Honestly, that hashtag going viral probably has little to do with sharing... more like folks just copying what's trendy. Online stuff blows up for the dumbest reasons sometimes. It's not like people actually learn from these posts... they just hit like and move on. The whole thing feels pretty shallow if you ask me. Real sharing happens offline, not in some hashtag. So yeah, I'm not buying the warm and fuzzy story behind it.
Remember that ice bucket challenge a few years back. My whole feed was full of videos, but I never heard anyone actually talk about the disease it was for. It just proves your point about people copying a trend without the real meaning. The whole thing felt pretty empty once you looked past the surface.