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Why Pinterest Is the Most Intimate Social Media Platform
If you really want to get to know someone, check their pins.
At this point in history, being an evangelist for any type of social media is, I realize, deeply problematic. From the various ways social media and its misuse has threatened our democracy, to the way kids are finding new ways to bully one another online, social media in general is experiencing something of a reckoning. And while I do acknowledge its many ills for society at large, I am, and always have been, a total sucker for online community in all its forms.
My own history with online social networks began with BBS’s — Bulletin Board Systems — that you had to dial into with a 2400-baud modem. I tied up the family phone line for hours as a teenager, making friends with other kids, sharing song lyrics, arguing about politics. I was enchanted by how easily we were able to share important ideas — especially for someone like me who was far more articulate in writing than speaking. This was a text-based age — no one even had a digital camera, let alone one attached to a cellular network — so there was something about our interactions that seemed to transcend the image-obsessed early-90s world around us. It was a place where substance trumped style.
Now one of the major criticisms of social networks like Facebook and Instagram is that they are all style, no substance. Whether it’s an influencer sharing only highly-edited and staged photos to Instagram, or your deeply depressed friend smiling and acting like everything’s fine on Facebook, social media can feel like a hall of mirrors at times, reflecting only distorted visions of the world around us.
So you’d think that Pinterest, a platform specifically centered around images, would be the apotheosis of style over substance. Instead, I would argue that it’s actually the most revealing social media outlet.
There are two main ways I personally use Pinterest. One is just a gentle scroll, much like I might flip through a glossy magazine or a catalog in a dentists’ waiting room. It’s an idle, passive consumption of eye…
