from the book:

“No one agrees on what to call # and no one really knows where it originated either; it just seems to have always existed. In the modern technological era, the octothorpe was first used to fill space on what would otherwise have been a blank button on the touchtone telephone. Today, hashtags are used to start something. You can put anything after # and what follows becomes a community, a movement, something that matters. It has become the symbol of the internet. For me, # is the symbol of a connected humanity. It represents my faith that people, connected, can create a new world.”