A potentially uninteresting blog post about Pinterest

I do like myself a social network, it’s cos I don’t like actual human contact see!* I could Facebook, Twitter and Goodreads myself into next week given half a chance. 

I am, however, struggling a bit with Pinterest.  Initially I struggled with the name and for weeks my internal monologue kept urging me to sign-up to “pintrest”.  Having had the gob-smacking moment of realisation, I now find seeing it written anywhere distracting and confusing.  I OCD over it constantly, making myself say “Pin-TER-est, Pin-TER-est, Pin-TER-est” Dorothy-style before I feel even slightly deserving of a peek.

But sign up I did and for the first week I bathed myself in the pixely milk of human kindness. It is absolutely TEEMING with positivity and endless encouragement.  I sat for hours letting the pastel-hued optimism of it all sink into my pores, cleansing me of all my misanthropy and bitterness.  I wanted to knock on my neighbours door just to see if they needed a stamp or some milk; I wanted to walk down the street just to feel the restorative power of smiling at a stranger; I had to stop myself from patting the heads of the beggars on Byres Road or telling them with all certainty that “everything will be OK”. 

Pinterest makes you feel like Jesus. After two hours you are so sure you have the power within you to change the world that you become convinced you are the messiah. There will also, without a doubt about it, be a recipe for turning water into wine on there somewhere as well.

And the recipes, oh THE RECIPES, there is no food unbaked, no cake made fat-free and sugar-free that still doesn’t look too delicious for this world.  No food that perfect should ever meet its fate in a digestive tract. And for all those recipes that laden on the calories for those “cheeky treat days!!” there are 15 accompanying exercises that will banish them within the hour with photographic evidence aplenty of what you will DEFINTELY look like afterwards.

And CRAFTS! Just brimming with all the stitchy, knitty, waxy, stencily bobbins you dream of being able to do and HARK! if they aren’t all “super easy” and “quick and simple” or any combination of those adjectives. 

Pinterest is like being plugged into the girly-est, twee-est matrix around and you wake up going “I know fondue”.

But then there are days when you go on Pinterest and you want to punch each pin in the head.  You become numbed to the cliches, the motto boards and mood tables.  Like with porn, each new hair braiding demo only helps to deaden the impact of the next, you are never, ever going to be satisfied “Oh pish to fishtails, I can fishtail in my SLEEP”.  There are also far too many weird pictures of children, dressed like adults or in one particular case, like a tramp with the caption “will work for candy” under it. I may be being a bit Daily Mail here, but I find things like that remarkably unsettling and I  want to write to the pinner “do you not find that picture….odd… in anyway? Should you not be sending it to…..the police?”

Ultimately Pinterest is heaven for all those women who cannot let go of last years twee-a-gog, or those that like inspiration for tomorrows outfit or for anyone who wants to know what to do with empty takeaway boxes.  But be warned, amongst all the fuzz and fun and fizz and sugar and virtual shoulder rubbing, there are an awful lot of women out there putting things in trays and photographing it.

 

 

 

* Of course I actually do like human contact, it is in fact because I love it SO much that I try not to go outside too often.  It can get messy.