Pop Culture dictionary
trashtag
or #trashtag [trash-tag]
What does trashtag mean?
Trashtag refers to an internet challenge and hashtag campaign where people clean up a heavily littered area, posting before and after photos with the hashtag #trashtag.
Where does trashtag come from?
Trashtag is based on hashtag and widely appears in hashtag form as #trashtag on social media.
On March 5, 2019, a man named Byron Román wrote on Facebook: “Here is a new #challenge for all you bored teens. Take a photo of an area that needs some cleaning or maintenance, then take a photo after you have done something about it, and post it.” The post captioned of photo of him in a littered section of woods before and after he cleaned it up.
Here is a new #challenge for all you bored teens. Take a photo of an area that needs some cleaning or maintenance, then take a photo after you have done something about it, and post it.
Posted by Byron Román on Tuesday, March 5, 2019
As Román told Time, a Guatemalan friend of his took the photos and posted a similar message in Spanish. Román translated the post and added the hashtags #BasuraChallenge and #trashtag. (Basura is Spanish for “trash.”)
Over the next several days, Román’s post went viral, with many people taking up Román’s challenge and posting before-and-after photos with #trashtag.
Here's my contribution to #trashtag. My (large) family and I cleaned up this beach we camped near over the summer! (from u/EMC2_trooper) https://t.co/Y60JRkMwmS pic.twitter.com/yf8HHqa3Ar
— r/Pics Bot (@Reddit_Pics_Bot) March 10, 2019
Mainstream news outlets covered the wholesome trend, further spreading Román’s challenge and #trashtag.
Viral #trashtag challenge inspires bored teens — and tens of thousands of others — to clean the planet https://t.co/wZzu5jot7E pic.twitter.com/KPqpPPwELG
— CBS News (@CBSNews) March 12, 2019
Reaction to the #trashtag was overwhelmingly positive, although some, of course, took the opportunity to mock the challenge’s participants.
#trashtag victim pic.twitter.com/2imRuW0Bgi
— Reddit Memes (@Reddit_Memes) March 11, 2019
That said, it’s hard to argue against the worthiness of this social media challenge. If nothing else, it’s doing more to affect positive change than slacktivism.
Honestly, #trashtag is ingenious. If you want people to do something, you gotta make them do it for fake internet points.
— Democracy Brad (@Bradstronaut) March 10, 2019
Examples of trashtag
Who uses trashtag?
True to Román’s original post, trashtag is used to hashtag posts where people post before-and-after pictures of an area they’ve cleaned up. Sometimes the act of doing such a cleanup is referred to as a trashtag.
This is just a work of an hour! #trashtag #pics pic.twitter.com/Bl4A4IKLZ9
— The Best Pictures (@BeautifuImages) March 11, 2019
Along the Potomac River south of Washington, DC #trashtag pic.twitter.com/n2uPL52LZG
— Robbie McNeil (@RMcNeil2105) March 10, 2019
True to internet form, #trashtag sometimes accompanies parodies of the challenge. For the most part, though, participants seem to take pride in their contributions to a cleaner, more beautiful environment.
3,000 kg of garbage collected from Mt. Everest. Keep up the good work! #trashtag pic.twitter.com/861OliPe7E RT zaibatsu
— Marenda Taylor (@Marenda) April 30, 2019
Note
This is not meant to be a formal definition of trashtag like most terms we define on Dictionary.com, but is rather an informal word summary that hopefully touches upon the key aspects of the meaning and usage of trashtag that will help our users expand their word mastery.