iBeheld’s 12 Favourite Hashtags (+ 1 More)

The Eye of the Beholder lives in a mixed-up, muddled-up, shook-up world: these hashtags represent some practical and philosophical concepts by which she navigates it.

#affiliatelink (Spoiler! This one isn’t my favourite, but it has to be at the top of the page.)

This post contains two affiliate links. It’s further down the page, where I’m talking about a particular book and a particular album.

It’s an Amazon link, and I know there are some very good reasons NOT to link to Amazon (including but not limited to work practices, space flights, and market dominance), but I do find it’s often the most reliable link for people to look at books and media I’m recommending.

I’ve had an Amazon Affiliate account for ages, and have earned the princely sum of zero pounds and sixty-two pence from it so far (see above). That’s because I haven’t been using it in the way it’s supposed to be used, I don’t like the way it interrupts the flow of words, so although I used to link to Amazon, I didn’t tend to do it through my affiliate link. But I am going to experiment with using it ‘properly’ for a while, and see what I think about it. One of my aims for this site is to chat about ethics as well as nice stuff, and experimenting with an affiliate link will help me with a piece of work I hope to publish here in the near future.

On to my 12 favourite hashtags!

#TooPrettyToUse

Ever bought a lipstick, a palette or a powder that’s just too gorgeous to mess up? Yes, us too. Classics of this kind include:

– Paul & Joe lipsticks that are sculpted into little cat faces complete with ears

– limited edition CHANEL powders crafted to form camellias, or lion faces (hmmm, cats again)

– Jean-Paul Gaultier Fragile … that’s the perfume that came in the form of a woman trapped in a snow globe, the whole boxed in a tiny crate

– tiny things and miniatures in general including eency-weency perfume bottles.

The ‘Too Pretty to Use’ hashtag is in no way a criticism of a product, or a reason not to buy and treasure it – a thing of beauty is a joy for ever: not using it for its intended purpose means it remains one!

#FelineFine

Has it got a cat on it, a leopard, or a tiger? Does it reference, evoke, or smell like one of our feline friends? If so, chances are, I’ll want to buy it, regardless of what it is.

#GoodFantasyBadReality

I use this concept in real life all the time, usually when talking about men. I’m chucking it in here because I think it might come in handy when discussing ethical questions, or when considering things that started off in a good direction, but swerved and fell in a ditch.

This postcard accompanied The Last Tuesday Society’s Mervyn Peake exhibition in 2019.

Hold on to your hats, because here comes that first AFFILIATE LINK aka #AD (so called, because if you click it, and then buy something within 24 hours, allegedly, I get a cut of your spend.)

Read Gormenghast to discover why it would be lovely if Steerpike took you in his arms, even if after such a blissful interlude, he couldn’t stop himself from stabbing you in the back and drowning you in a pond.

#IRememberYesterday

Of course I do. I’m OLD. Find this on Gen x reminiscences, and commentary on notable acts of hypocrisy or revisionism.

#YouLookNice

Yep, you really do. Expect to find this on anything to do with makeovers, or where I’m waxing lyrical about another person’s great look.

#GaddingAbout

Gadding about, trolling around, bimbling into town, overseas adventures. That’s what this is all about. SEE TREASURE MAP if you want to gad about but can’t think where to go. I hope to be steadily filling it up with good places over the next few weeks and months.

#DestinationShop

A shop that’s an end in itself, rather than just somewhere you have to go to to get that thing.

#BigBagOfSwag and #WhatsInTheBox

The collective nouns for purchases and/or gifts. These often come from Destination Shops.

#NewYearNewRiah

I usually change up my hair (riah) to some degree every year or so, in between I might moan a bit about how thin it is, or darken it. An ongoing quest to improve strength and thickness from someone incapable of consistently doing any of the things that would improve strength and thickness.

#LockdownLifeline

Things I started using, doing, or was grateful to receive/experience during the unprecedented difficulties of March 2020 until … well, who knows when it will end? Or how.

#WaltDarling

To Walt: to fantasise, and sometimes to actively deceive oneself or others that you are something you are not. Derived from Walter Mitty. Most commonly applied to Military Walts eg those who carry on like they stormed the balcony during the siege of the Iranian Embassy, when any fule do kno they are weeds and pussyclarts that like to chat shit but can’t take getting banged.

Here comes the second AFFILIATE LINK or #AD! The addition of ‘Darling’ to ‘Walt’ is a nod to Waltz Darling, an album by musical and managerial genius Malcolm Maclaren. MacLaren was, I suspect, the dictionary definition of the ‘Good Fantasy Bad Reality’ hashtag above.

#BeMoreFrench

The field of operations in which I like to Walt. I’ve been French-Walting for a life-time. And lately I’ve taken to military French-Walting (see below). A former best friend used to say to me “You look very French today” quite often, and not always in an approving way. If she was feeling sincerely affectionate and admiring, she would say “You look nice today, Rachie, not just French – Catholic.”

As a scruffy person who is too lazy to be soignee and is more of a bonne maman in the breach than in the observance, naturellement I like to spend a considerable amount of time pretending to be Ines, or Carine, or Laure from Engrenages … [Aux Armes] etc, etc, and so forth.

The Be More French project – i.e. being a little bit French every day – is all that has kept me sane through Brexit.

More tags as and when I think of them, but for now, these are some of the themes that you will probably find recurring on this site.