MeToo and TimesUp most-used advocacy hashtags on Instagram in 2018

Instagram has revealed that #MeToo was used 1.5m times in 2018, making it the most-used advocacy hashtag of the year.

This was followed by #TimesUp, which was used 597,000 times, and #MarchForOurLives, which garnered 562,000 uses.

The widespread popularity of each reflects the rise of social media being used to vocalise support for eminent social and political movements.

The data comes as part of Instagram’s annual year in review, which collates the top trends that have emerged over the course of the year, from the most-used emoji to rising niche communities.

It reveals that the heart emoji was used in comments on the platform more than 14bn times, making it by far the most popular emoji among users this year.

People are just as lovestruck when it comes to posting Instagram stories too, as it transpires that the most-used face filter of the year was the heart eyes one.

Meanwhile, the “happiest” geotagged location in the world was Disneyland Tokyo, chosen because it had the highest use of the smiley face emoji.

“We’re heartened to see that sharing love and kindness is still a top priority for the Instagram community,” the platform said in a statement.

Elsewhere, this year’s niche community trend of the year was named as autonomous sensory meridian response (ASMR), which is a phenomenon that usually involves a person whispering or talking quietly on camera with the intention of relaxing the viewer. To date, there are 5.4m posts under the hashtag #ASMR.

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It is said to cause “brain orgasms” and is also very popular on YouTube.

Other communities increasing in popularity on Instagram include soap cutting, which involves chopping up bars of soap on camera, resulting in a crackling noise as the pieces hit the surface, and slime popping i.e. playing with slime on camera so it makes squishing sounds.