Emotionelle appeller i aktivistiske hashtags

”It could have been me” and ”I have experienced” are phrases that are immediately unremarkable and available for everyday use. The expressions communicate understanding and acknowledgement and refer to incidents in the past without specifying these. This article explains how these expressions, when used as hashtags on Twitter in the context of subjects as different as everyday sexism and doctors’ working conditions, become vehicles of certain emotional appeals, and how they mobilize rhetorical agency and establish rhetorical communities. The impact of the hashtags is heightened by their narrative prompting of recipients to contribute a story of their own, but is empowered further in both reach and volume by their transnational and democratic functionality