Throwback Thursday or #TBT is an internet trend used among

social media Social media are interactive technologies that facilitate the Content creation, creation, information exchange, sharing and news aggregator, aggregation of Content (media), content (such as ideas, interests, and other forms of expression) amongs ...

platforms such as

Instagram Instagram is an American photo sharing, photo and Short-form content, short-form video sharing social networking service owned by Meta Platforms. It allows users to upload media that can be edited with Social media camera filter, filters, be ...

Twitter Twitter, officially known as X since 2023, is an American microblogging and social networking service. It is one of the world's largest social media platforms and one of the most-visited websites. Users can share short text messages, image ...

and

Facebook Facebook is a social media and social networking service owned by the American technology conglomerate Meta Platforms, Meta. Created in 2004 by Mark Zuckerberg with four other Harvard College students and roommates, Eduardo Saverin, Andre ...

. On a Thursday, users will post nostalgia-inducing pictures – from a different era of their life, accompanied by the

hashtag A hashtag is a metadata tag operator that is prefaced by the hash symbol, ''#''. On social media, hashtags are used on microblogging and photo-sharing services–especially Twitter and Tumblr–as a form of user-generated tagging that enable ...

#TBT or #ThrowbackThursday. Many posts reflect positive moments, or funny, old clothes, hair and styles. Throwback Thursday can be attributed to any photo in one's past memories whether it be childhood, old relationships, past vacations, old songs, or anything that gives one a "happy and nostalgic feeling."

Origin

Like many internet trends, it is hard to determine who or what exactly started the #TBT hashtag trend. The earliest usage on Instagram was by the user @bobbysander22.''

Sports Illustrated ''Sports Illustrated'' (''SI'') is an American sports magazine first published in August 1954. Founded by Stuart Scheftel, it was the first magazine with a circulation of over one million to win the National Magazine Award for General Excellen ...

'' attributes the origin of the term to a

sneaker Sneakers (American English, US) or trainers (British English, UK), also known by a #Names, wide variety of other names, are shoes primarily designed for sports or other forms of physical exercise, but are also widely used for everyday casual ...

-specific blog named ''Nice Kicks''. According to ''SI'', this blog began a practice of regular postings (on

Thursday Thursday is the day of the week between Wednesday and Friday. According to the ISO 8601 international standard, it is the fourth day of the week. In countries which adopt the "Sunday-first" convention, it is the fifth day of the week. Name Th ...

s) of photos of old basketball footwear in 2006, titling the series "Throwback Thursday". Since then, the slogan has blown up to the point where #TBT has been used on Instagram over 500 million times. While the trend has origins outside of social media, it only gained popularity once major apps such as

began to rise in popularity as well.

Popularity

In February 2012,

Kim Kardashian Kimberly Noel Kardashian (born October 21, 1980) is an American media personality, socialite, and businesswoman. She first gained media attention as a friend and stylist of Paris Hilton, but received wider notice after the celebrity sex tape ...

and her family frequently started using the hashtag which caused it to start gaining traction.

Other trends based on days of the week

Monday Motivation

Monday Motivation is a slogan redistributed on

platforms such as

and

under the hashtag #MondayMotivation where users of the social media sites post positive messages on a Monday. Positive quotes and uplifting messages are included in this hashtag as well as many photographs. Monday was the chosen day for such hashtag as a result of the widely known Monday Blues

phenomena A phenomenon ( phenomena), sometimes spelled phaenomenon, is an observable Event (philosophy), event. The term came into its modern Philosophy, philosophical usage through Immanuel Kant, who contrasted it with the noumenon, which ''cannot'' be ...

. The hashtag also aims to inspire productivity for all, with users using this hashtag for motivating other users to get out of bed on a Monday morning.

Flashback Friday

Similar to Throwback Thursday, Flashback Friday was a popular hashtag several months before Throwback Thursday was. Although both hashtags are similar, what makes them different is the days in which one can post a nostalgic picture. Flashback Friday is a second chance for social media lovers to upload a photo if they have forgotten on Thursday, or even for people to upload more vintage photos that allows them to share their content as many times as they want. On Fridays, social media users use the hashtag #flashbackfriday or #fbf to follow the trend.

References

{{reflist, refs= {{cite magazine , url=https://www.si.com/extra-mustard/2013/08/22/from-hardwood-to-hashtag-how-nba-culture-gave-rise-to-throwback-thursday , title=From Hardwood to Hashtag: How NBA Culture Gave Rise to Throwback Thursday , first=Ben, last=Sin , date=22 August 2013 , magazine=Sports Illustrated Hashtags Nostalgia Thursday 2000s neologisms