The 9 Hashtags That Defined 2014

http://www.alternet.org/news-amp-politics/9-hashtags-defined-2014

#Not1More

While hitting the campaign trail in 2008, Barack Obama assured captivated audiences he would pass comprehensive immigration reform during his first year in office. Six years later, the prospect of such a bill passing our gridlocked Congress is unthinkable and over 2 million undocumented immigrants have been deported. As his former ally, Janet Murguia, president of the National Council of La Raza, put it in one frequently cited speech, “For us, this president has been the deporter-in-chief.”

#SochiProblems

This year’s Winter Olympics were held in Sochi, a subtropical resort town on the shores of Russia’s Black Sea. The fact that a winter sporting event was hosted in a city with an average temperature of 65 degrees was only one of many head-scratching aspects of the ceremony. The region had been destabilized for months, with political unrest escalating in neighboring Ukraine, and has long been a hotbed of terrorist activity. But President Vladimir Putin was determined to market the games as a lavish testament to Russian nationalism, constructing an elaborate infrastructure of hotels, athletic venues and public transit for the cool sum of $51 billion, the most money ever spent on an Olympics ceremony.

#CancelColbert

Sarcasm does not translate well to social media, as late-night satirist Stephen Colbert learned earlier this year. Back in April, the official Twitter account for The Colbert Report posted a joke lampooning NFL owner Dan Snyder for starting the Washington Redskins Original Americans Foundation. The tweet read: “I am willing to show #Asian community I care by introducing the Ching-Chong Ding-Dong Foundation for Sensitivity to Orientals or Whatever.” Though it was meant as a parody of Snyder, who has repeatedly refused to acknowledge that his team name is offensive to Native Americans, the tweet ignited a firestorm of controversy on social media, where Colbert was accused of racism.

#YesAllWomen

The college town of Isla Vista, Calif. bore witness to one of the most savage, senseless crimes in recent memory this summer, when 22-year-old Eliot Rodger went on a shooting rampage through downtown, murdering six people before killing himself. Before his death, Rodger released a 137-page autobiographical “manifesto” detailing his intense hatred for women and recounting every perceived slight and rejection he had ever experienced. The hate-filled document is shocking in its misogyny and narcissism. Calling women “vicious, stupid, cruel animals” and “a plague that must be quarantined,” Rodger vowed to “make them all suffer for rejecting me.” Then he acted on that promise.