Oh, the wonderful world of Pinterest. My girlfriend is on it, my aunt is on it and even my mother is on it. Although she likes to call it “Pin-interest.”
But what is it? It’s developed a reputation for being very “Girls only: No boys allowed.” Naturally, nothing could make me want to explore the website more.
Now, I really didn’t have high hopes going into this, as the only things I’ve seen posted from Pinterest were crafts and recipes. But I decided to go for it anyway.
I clicked the signup button and carefully avoided logging in with my Facebook or Twitter account to save me some public embarrassment. To protect my identity, I chose a discreet username: manlyman09. I felt it important to assert myself as maybe the sole testosterone-producing member of the Pinterest community.
I was then directed to a page of pictures and told to click the things that interested me. There were pictures of flowers, food, crafts and cute animals. Essentially, exactly what I expected to see. But I kept scrolling down the page until I started to see things that I liked: Batman, a few memes, pizza and a really interesting infographic of Civil War facts. You know, “manly” stuff.
After that, I was thrown into the abyss of pins, as they would say. The website used the pictures that I selected to suggest people already on Pinterest for me to follow. Much like Twitter, whenever someone that you follow posts something — or pins it — it shows up in your feed. You then look through the pins and repin the pins that you like onto your pinboard. Pins.
I was also able to look at all of the most current pins by category. So I wandered into the movies category, then the geek section — filled with “Doctor Who” and Harry Potter pins. I peeked in the sports section, which just turned out to be pictures of Ryan Lochte without his shirt on.
The last straw was when I checked out the most popular pins: pictures of diamond rings, a list of country wedding songs and lots of pictures of babies. That solidified it. Pinterest is not for men.
Don’t get me wrong — there are a few guys that would really like Pinterest: one that loves to cook or bake, one that is an elementary school teacher, or one that is actively involved planning a wedding come to mind.
But the average Joe is not going to find much that he can really enjoy on any given day in the Pinterest universe.
The website seems to be aimed directly at brides-to-be, teachers and stay-at-home moms.
Pinterest is great for killing time. And, given the proper level of boredom, I could see myself or any other average college guy browsing through hundreds of pins just to find a few interesting ones. It’s a great way to waste a few hours — just not every single day.
Upon casually mentioning my expedition to my female friends, they were very excited that I had succumbed. But when they figured out that I wasn’t really enjoying it, they got weirdly defensive. They said that it is so much fun to get decorating, outfit and party ideas. They mentioned that there is an add-on for Internet browsers that lets you pin things from any website. Then they told me to link my account to my Facebook so they can follow my boards.
They really didn’t get that I didn’t want anyone to know that I was using the site.
At this point, I had completely given up. After deactivating my account, I can go back to doing all of the “manly” things the Internet has to offer, like tracing my lineage to see if I’m eligible to be in the Sons of the Awwmerican Revolution.
If a lot of guys went on Pinterest and started pinning awesome “guy stuff,” then I would be all over it. But as it stands, Pinterest is, and probably will remain, a girls-only zone.
TJ Creedon can be reached at tcreedon@temple.edu or on Twitter @teejcreed.
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