A Man's perspective on Pinterest

[khenning]

So I know I don't post around here all that much, but I just had to share this with someone, so I figured why not here. A couple weeks ago, in preparation for the current 6 week challenge, I knew I was going to go Paleo again. However, I was having a somewhat difficult time finding good recipes. My sister recommended that I try Pinterest. All I knew of Pinterest was that it was a site for chicks to go and collect all the ideas they ever need for weddings or crafts or things I really don't care about. But out of morbid curiosity I gave it a try. Here are my thoughts:

The good. It's a great way of collecting and organizing ideas and the fact that it's completely customizeable is great. I started a board of Recipes to Try, a board of Recipes that I've Tried and Liked, and a board of Recipes that I've Tried and Sucked. I've been able to collect quite a few ideas over the past few weeks and work my way through several of the recipes. It's very useful for when I come to make a grocery list. I can think "what would I like to try this week?" and go immediately to my Recipes to Try board and pick a few. I think overall it's helping me stick with the cooking and eating Paleo. As a single guy, it can be too easy and tempting to just get some take out. But trying new things helps keep my interest in the kitchen.

The bad. Well, generally, Pinterest is currently over run with girls and their crafty wedding ideas. I think if more guys joined it could be a cooler site. With that said, I don't see that happening anytime soon. Also, I've noticed a little trend with some of the ideas put out there. Someone will find a really great picture of something and then say "this recipe is the best ever!" but really it's not. It's just a pretty picture and what you make from that recipe will never look as good or taste as good as you think that picture tastes. This leads me to my final gripe.

Spending some time on Pinterest has kind of made me feel bad for women out there. First, it seems like so many are bipolar with their ideas. One pin they'll pin "10 ways to get fit" and the next you'll see "cookie dough brownies stuffed with reeces peanut butter cups". And trust me, that site is FILLED with amazing looking holy grails of unhealthy food. I mean come on, a cake with a pie in the middle! Then the thing that drives me absolutely nuts is you'll see a ton of pins about spot reducing like "try these 5 moves for perfect arms" or "easy morning routine to give you rock hard abs". And all these health and exercise pins have these pictures of the most amazingly fit women who you know would never go near these workouts. It drives me nuts just thinking about it.

So, Pinterest has some good qualities and plenty of bad or maybe sad qualities. It's still useful though, if you want it to be. Just thought I'd share.

[ETFnerd]

sometimes pinterest seems like a distorted mirror you see at a carnival...

[TinkG6]

Ha! I completely agree. I don't belong or have a board, but I will just log onto the regular website and browse what they show when I'm bored. I go through such a mix of emotions. One minute flying high and feeling all pumped for fitness, then drooling over food I can't eat, and then feeling like crap because I can't draw a stick figure let alone design a whole room like a tree... but oh what's that, half naked man? yes, thank you, more please. Oh another save the date picture, my single ass thanks you for reminding me I'm alone, ooooooh books pretty book case..... and so on.

[joeyb]

I did pretty much the same thing as you. I heard about it and tried it out, mostly because I'm a web developer and this type of stuff can spark ideas. I felt pretty much the same way as you about it. I like the way to organize things. I was thinking about using it for my genealogy research, however, I decided that it wasn't organized enough for that. I did find some kick ass recipes on there for healthier foods. However, there's just so much crap on there from girls posting wedding dresses or workout ideas that will never work. I ended up giving up on it. I don't think there is anything inherently wrong with the site, other than maybe a lack of complex filters; I just think that girls got to it first and now it's pretty much unusable for guys.

[---]

I have purposely avoided joining Pintrest, because I am certain that all I'd do all day is collect ideas for DIY projects, and never actually...you know...DO them. And I struggle enough with time management already!

That being said, I know a lot of teachers, especially those who teach young children, who use Pintrest for classroom ideas. In fact, I know one guy who's an elementary school teacher and asked for a Pintrest invite on Facebook specifically for the aforementioned purpose. As you might expect, he got some flak until he explained why he wanted the invite. Oh, and I spoke up in his defense, for what it's worth.

[DaveSix]

You should check out www.gentlemint.com. It's pinterest for men.

[RandomWanderer]

I have no desire to use pinterest...... I own a photography business and I'm trying to see if I can use it for marketing and PR, other then that I just don't see a point.

[leadchipmunk]

You should check out www.gentlemint.com. It's pinterest for men.

While reading through this thread, I kept thinking of this site but couldn't remember the name. Thank you for that. I checked it out once long ago, but that was right when it started up and was pretty empty and I already knew nothing of Pinterest to understand why us men needed our own version.

[Jcannon98188]

I occasionally browse pintrest for funny pictures and pictures of corgis, thats about it.

[Lizifer]

I use it to harvest costume inspiration and project pointers (I do actually do stuff from it though). I don't peruse it so much as use it for stuff I find elsewhere that I want to remember for "Crap, I know I saw a thing somewhere about how to make a potting bench" or "what was that tip for turning corners cleanly in a pattern?" I also stick stuff there for our onging home reno projects - colour story boards, sink visuals, ideas for shelving, and so on. It helps keep me from having to pull out the glue all the time and killing the printer.

[Corbab]

I got an account when it was fairly new, but it doesn't really have much appeal to me. The Fitness tag is good for some occasional comic relief/ideas for toning my ass and inner thighs.

[tonic]

I had to google this to see what it was about. It looks pretty interesting. If anyone has an invite let me know.

[IfItPlugsIn]

I'm on Pinterest, and I actually do the stuff I pin (eventually), and make the recipes. I also try to comment on my own pins (especially recipes) how things worked out when I did them. My recipe board has several paleo foods, and I try to follow other paleo pinners to borrow ideas from when they pin something that looks good. I love that I can prop up my iPad in the kitchen, tap, tap, tap, and have a recipe there to follow, rather than digging through a stack of printed off pages with random recipes.

Oh, and I discovered the amazingness that is vinegar through Pinterest.

[Robot_Monerz]

I would be so incredibly effed without pinterest. It will be my first year teaching in September, and it has been awesome for collecting resources. I haven't really gone further with it though.