I think Pinterest has ruined the world. And possibly it’s quite evil.
Pinterest is like a bulletin board – only it’s on the Internet. You take all the pictures of everything you’ve ever seen and you post them to different boards. You stalk other people’s boards and they stalk yours. This is euphemistically called “following,” but let’s be real. It’s stalking.
And all of this doesn’t matter, because I absolutely stink at Pinterest.
For one thing, Pinterest is for people who actually do crafts. I have not done crafts since early 2002, when I made a cranberry wreath that I found in a Martha Stewart magazine. I forgot to preserve the cranberries. I’m not sure you are aware of this, but cranberries emit a horrifying stench when they rot. Needless to say, it’s been a while since I enjoyed a refreshing glass of cranberry juice without it bringing up images of rotted cranberries hanging on my front door.
But Pinterest is filled with people who can take two pieces of wire, 20 old fence posts, glue-on googly eyes and a tube of glitter glue and create 22 matching wedding centerpieces that look like you spent a fortune on them. These same crafters can also use old tires, a ski mask and a pen shaped like a flamingo to create a lampshade for a man cave.
I think you might be starting to understand the evil that is Pinterest. But, it’s not just crafts. Oh, no. It’s far, far more than a place where old glue guns go to be inspired. No, there’s food too.
On Pinterest, nobody just takes a handful of chicken breasts, throws them in the crockpot with some unidentifiable veggies, cooks it on high for eight hours and calls it dinner. No, on Pinterest, people use their crockpots to make bread. And pie. And chicken lasagna. In Pinterest world, crockpots can do anything. Frankly, I’m shocked nobody has pinned the instructions for a crockpot to knit a sweater.
Holiday food is a whole other ball of horror on Pinterest. In the bad old days, we could create green bean casserole from an old family recipe handed down on generations of soup cans. Nowadays? Yeah, that’s no longer good enough. Today’s recipes start with you growing your own beans, onions and mushrooms. They proceed to you frying the onions, making your own aged cheddar and whipping up some homemade cream of mushroom soup. With cream from your personal cow.
Of course, if you are lazy, there’s a crockpot version.
But it’s not just food and crafts. Oh, heck no. Why stop there? Pinterest also is the place where 90 percent of the world’s not-yet-engaged women go to pin their dream wedding dress. There are more wedding dress pins on Pinterest than there are wedding shops on the planet. Every dress style ever made is on Pinterest – from giant, ruffled and poufy to sleek, modern and slinky. Sadly, there are no pins of Chippendale hotties from the long-dreamed of bachelorette party, which I personally would find much more interesting.
In any event, while you are dreaming of your dream wedding, you can also pin your dream outfit. Yes, people put boards together that have photos of what they wore that day, what they wanted to wear or outfits they want to try out. Seriously? Any fashion boards I had would consist of the exact same thing – a pair of yoga pants that don’t do yoga, a T-shirt and a pair of flip-flops.
And of course, there are cat memes. Because no place on the Internet is really safe from a good cat meme. Or even a bad one. Cats on Pinterest are cute, ugly, evil, angelic, dressed as the Joker or bopping innocent dogs on the head. And all are accompanied by some text that usually says, “What do you mean we’re getting a dog?” Or, “Nobody puts Schrodinger in a box.”
But the truth is, I don’t hate Pinterest. Sure it’s filled with people who are better dressed, have nicer homes, are better cooks and frankly have nicer dream weddings than my actual version.
But that doesn’t make it evil. No, the cat memes are what makes it evil. Seriously.
