A Frikkin Hashtag: #2016WasTheYearThatIFinally

What positive milestones were reached in 2016? We decided to find out.

[The Story So Far: Every Wednesday at 12 noon South African time [6am EDT] an inspired and growing number of brilliant, creative and absolutely fun people from all around the world take part in what is called a Hashtag game. @AFrikkinHashtag [say it out loud] is South Africa’s #1 Hashtag game and is always a lot of fun. The F.L.O.P. [or Fish List Of Prizeworthyness] is the collection of some of the best tweets from each week’s game and is what all seriously comedic Hashtaggers aspire to…]

This week it was long time player and F.L.O.P. list maker Tom who under guise of @shotalandia joined us as official co-host:

And just completely soared in the role and has become a solid member of The UnNamed Ones.

And this was  a game itself which fit into the tag as #2016WasTheYearThatIFinally created a Hashtagging game tag that became a Worldwide Trending Tag for TWELVE HOURS, spending a decent amount of time at number 1.

This game really did explode. It was also the first game that i repeated in a sense as last year’s #2015WasTheYearThatIFinally had been such a hit that i thought we have to do it again. Also in the midst of all the post Trump craziness and in a year that for many people has been a hard and tough and horrible one, we thought it would be amazing to stop and look back and reflect on some of the GREAT STUFF that did happen… in terms of things we achieved or successes we saw or things we tried for the first time and so on.

As per usual i got the ball rolling:

And it was also great to look back at some of the amazing co-hosts who have helped me take @AFrikkinHashtag to the top:

#2016WasTheYearThatIFinally celebrated one year of hosting my favourite Hashtagging Game, A Frikkin Hashtag…

#2016WasTheYearThatIFinally managed to compose an entire tweet without a single typoo.

#2016WasTheYearThatIFinally learnt how to Ewok [like an Egyptian] thanks to @KeshaTedder

#2016WasTheYearThatIFinally dressed up all classy like for me meeting our Americaland friends at the airport visit.

But also created some space for serious reflection as well:

#2016WasTheYearThatIFinally moved into a place that we can hopefully stay in for longer than 18 months.

#2016WasTheYearThatIFinally started working on book number 2. #ForBookNumber1SeeMyBrettFishAProfile

#2016WasTheYearThatIFinally read Antjie Krog’s ‘Country of my Skull’ and it broke me in a thousand ways. #Powerful #Hectic #Mustread

While continuing to hold on to the bitterness [ha!] of a missed @midnight opportunity:

#2016WasTheYearThatIFinally got 128 thousand impressions on a @midnight tweet and didn’t even make the Top Ten list. https://twitter.com/BrettFishA/status/773372917010853889

My co-host @shotalandia has long been one of my favourite game tweeters and this game was no different:

GAMES THAT MAKE THE TWITTERER GO BOOM!

i really expected this game to do well, partly because last year’s had been good, partly cos it felt like everyone needed a bit of positivity in their lives and just cos it’s a great opportunity to look back and remember some of the highlights… but we knew pretty quickly that we had something special on our hands as we started seeing these:

https://twitter.com/trendinaliaCA/status/798903496904818688

https://twitter.com/trendinaliaNL/status/798933677329653761

https://twitter.com/trendinaliaSE/status/798933680034938881

https://twitter.com/trendinaliaBE/status/798933660170756100

https://twitter.com/trendinaliaPT/status/798933712331153408

But this was the one that really excited us after watching it move from 3…. to 2… to…

We made it on to UK Moments which i didn’t even know was a thing:

As well as regular Moments:

And it has always proven tough to trend in my own country, South Africa, so this felt particularly good:

Our favourite Bot, was there of course…

We also had some big names playing along, such as Imani Gandy:

# 1 Hit Billboard Country artist and television actor, Justin Tranchita:

Ellen and the Ellen Show even tweeted a tweet for us:

As did MTV:

We even got mention on the live show apparently… good times…

We were officially registered with a 12.05 length of trend on the Worldwide Trend List [i think i’ve had one Worldwide Trend before which didn’t even make top three] – http://www.trendinalia.com/twitter-trending-topics/globales/globales-161116.html

And then there were you… thousands and thousands and thousands of you as it were and we certainly were unable to grab the best of all the tweets that came in as there were so many and we felt quite overwhelmed…

BUT we do need to have a F.L.O.P. list highlighting the Fish List of Prizeworthyness and so while this list may have so many gaps from so many amazing tweets we missed, here are at least some of the ones that made us smile, cry, laugh out loud and feel good about ourselves… and you.

THE FISH LIST OF PRIZEWORTHYNESS [F.L.O.P.]

Emily started us off with a powerful self-discovery:

Powerpuff Klorine finally joined the club [and literally co-hosted yesterday’s game with me so what a jump!]:

Veldlot rediscovered her Dutch Mojo:

While Grendel maybe took things a little far:

Michael started to catch up to technology:

Rican showed us her moves:

While Tal got a little bit too literal:

Lava just needed one word to bring us into her celebrations. NICELY DONE!

As did Cooking Gal:

Nuff Said had these words:

And Taima had a life epiphany which we could all learn from:

Resistery found her people:

While Jenn took it even a step further, and lived to tell the tale:

https://twitter.com/JennVoix/status/798852139200094210

John had just one word to describe his 2016:

While Daryl finally faced the somber truth:

Jamie decided to get proactive. You go dude!!!

While Kemosabe’s pets might be on to something:

Mickael put his hand to a good cause:

While AJ also seemed to find his people:

And reunited with family. LOVE THIS!!!:

Austin hopefully had a turning point:

And Daryl made a startling discovery:

Dustin seems to be on top form:

https://twitter.com/dustybugsy/status/798856016234303494

While Nawal added another skill:

https://twitter.com/NawalAsif1xxx/status/798855221711552513

Loved this one from Straw who realised she didn’t have to wait:

Heart finally got the point:

DJ was feeling quite ambitious:

Tom got a little feisty:

Ms. K had a list:

Charlez looked to a higher power:

While Katt was looking inwards:

Liza was training for the Olympics:

Andre was on a bit of a veg:

Luke… well, um, just Luke…

джессика was focused on the bigger picture

Pekas deserves some Congratulations!!!:

While Alexandre perfected a skill:

Hot Rockz perfected the skill, but can he say the word?

Weird saw what was really important:

And Heart finally caught up. Have YOU said “A Frikkin Hashtag” out loud?

So that is really just a smattering of the tweets we saw and loved and grabbed but there were obviously so so many more from most of the countries of the world and it was so exciting watching trends come in from Poland and Germany and Portugal and places we don’t usually see in the game…

However, there were just a few of the ones we grabbed that we REALLY REALLY liked and so the ones that rose to the top this week make it into our…

F.L.O.P 5

[5] i LOVE how the word “still” changes Noel’s whole tweet

[4] While Michael came clean on something:

[3] This as one of my absolute faves of the year:

[2] Keyz came to this incredible conclusion…

[1] While this week’s TOP F.L.O.P. was definitely H who came up with one of life’s greatest discoveries

https://twitter.com/HInkyMav/status/798887321177300992

THANK YOU SO MUCH TO EVERYONE – and there were a lot of you – that helped make #2016WasTheYearThatIFinally such a trending game. If you have some minutes to use, click on the tag cos they are still slowly coming in and there is some very inspirational stuff in there. But ja, so much of good and positive and life-giving and inspiring so thank you all for sharing yourselves – we will be back with #2017WasTheYearThatIFinally next year…

Til next time, remember to download the @HashtagRoundup app if you are not on the new look app yet and tune in again next Wednesday at 1pm South African time and 6am EST and in the meantime why don’t you take a look around my blog, because i write about a lot more than just Hashtagging games… such as:

Being Intentional This Christmas – a look at not getting caught up in all the stuff but making it significant.

Deep Dive Conversation about Race – i recently hosted a dinner where a diverse group of us really dived into the topic of race.

Taboo Topics – i still need to move some across from my old blog but this is the page dedicated to a number of topics of things we rarely speak about like singleness or losing a baby, infertility and more… some really powerful stories that have been shared on a range of topics and worth checking out

Thanks for playing and hope to see you soon

Love Brett “Fish” Anderson and No_bob [the world’s most famous stuffed dolphin], huge shout out and thank you to my co-host @shotalandia and as always The UnNamed Ones…

Let’s keep the WIT in the Twitterer…