I know this sounds weird, but I've always found the symbol of the hashtag to be a bit of an eyesore. Now I know this is a bit nit-picky, but seeing the amount of effort that went into creating a slick looking layout with great structure and all of these amazing features added in, I can't help but look at hashtags and feel that in some way they take away from the neatness or sharpness of the sites design. The function they serve in connection people and helping to filter content is AWESOME, but they themselves from an aesthetic point (once again, maybe only to me) seem tacky. Do we NEED to utilize them? Could we not just filter by using words, or was there a direct reason for the inclusion of them?