Trending -- what ?

I use Twitter a lot, not to hear the sound of my own voice, but to follow people who interest me. Yes, some of these are 'celebs' but not people like the Kardashians, mostly actors in the TV shows I enjoy. It's a good way of 'meeting' people who like the same things as I do. If one of the young people posts a word or phrase I don't understand, I usually look it up on urbandictionary.com which is very useful if you want to be 'down with the kids'

hashtag is just the hash key (just above shift key on keyboard).

No desire to go on Twitter & send a Tweet.

Not remotely interested in "Celebs" & their goings on - does this mean I'm "off trend"

Hashtags can be very useful Wobblybits - I learnt about them quite recently (outside of twitter) they can tame the internet quite nicely.
I'm doing an online photography course that uses a private facebook community and when we post our submissions on different modules, each task has its own hashtag. By just clicking your mouse on that specific hashtag in any of the submissions you are taken to all a page that shows all the submissions from everyone on the course for that assignment. It beats scrolling endlessly through all the stuff you don't care about at the moment

My current favourite one though is #VeryBritishProblems

I do too wb. I always feel a pang of conscience! Same reason I always donate to Wikipedia every year. It's such a great resource and I'd miss it like anything if they had to fold.

We use many products that are "Free" but they have to be paid for some how, GN is one of those, it is the advertising that pays the bills. This is why ADBlock is good in some ways, but rather unfair to the company giving us the product for free. So if they ask, I disable it for that site.

Yes I have Adblock - but have you noticed that more and more sites pop up messages saying 'we see you have an ad blocker - please disable this as we can't operate without the income from advertising' Or words to that effect. Sometimes you get 'Our site won't display properly unless you disable the ad blocker'.

Thanks Wobblybits

I deleted all the chocolate chip ones and they were delicious. None left.

Don't delete cookies, they are delicious.

Try AdBlock on a windows PC, that blocks most adverts and is free

I am off to delete my cookies

railman I think I can cope with the ads, at least I got rid of them on my tablet, it's the 'trending' bit at the side that tells me what celebrities (about whom I care less than two hoots) are up to in their not fascinating lives

Do you think if we 'ask nicely' he will pay up? along with Mrs Green et al

Thank you for the tips

Here's another thought - instead of using 'Google' to search with - which tracks all your vistas, etc., and then "tailors advertising" to you - why not use 'DuckDuck Go' instead? They claim that they don't track your searches.

Mind you, it's those 'cookies' that need to be watched, which are used by most sites to create 'trending' ... no wait, maybe that's a 'conspiracy theory'!

Jalima - Maybe if we asked Mark Zuckerberg/Facebook to pay more tax in proportion to their UK sales, and give us the option for those annoying 'sidebar' ads.

Blimey. You live and learn!

If you don't understand something you see online. Highlight the word or words, right click and from the drop down options click Search Google for "on fleek" and voila!

On fleek or not, fleek is a word worth knowing. Born* in a Vine video on June 21, 2014, the term fleek is a busy word. It was originally (and still is most commonly) applied to perfectly-groomed eyebrows, but the word has been used to describe everything from hash browns to skateboards.

As someone who's definitely down wiv da kidz I can enlighten you re "on fleek" - it means perfect! Another baffling one is "peng" (fanciable). I delight in popping such words into conversation with my 12yr old GS - he is shocked and impressed in equal measure!

STOP !!!! I can't cope anymore, ding, on point, what the fleek is going on.

And what's "on point" all about?

not ding-- find!!

OH Lord all these sill things - lots of them seem to have come out of the fashion industry - being 'on trend' just means in fashion. Twitter is strange to me I do post/tweet on it but the hashtag thing is just like a bookmark I think so you can ding the subject referred to. Anyway if you can be bothered (I cant) they have a good on line tutorial. Never heard of 'on fleek' but when my 12 year old grandson come here next week I expect to be brought up to date!!!

OMG, it gets worse, what the hell is "on fleek"

In the meantime being 'on fleek' has become important apparently.

Twitter? I think there's a clue in the title*wobblybits*. The natural home of those who love the sound of their own voice....or thumbs on iPhone.

Ok, now for the really stupid question, what is this "hashtag" thing all about, I always assumed it was something to do with Twitter. I have never understood Twitter, what does it achieve ?

You would never believe I worked in IT

I think it did start with Twitter but it's become mainstream now and yes it does annoyingly come up on the side of FB and I don't think you can turn it off Jalima It's just a way of saying ' what's being talked about' and supposed to catch our attention

It's one of those words that have migrated from specific use and become part of everyday language, in this case, I think, started with Twitter. What is trending is the selection of hashtags most used, i.e. the most commented on topics of the day.