I've got dragged into a conversation which is not suitable for 140 so here it is in long form.
Pinterest was, until last week, something I'd been banging on about for a year. I'd also been using it - to plan group holidays, to find weight loss inspiration and clothes to fit in when I'm smaller, to collect wise words and bits for my bike I adore.
Last week, the entire world suddenly went - 'Pinterest is awesome!'.
I had a conversation with a male friend last week which amounted to 'I had a dabble but it's 'too fluffy' for geeks like me'.
The inferences there are many. a) I am not a geek like him. b) it's for girls.
So when I saw the instagram floating around as linked to in the previous post I was annoyed. No, pinning is not just for girls, no it's not just about recipes and no it's not fluffy either. It's a useful resource for sharing and collaborating on design influences whether you're a web designer or trying to do an interior design for someone and want to share colour swatches with them from pinning paint swatches.
It's a brilliant way of sharing inspiration and smiles, of sharing with the world your hopes and dreams or keeping them private if you want to. It's very visual, something you'd have thought would appeal to boys as we are famously told boys do pictures and girls do words when it comes to certain things.
But no, What feels to be a predominantly female userbase find a social network all to themselves and it's dismissed in two words - fluffy or recipes.
Forgive me if the thought that now the world knows about it it will be covered in adverts and spam depresses me - but I'd rather be misunderstood and left to enjoy a lovely creative shiny space than have it descended on by idiots who can only ever see social media as a 'tool' and not something to be played with and enjoyed. Points are given, of course, for the ability to do both and not annoy the hell out of me.
So. let me check I understand you. Pinterest is social site tht's really good. and loads of women like it and some boys are like 'it's not for me'.
ReplyDeleteAnd you think that's a BAD thing?
Because I'd suggest that there are so many spaces that women feel have been shaped by and for men, where they have to check out that it's okay for women to be there, that I'm quite encouraged to know that sometimes it can be the other way around.
Because I've read your posts about mountain biking and femininity and mud and sweat and style and feeling good about yourself, and you know that stuff's important.
You're a geek. Your friend's a geek. But you're not 'a geek like him', You've both found a place where you feel totally at home and he feels like an outsider. Which is, y'know, how it's been for women in an awful lot of the world.
Don't get irritated. Savour it. The world is, after all, changing. For the better.