Hilariously Heinous Hashtag Hijinks

Back in April 2013 I was asked to perform at an invite-only magic convention in New York. Apart from being a well-known institution in the magic industry, this particular convention is also noteworthy for its name.

Specifically: Fechter's Finger Flicking Frolic.

Unsurprisingly, this is usually abbreviated to just "Fechter's," "FFFF," or "4F." The "Fechter" refers to magician Eddie Fechter who founded the convention back in 1971. "Finger Flicking" is an occasionally used synonym for sleight-of-hand, and I assume that "Frolic" made it in because, hey, alliteration.

One of the other noteworthy things about the convention is its focus on performance. Any attendee can be asked to perform in one of the shows, and first-timers are always asked to do so. I knew this going in, but like an idiot didn't read the schedule properly. Luckily I found out just in time to get my stuff ready for my performance.

I summarised the experience with a Twitter post, which I thought told the story quite elegantly:

It was only after making said tweet that I thought to check whether #ffff2013 was actually the hashtag people were using for the convention.

Plugging said hashtag into Twitter's search function turned up the following:

Yes. I had unwittingly hashtagged myself into a furry convention. Fandom's Favourite Fursuit Fracas, no less. It turns out that Furries, being generally far more social media savvy than magicians, had claimed the hashtag well in advance.

I now double check my hashtags before tweeting.

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