‘Find your own hashtag’: UGA reacts to sharing a hashtag with Uganda for Rio 2016
The flag of Uganda is now next to every #UGA tweet
If you don’t know UGA stands for the University of Georgia, then you clearly have never heard of the SEC or stepped foot below the Mason-Dixon Line. This well-known abbreviation for the University of Georgia is the source of many tweets to document student life on campus, but now #UGA is being used to support the country of Uganda in the 2016 Summer Olympics.
Twitter users can show their support for each country by tweeting the three letter country code. A flag emoji will appear beside the hashtag, or a “hashflag,” if you will.
However, a lot of the country codes overlap with existing hashtags. For the next two weeks, #UGA is no longer exclusive to the University in Georgia. As students move back to Athens and take to Twitter to document their journey, they will soon find out they will share the hashtag with Uganda.
At first, most Twitter followers were confused:
A lot of folks stood firm that UGA stands for the University of Georgia. Sorry not sorry, Uganda.
After a little while, a few Dawg fans warmed up to the idea.
A handful of fans found humor in the mixup.
Some Dawg fans learned to embrace Uganda as their home team.
Twitter users thought it made their timeline look prettier. You can’t argue with that.
Naturally, there were the haters.
There are 25 current, former, or incoming students at the University of Georgia competing in the games in Rio, so can we really afford to share our hashtag? Dawg fans, tweet at them loud and proud so they see your support, but maybe use #USA instead.