#WhenIMarryMyself

About

#WhenIMarryMyself is a Twitter hashtag which spread in response to a tweet sent out by National Organization for Marriage, a group against legalizing gay marriage in the United States, which suggested legalizing gay marriage could lead to marrying yourself to become legal. The hashtag quickly became a way to make jokes about what the Twitter user would do if they married themselves.

Origin

On October 13th, 2014, the Twitter account for the National Organization for Marriage^[1] sent out a tweet which asked "When #marriage is redefined, what prevents a person from "marrying" his/herself?" and included a link to an article which referenced Grace Gelder,^[2] a woman who held a non-legally binding wedding ceremony for herself.

The Organization for Marriage concluded:

"When marriage is devalued and its nature loosely defined, what prevents marriage norms--such as sexual complementarity, monogamy, exclusivity, permanence, or even the idea that marriage requires two people--from being broken down as well?"

The same day Twitter user Clarknt67^[4] introduced the hashtag #WhenIMarryMyself, tweeting it at the National Organization of Marriage.

Spread

Within 24 hours the hashtag was tweeted^[5] out over 2,000 times. In the coming days, the hashtag was covered by several websites including NowNextNews,^[6] The New Civil Rights Movement,^[9] Patheos^[10] and Mic.^[7] According to the Twitter analytics site Topsy,^[8] the hashtag received more than 2,800 mentions in the first 48 hours.

Notable Examples

Search Interest

Not available.

External References