How do Twitter hashtags work?

[fatal4you]

Maybe I'm getting old, but I don't understand how Twitter hashtags work.
On the one hand people make tweets and put a lot of hashtags into it. On the other hand, I googled it, you cannot subscribe to a hashtag, only to other accounts or topics. So, what's the point of hashtags? Who is getting displayed all these hashtags? Is the idea that someone I subscribe to, uses a hashtag and then I become curious and click on that hashtags to learn more (every time)?

 

[Fennario]

Hashtags are basically keywords you apply to index/make the content searchable. All content with a certain tag will/should appear within results when it is used as a search term or clicked on within the ecosystem. Same thing for Instagram/FaceBook/etc.

 

[Michael Krone]

You mean pound signs?

 

[R8pilot]

How they work is "you ignore them as a minor irritant and move on."

That may sound flippant or unhelpful, but Twitter is a cesspool of marketing, misinformation and overwhelming idiocy so, as a reasoning and thoughtful person, why should you care?

 

[Michael Krone]

How they work is "you ignore them as a minor irritant and move on."

That may sound flippant or unhelpful, but Twitter is a cesspool of marketing, misinformation and overwhelming idiocy so, as a reasoning and thoughtful person, why should you care?

Perfectly spot on but I do think OP is just trying to understand why people use them. Ive never used the symbol "#" in the context of a "hashtag". I avoid saying it because I would feel stupid doing so.