Pinterest Should Be More Than Weddings

Posted by terraolsen on July 19, 2013 in Opinion | Leave a comment

Pinterest Should Be More Than Weddings

 By: Brit McGinnis

Social media nerds are pretty much a thing of the past. Most of us have been snapped up to work at social media firms, and honestly don’t have much time to experiment on new platforms. Seriously, there are tons of in my inbox every week so I can keep up with updates after and around work. I don’t have time for experimentation anymore!!

I do try to pay attention to one network in particular, though: Pinterest. I’ve been on Pinterest pretty much since the beginning. And I’m really proud of all the boards I’ve assembled: Dogs, fan art, Gordon Ramsay quotes, and of course links to everything I’ve ever written. It’s a good redirect tool for stuff I’ve made, is a great organization tool for stuff I’ve found, and is just great for inspiration.

But every week, I get some reminder that this is my most popular board:

Namely, this is the most popular pin:

As someone who actually works in social media, this drives me up the wall. I thought we were over Pinterest being the wedding-only social media network! More than that, I thought we were over Pinterest being the Girl Network.

That’s right. I said it. Pinterest is the Girl Network. Statistics prove it, and I have a feeling that the 50/50 mark isn’t going to be achieved for at least another year. And I want it to change, because as cool as it was to be in a temporary Girls Only Club in a brogrammer-run world, I’m kinda ready to move on.

Because here’s the truth of the matter: Any group of people that consists mostly of one  gender will invariably bring out the worst cultural aspects that come with being that gender. Too many guys living together for a long time, you get a rarely-cleaned frat house with Farrah Fawcett posters up on the walls. You get a 72% women-only social media network, you get stuff like this all the time:

Most guys I know would never consider using Pinterest, and I don’t blame them one bit. A lot of the stuff I see on Pinterest makes me angry, and it’s not because it’s femme. I can deal with girly stuff, because I’m often a girly girl myself. What I can’t deal with is the fact that Pinterest brings out the worst parts of being a woman. Fitness is equated with worth, people feel bad because they can’t make this craft or that cake, and everyone is obsessed with getting married. With mason jar favors, of course.

These are all signs that Pinterest is still too insulated as a network. We need to welcome guys! Encourage them to come compare cake recipes and tattoo ideas with us! Or at the the very least, we need to start pinning more gender-neutral content. We can’t fall too far into Girl Think. Otherwise, we’ll just all end up miserable because no really is Pinterest’s idea of girly all the time. Everyone’s at a different level, at different times.

I’m planning on doing a huge Pinterest binge later this week, pinning hundreds of items until I hit 1,500 pins. I just want to see what happens; I’m curious as to what effect, if any, this will have on my online profile. Will people think I’m more girly? More tech-savvy (which, to many, still signifies masculinity)? It’s going to be interesting, and I can’t wait to see the effects.

One thing’s for sure, though: There will not be a lot of wedding stuff being pinned. Think Bioshock fan art.

  

Read about the author here.