Social media users, most commonly on Twitter and Instagram, use the hashtag symbol, also known as the pound or number sign (#), in their tweets (one hundred forty character messages on Twitter) or in their photograph posts (on Instagram). The hashtag symbol is typically followed by one or a few words that express the main idea of the post. For example, around September 11th each year, people post messages online like the one seen in Image 1. Because this user’s tweet focuses on the importance of remembering the lives lost, she used the hashtag "#neverforget911" to express this main idea. Then, through search engines and other features on the websites like “What’s trending?”, individuals who have used the same hashtags can connect and communicate with one another. Photographer Jonathan Hyman claims in his work The Landscapes of 9/11, “Americans were talking to each other. Thrust into rare territory where a public and collective national catastrophe encouraged and enabled many people with little or no artistic training to speak out loud-in public, on their cars, houses, places of businesses, bodies, and anywhere else they could find the space to do it-Americans transformed the landscape by making artwork that became public expressions of mourning and remembering” (Hyman, 12). Likewise, hashtags are the modern online mechanisms to stimulate similar public conversation.