How will users intuitively know how to mention a category?

[JammyDodger]

I think someone mentioned this in this topic as well the other day:

@_diondiondion

For what it’s worth, and feel free to call me old-school, but to me the new design lacks the # as a clear identifier of what it is that I’m looking at. The # is an obvious way to teach people how to create a link like that yourself, and you’ve removed it and replaced it with an icon that tells you more about the target, but less about the nature of the link.

I’d keep the # and add the icon to the end of the hashtag instead. This way you’ll be enhancing them without obscuring them.