I still haven’t decided if posts next week will be brief and inscrutable, or just nonexistent. Either way I’ll be driving across the country, probably recklessly snapping photos of anything even remotely interesting that I pass on the highway. (Actually, I think my mom reads this, so what I’ll actually be doing is signalling, pulling off to the side of the road, making sure my doors are locked, then snapping photos.)
But I’ll probably end up with more photos than text or time in which to wax faux-poetic. Fortunately, my invitation to Pinterest has just been accepted!
I like this new trend of “invite” exclusivity when it comes to new social networks. Google+ and Spotify both worked this well. Sometimes, as in the case with Google+, one finally gains access to the ultra-exclusive party only to find a few guys playing Parcheesi and eating cheese puffs behind all that mysterious inaccessibility. Other times, as is my current situation with Pinterest, one walks into a scene that’s a little scary, and tricky to nail down–like gaining entrance to one of those wealthy-people parties where everyone’s wearing those creepy Venetian beaked bird masks, or visiting Florida.
Today was only my second visit as an actual member, and I’ve begun to actually acclimate and process the experience. As a kind of less-then-helpful guide to those of you still standing outside the club scrunching your cleavage together and throwing come-hithers at the digital bouncer, here’s my unpractical advice for maximizing your first minutes up in the club.
- You’d better like stuff wrapped in bacon. Seriously, even if your initial configuration includes no foodies or food-related stuff, you will see things wrapped in bacon.
- There are a lot of pants. Pinterest is all about fashion, and if you initially went toward more of a “Chuck Norris” and monster truck flavor with your interests, Pinterest will default to showing you a lot of pants.
These pants are apparently nice.
- Only hipster bicycles exist in Pinterest. The bikes you do see are beautiful and artisanal and all, but so far, you don’t see a lot of jack drive DH bikes. Still, it is sort of interesting to see what people who mostly like to look at pants look for in a bicycle.
- Anything you can photograph is art. A friend of mine once took one of those little label maker guns–the kind that spit out the little embossed letters–to completely label the gun itself with various descriptions like “sticky labeler,” and “label-o-matic” and that seemed like maybe the contextual heir-apparent to Warhol’s Pop Art, but these days anything photographed is automatically considered pretty profound. Dress on a scarecrow. Linoleum. Discarded doll at a junk yard. Pinterest is the context you need to make photos of your dog dressed as Darth Vader seem profound.
- Guys are supposed to like cars. Somewhere in the bowels of Pinterest is an algorithm that parses content into “make-up/hair” and “sports cars.” I’m normally a motorhead, but the most commonly displayed vanity shots of cars on Pinterest all seem to be taken by someone who isn’t sure what a car is. I’m sure this will get way better as I add more people I know, and I’m desperately grateful to my friend Michael for peppering the pins I’m seeing so far with some unique vehicles, but I think I’d rather see more make-up and hairstyles than the default stuff floating around Pinterest in the “cars” category.
- Even after dedicating more than half your life to bicycles, searching “bike” on Pinterest will make you wonder if you even like them.
Yes, a personalized concept “Matilda” bike with an “l” seatpost that doesn’t attach to any other part of the frame, but rather floats in photoshopped space is, indeed, an “amazing idea” because, “No one could steal your bike.”
So far, one really positive thing I have found about Pinterest is that it will help you organize the things that matter to you, and, in doing so, teach you a lot about yourself. What I learned about myself so far is that I’m not really that into pictures of things.
Won’t stop me from inflicting as many as possible on you, though. Monday’s first road trip photos should feature photo locales as exotic as Ohio. Time to pack up the car.
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