You all know the nightly routine. Shower, put on that oversized comfy tee, get cozy under the covers and open up your laptop for a night of scrolling on everyone’s favorite life-romanticizing platform: Pinterest. Back in the old days, Pinterest used to be a website for your mom to discover quirky home improvement crafts, but now, it has become a self-curated, niche, idealistic form of escapism for the modern teenage girl.
Ever since middle school, Pinterest has been my outlet to find hyper-specialized content for whatever ideas, styles or media I was obsessed with at the time. I still remember my sleepless seventh-grade nights, staring at my dad’s desktop computer in the living room, curating my boards until they were perfect. Over the years, my interests have changed drastically, but Pinterest has always been there for me feeding into my delusions – I mean inspiring me.
As I get older, I’ve become increasingly self-aware as to how my Pinterest intake is potentially affecting me. Pinterest is by far the easiest way to find content that suits your exact wants, and this is also what makes it addictive. However, after years of looking at such content, it made me doubt the value of my realities even more than other social media content would. Throughout my Pinterest highs and lows, I’ve come to some conclusions on how I let Pinterest impact me and the pros and cons of the app. It might sound silly, but coming to terms with how strong of a hold Pinterest has on my life lets me enjoy the app even more.
Pinterest Cons
- Specialized Self-Hate
Pinterest’s algorithm curates content, whether through style, lifestyle, wants, goals, etc., that influences an idea of the person you want to be, tailored almost perfectly to your personality. This process is different from other social media. When scrolling through apps like Instagram and TikTok, you have a stronger sense of being an observer when you look at pictures of Sabrina Carpenter or Kendall Jenner. While you might be envious, you still realize: “This is someone else’s life. I might want to look like them, but it’s not me.” In contrast, the media you consume on Pinterest usually isn’t of specific celebrities. It’s often pictures of normal people looking and living the way you want to. The media I consumed on Pinterest always gave a stronger sense of “this could be me, if I tried hard enough.”
- Putting Yourself in a Box
Around 2020, people became obsessed with devoting themselves to a certain “aesthetic” or “core.” This is different from simply dressing or identifying with a certain style (i.e. alternative, goth, etc.), which people have been doing for ages. In modern-day internet culture, there are thousands of different “aesthetics” that people have made up to group certain styles and activities into one box. Are you Grandma Core? Coquette? Clean Girl? Cottage Core? Old Money? Coastal Granddaughter?
Now don’t get me wrong, admiring any of the above-mentioned “cores” can be fun, but it becomes problematic when your “aesthetic” starts to give you anxiety. When you start to feel pressure to make sure everything you wear, do, or own fits into your “aesthetic” it can feel more like a job than fun. It can also make you feel worse about yourself that you can’t achieve your highest aesthetic potential. This is where the endless Pinterest aesthetic scrolling starts to mess with your head.
Pinterest Pros
- Motivation
Romanticizing your life isn’t always bad, as long as you don’t let it affect your self-esteem, it can be a really good form of motivation. Looking at pictures of what I want for my future can be encouraging, especially when the homework piles up and it is easy to lose sight of what I’m working towards.
- Inspiration
Pinterest has always been my go-to site when I’m in a creative slump. Looking at images of things similar to what I want to create makes it so much easier for me to actually start a project. Pinterest is great for finding inspiration that caters to niche interests. Some of my best scrapbooking and journaling spreads have been born from looking at my Pinterest boards.
- Destress
Looking at aesthetically pleasing images always helps me relax. Scrolling on Pinterest can be more of a special way to unwind rather than doom-scrolling on other forms of social media. While I talk a lot about how excessive Pinterest use can be negative, Pinterest also has a more interactive aspect that makes it an activity as opposed to just a way to kill time. Putting on my favorite songs and curating my Pinterest boards can be a very healthy form of unwinding after a long day.
Takeaways
The main idea that I hope avid Pinterest users take away from my pros and cons list is that Pinterest is a great resource for looking at your aspirations through a creative lens, but it shouldn’t make you hate yourself for not being able to keep up with the lifestyle you wish you had. You also can’t let your interests put you into a box, because often, fitting perfectly into that box is an unattainable standard. To get off my soapbox, the bottom line is don’t let idealistic media dictate the choices you make. Instead, shape that media to fit into your daily routines; once I realized this, my experience on Pinterest became much more enjoyable.