Experimenting: Pinterest

I've been in an experimenting mood this summer -- and what better time to try out new things when it's warm, sunny, and you're free free FREE?! -- so I decided as part of this trend to figure out what the fuss about Pinterest was all about -- and since it's been about two weeks, I thought it would be a good time to evaluate what it's been like in Pin-land.

Pinterest gets a bad rap at times -- as a place to waste time or a place for moms to dream about the lives they can't have.  I'm not saying I disagree with this -- but the WHOLE INTERNET seems to provide plenty of opportunities to waste time.  I feel everyone gets to pick their poison, so when people who spend hours on Facebook or BoingBoing or Buzzfeed or whatever get high and mighty about someone else's internet addiction, I have to roll my eyes.  Everyone finds a different way to "connect" online, and looking up more ways to use your glue gun isn't the worst thing in the world.

Anyway.

Once you set up a basic profile and start following a few people, you have the opportunity to browse different categories of pins, everything from "Weddings" (very popular) to "Art" and "Health and Fitness," etc., etc.  It's easy to get sucked into the vortex very quickly without deciding, "Hey, why am I here?" so I stopped a moment to reflect on what would be interesting.  A few categories came to mind:

1. Try it now boards: I thought it might be cool to use Pinterest as a way to find ideas for decorating my house, trying new recipes, finding exercise tips and tricks, or occasionally finding answers to important questions like, "Why won't my sink drain, even after I've used Draino?" These boards need to be ruthlessly maintained to make sure that what ends up there is actually used instead of sitting there until eternity.
2. Long-term idea gathering boards: Ever have that feeling that you had an idea that would be perfect right now but can't remember what it was?  For me that happens the most when it comes to travel -- I realize I have a three-day weekend and want some place to go but can't remember what bolt-in-the-night great idea I had.  And I'm a travel nut these days, so I created some boards for travel ideas.  This also applies to date ideas (though this board falls between #1 and #2), gift ideas board (which is a secret board -- oooh!  Pinterest lets you have three secret boards where you can collect things you want no one to see!  If you look at some of the things people will pin publicly, I can't even imagine what's on the secret boards...) and future house ideas.
3. Pick-me-up boards: Whether it's looking at photos of places I've traveled, photos or quotes that make me laugh or remind me to work hard and change the world, I also have some boards that are simply collections, virtual bulletin boards that are good for reflection.

Inspiration, like home decorating taste, is subjective.

So I started pinning.  And liking -- a mechanic that I find interesting.  I have the option to pin something (and can add a note, up to 500 characters) or I can click the little heart, which puts it on my like page.  I assume the thought here is this -- I don't need this, but it's cool.  Slowly I started to learn who I wanted to follow -- and which boards were interesting versus not.  I also realized, as I detailed in my recipe post, that I'm sort-of picky. There are some cool things that you can find on the site, but there's also a LOT of junk.  If I can tell from the photo that it's a DIY project, I can't imagine what the actual RESULT will look like when I do it. 

Browsing through the "Popular" posts has been another interesting part of the experience -- and determining what makes it into that stream is a little baffling.  The other surprising thing?  What pins of mine are repinned, and with what frequency.  Now, after two weeks, I never expected to be "popular" or well-followed.  I'll never be one of those folks who has 100k+ followers hanging on their every pin. But I was surprised to see that my most re-pinned item is a recipe for a chickpea salad (431 repins, to be exact).  Of everything I've pinned... this?  The ironic thing is that I've tried two different chickpea salads, and the other one, the Mexican chickpea salad with a mere 1 repin, was far more delicious.  This just goes to show yet again that popularity doesn't equal quality.

The two things that have been most "successful" thus far, by my own reckoning, of course, are the fitness and recipe boards because I've actually tried a whole heap of new things, from keeping my hips closer to the wall in bouldering, a great 7-minute HIIT workout, and a slew of recipes (second blog post on these coming shortly).  And this is has been the best thing I've kept in mind throughout this experience -- dreaming is nice, but doing is better.

But the time for change is NOW! 

I guess what I find a little bizarre about the Pinterest universe is that there seems to be so much dreaming, wanting, and yearning, and much less trying and becoming.  I'm always amazed to find people who have recipe boards with hundreds and hundreds of recipes (or seven types of recipe boards, sorted by food type, each with scores of pins).  With the slowness of the scroll function sometimes, do you ever get to the bottom?  If it's an inspiration board, sure -- get as many quotes as you can -- but why not start doing what you like instead of waiting for life to come to you?

This is what I've been trying to avoid.

I guess what strikes me the most is this -- you have to behave your way to success and something like Pinterest, or any tool or site or guide or how-to, is as only as good as you make it.  It's ironic to see people pin things like, "How to lose 10 pounds in 4 weeks" followed by pins for "Cheesy Biscuits." I bet less of the latter would make the former unnecessary!  In my snarky moments, I think, Gosh, maybe Pinterest is where hopes go to die.  Instead, I've concluded that it's easy to follow the crowd, doing (or pinning) what others do rather than follow your desires.  If you can do that, Pinterest can be a great tool, a way to discover new ideas and adopt new routines or attitudes.  

So I guess I'll declare the experiment a short-term success -- if nothing else, I've found some great new recipes and work-out routines, which are helping me be a healthier and happier me.  Only time will tell if Pinterest becomes my new internet time-suck or if I can resist the temptation and avoid starting juice-fast diets...

Wait, who am I kidding?  I'd cave and eat chocolate one Day 1 :)

xo
Sarah