheWorld

Well, it has been a super fun ride for a number of reasons:

# AFH is a FAMILY game – not everyone is a fan of this but this is one way we stand apart from most games – mostly what this means is we invite people to keep the tweets family but also we refuse to HEART and RT tweets that are overtly sexual/violent/racist/sexist/anti-marriage and so on. i do my best to invite people who submit tweets that don’t fall in line with this to respect the game and it usually ends well [Thank you many of you!] but occasionally as a last resort the block does happen. But rarely.

# The Five Pillars – For most of the year AFH was built largely on the four pillars of tweets we tend towards in terms of RTing and F.L.O.P.ping although there can be exceptions and since so many PUNS [some awful, some insanely good] are a regular part of the game i decided it was time we had a 5th Pillar… but the things we gravitate towards and look for are tweets that are FUN/FUNNY, CLEVER, MISDIRECTIONAL [as in you think it’s going one way but nope, last minute twist to the left] and RANDOM [but related]. And you bring it – week after week and i think that makes the game incredible.

# Creative – we try to think outside of the box [which is so hard when 50 to 100 tag games are being played EVERY WEEK] and come up with tags that are fun, will make you think a little and will make you laugh and groan while you are putting them together. We prefer tweets with pictures and we use and endorse CANVA as a really simple but effective program that helps you add some pictures to your great ideas.

# The Hashtag Game app aka @HashtagRoundup – i think Jeff and Robyn and the crew do an amazing job at keeping this up and running and Robyn has been a flippin star so many times in the 11th hour as we back and forth tags to try find original ones that haven’t happened yet.

# And of course YOU!!! – We get new people playing the game every week but by and large there is a constant stream of regulars and i love seeing the faces and learning the names and experiencing your brilliance week after week. From our Favourite Bunni to badly-spelled Giutarman to Perv with a Heart of Gold and St. Simeon, Walking Abed and Gabe and adu1tg33k and Tee, from Todd Only Knows to Not Likely David Bell and and and and… i could go one – your names crack me up and your tweets inspire and encourage and bring the LOLS and the eye-rolls and the you-must-be-kiddings and more. i feel like AFH is a special community of people that like to have fun together and this keeps bringing me back week in week out… THANK YOU ALL FOR PLAYING… special mention to Zvjezdan Patz whose bio simply says “They named my brother Dennis” – cracks me up every time.

# Also we’re international! AFH has number one trended in the USA [many times] but also in South Africa [only once, come on SA!], Canada, Australia and the United Kingdom, that i am aware of. We have trended on the world trend list, made Twitterer Moments at least 7 or 8 times, which out of 50 is not bad!], were mentioned by Whoopi Goldberg on The View and have made it into countless articles and videos and lists. We have had so many fun people play our tag more by accident than realising that they are playing a game and have been tweeted by universities and dictionaries and restaurants and movie blogs and more.

52ish WEEKS OF GAMES

Super Huge Thanks to Chris aka @Taliesyne for compiling this list for me of past games. May be one or two missing where i didn’t get to the F.L.O.P. cos you know, life, but here are most of the games we loved, laughed at and trended with in Year One of Afrikkin Hashtag and the incredible people who co-hosted with me [and a few i hosted by myself]. Click on the tag if you want to journey back to the F.L.O.P. list and be reminded of which tweets ruled that particular roost [with a few games that didn’t get blog posts]:

10 Oct #CountryAFood with @LouGeese

14 Oct #ArtAMovieOrTv with @yahboiselfie

21 Oct #AndThenTheWorldEnded with @KeshaTedder

28 Oct #MyLastBucketListItemIs with  @TheatreAfrica

4 Nov #YouHadMeAt with @Taliesyne

11 Nov #ThisParrotIsntDeadIts with @swissmistress

25 Nov #2015WasTheYearThatIFinally with @Stevens947

2 Dec #DescribeAFoodToAnAlien

9 Dec #TongueTwistACeleb

23 Dec #YodaSpeakASaying with @KeshaTedder & @theclobra

30 Dec #UnlikelySuperheroAndSidekick

6 Jan #ConfusingProverbs with @KeshaTedder

20 Jan #ForYourBirthdayI with @marketingdude

27 Jan #MoreHonestProductSlogans with @atanasi_

3 Feb #ImprovedMovieTaglines with @SadlyCatless & @googlygirl98

10 Feb #UnlikelyOscarCombos with @bunniboila

17 Feb #WhoReallyLetTheDogsOutAndWhy with @KeshaTedder

24 Feb #IWouldLikeToBeBetterAt

2 Mar #BonoSearchUpdate with @GoGetChaLife

16 Mar #RhymeImproveAMovie with @ZenRand

23 Mar #PunYourJob

30 Mar #ModernCollectiveNouns with @Eezeebee101

6 Apr #ConfusingCompliment with @_Katiebyy69

13 Apr #StrangelyAccurateHoroscope with @bigstevie1967

20 April #ThatsNotAMonsterUnderYourBedIts with @NishaNazim

27 April #ObitYourself with @mseric

4 May #LetMeImproveYourDayBy with @KattFunny

11 May #PoemYourLife with @JaymeMcKenna & @WhoBrannigan

18 May #AutocorrectASentence with @SideOfHashTags

25 May #DontPanicButRather with The UnNamed Ones

1 June #MyUnOlympicEventWouldBe with @charley_ck14

8 June #IWillTellMyGrandchildrenAboutTheTime with @Aricka_Shuck

15 June #OneThingIdLikeToUnseeIs with @she_nutt

22 June #YourHonestTwitterBio with @indistarr

6 July #AcceptableTortureMethod with @hdtorch

13 July #HobbiesSuperHeroesSuckAt with @gigirules7

20 July #PokemonGoACeleb with @ithloopwithcoco

27 July #IProcrastinateBy with @JaymeMcKenna & @WhoBrannigan

3 Aug #ThatDoesImpressMeMuch with @Jessberrie

10 Aug #IWasWinningUntil with @DarylONT

17 Aug #IWasGoingToplayThisGameBut with @math_tagger

24 Aug #AWordICantStandIs with @SugarGretel

31 Aug #UnexpectedTwitterParty with @RealStirfryguy

7 Sep #MyTwitterbotName

14 Sep #MoreAccurateNameFor with @HydraHybrid

21 Sep #YouMustPayBack with @KeshaTedder

28 Sep #MyAmbitiousLawyerObjection with @QuietlyShe

5 Oct #AModernDayMetaphor with @MattRSays & @VeldLot

SOME WORDS FROM THE CREW:

i asked the gang if any of them had any comments or favourite games or tweet moments and a few of them had something to share:

Zenmeister: “Brett asked me to cohost his game back in 4 B.C. when I still had black hair, after I had customized a promo graphic for one of his games. Ever since then, I’ve been helping out behind the scenes with cohosting the games as one of The Unnamed Ones, mostly because I haven’t yet been able to find the exit. Brett is an awesome guy and the crew is a ton of fun. Happy Anniversary, bro.”

K Dawg, Kesha Tedder, aka Binksie: Brett (ask my nemesis Fishy) asked me to co-host this game a year ago. We spend most of the game fighting over Jar Jar Binks and Brett’s love for sugar free treats (yes, he’s weird). I spent the year helping out as part of an amazing team of Unnamed Ones. I don’t know how they put up with him. As much as I hate to admit it (nemesis and all that), Fishy is a fantastic host and wonderful friend and I’m honored that he let me be a part of this milestone with him. Happy Anniversary @AFrikkinHashtag!

https://twitter.com/KeshaTedder/status/656785349885231104

https://twitter.com/BrettFishA/status/656784428857991168

https://twitter.com/KeshaTedder/status/765851956753539072

https://twitter.com/BrettFishA/status/762527717514502144

Veldlot: shared her first ever poem…

My first poem, this FLOP gave me al little headache.In the flop list you referred to South Afrika, while I was of course referring to the south of Holland. I didn’t feel comfortable to mention this on a public timeline and, that time, DM fellt like an invation of privacy so I never talked about it again….

https://twitter.com/VeldLot/status/730337825799983105

Oops, really sorry about that but so glad you stuck around and became a huge part of the crew.

We just can’t have enough of these guys on twitter. A real honour to flop with them.

https://twitter.com/VeldLot/status/763318649788727296

My first flop, didn’t even know what a flop was at that time but it was great to be on a list … As for your game; Always a big fan, Always will. This is one of the best on Twitter. I am Always working when it’s on but hey, it’s worth it.

https://twitter.com/VeldLot/status/720192111694516225

Chris aka Taliesyne: Possibly due to my prolific output for (AFH games 2 & 3) #AndThenTheWorldEnded and #MyLastBucketItemIs or perhaps out of desperation, @BrettFishA asked me to cohost @AFrikkinHastag ‘s 4th game, #YouHadMeAt (not to be confused with #YouHadMeat).

I had been floating about the hashtagging world for a few months and, like many of us, it had proven to be a successful distraction from a particularly difficult year in the “real world” so I was very honoured to be asked and was determined to make the most of the game.

On the night (it’s a time zone thing, don’t ask…) there was a very sudden, extremely intense stormcell passing overhead. Shortly after the game started my garage was flooding and unless I took action the house would have begun taking in water too. The crisis was averted and I was back in the game, rt’ing and faving like crazy.

Fast forward a year and I am so glad to have been asked to cohost that game. It feels like an eternity ago but without revealing who they are, I have met an amazing group of people that have come onboard the AFH crazy train and collectively we are known as the “Unnamed Ones”. Some, if not all, of us are floating in the background for each game while Brett and the official cohost do their thing.

It would be impossible for me to come up with some favourite tweets from that first game so instead I will mention my all time favourite AFH tags: #AndThenTheWorldEnded #MyLastBucketListItemIs #YouHadMeAt #ThisParrotIsntDeadIts #2015WasTheYearThatIFinally #DescribeAFoodToAnAlien #YodaSpeakASaying #ObitYourself #DontPanicButRather #YourHonestTwitterBio #IProcrastinateBy #IWasWinningUntil #YouMustPayBack #MyAmbitiousLawyerObjection #AModernDayMetaphor #PoemADream

So congratulations to Brett and AFH and the Unnamed Ones on the occasion of the first anniversary!!! There will be more!!!

HOW ABOUT YOU?

i would love to hear which of the games on the list was your favourite and your absolute worst [cue Grendel and the poetry games] and if there was a particular tweet that stood out for you. Have you made the F.L.O.P. list yet? Have you topped the F.L.O.P. list? Is there a particular tag you’d like to see in year II of AFH or a particular one you would like to revisit [maybe with a small tweet] i know i am considering a #2016WasTheYearThatIFinally so you can start prepping for that one… Please show us some love in the comments.

Thanks once again for making this the amazing game that it is and see you TOMORROW for the One Year Anniversary game that will have something to do with unique and strange things you might not normally celebrate Anniversary’s of… so get plotting…

All the best

love brett “fish” anderson and The UnNamed Ones