Pinterest is great. Pinterest is amazing. You can gather all kinds of information and ideas in just mere minutes that would have taken hours, days or weeks in the past. It has seriously opened up doors to many great things, but I have some pinterest gripes too and I’m about to shine a light on a few right here.
Pinterest Pirate
My first pinterest gripe is the pinterest pirate. You’ll know this person because they are constantly coming up with new and exciting ideas and creations that are “all their own.” I’m sorry, but even Michelangelo was not as creative as often as these so-called “pirates.” They are the pirates because they take their ideas from pinterest and replicate them and claim them as their own. Did they forget that I pinned the same thing 3 hours before them? You’re not fooling anyone pirates, we see the “repinned by” button and it’s got your face all over it.
If you are a pinner then be straight up about it and own the fact that you aren’t the creative genius you want everyone to think you are, but if you totally “nailed” whatever pinterest creation you tried, then kudos to you. That’s when I’m happy to give people credit. I don’t really care if you found that cookie monster cupcake or ribbon tutu on pinterest if you totally pulled it off. So take that pin and rock the heck out of it but don’t claim it as your own.
Pinterest Party Pressure
My second gripe is pinterest party pressure. So what if I want to pick up a cake at Target and meet up with 3 other kids to go bowling for a birthday party! When did that become unacceptable? When I was growing up my brother had one of his parties at McDonalds. McDonalds! A few happy meals, the creepy guy in a Ronald McDonald outfit, some presents and kids running around all hopped up on cupcakes and soda and they didn’t have a play area back then either. That was a party man.
Now days if I wanted to have a bowling party I’d also have to make sure my kid was decked out to the nines in vintage bowling garb. Then I’d have to make bowling pin rice krispy treats and bowling ball cake pops and hand carve bowling pin sippy cups from teak. And don’t forget that all the kids will sew and decorate their own bowling shirt when they get there because there always has to be a craft, always. It’s a birthday party, not art class, okay?
It doesn’t stop there either. Have you seen the party bags these days? Each kid would have to take home a personalized bowling trophy and bagged candy in the shape of a bowling pin with a tag and a cutesy saying like “Thanks for Sparing the Time to Celebrate!” hand written in perfect calligraphy.
Enough already, let’s stop being ridiculous about throwing parties for our kids because, honestly, they are just in it for the cake and presents. Before pinterest none of us knew that we were supposed to go to such lengths to celebrate a birthday and I say ignorance is bliss!
My third gripe is Pinterest guilt.
As I’m scrolling along looking for my next haircut I start to notice that one “friend” (I use quotations because I’m probably not even really friends with this person at all but I voyeuristically want to know what design style she has for her new house) happens to be pinning an awful lot about educational games, crafts, science experiments and books to make her kids smarter. Then another “friend” is pinning all kinds of home cross fit exercises, fat burning smoothies and low carb dinners. Then another “friend” is pinning all of the most fabulous places I’ve never seen in France.
I quickly become riddled with guilt over the fact that my kids are getting dumber by the minute, I have never done a home cross fit workout, I ate waffles with butter and syrup for breakfast and I haven’t left the state of Colorado or even my own city for an indeterminable time period. You know what the truth is though? We all pin a whole lot of stuff we want to do and never get around to. It’s called dreaming.
This gripe is more about mindset. Pinterest is a place of ideas and plans that may or may not happen. If someone looked at my boards and thought they were my reality it would look like I was building my custom dream home, vacationing in Greece, making my kids geniuses and the most fit person in the world. None of that is true, but it’s fun to dream; so make sure you know that everyone else is doing a lot of that same dreaming.
In summary, I still love pinterest but I also love living in the real world where expectations are a lot lower and I laugh with my real friends about all the things we’ve pinned and never done. My house is not the picture of perfect organizational bins and cork boards but usually cluttered and noisy and all too full of reality. So cheers to reality because it shows up every day like clockwork!
“they are just in it for the cake and presents…” Hahaha. Well said. Well said.
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