If you had told me in 2018 that Pinterest had run its course, I would have believed you.
When I was in high school and happily pinning away, everyone told me that Pinterest was “for moms.” My guess is that if you spoke to a large handful of those same people today, they’d tell you that Pinterest is their favourite place on the internet. So, what’s changed? Why is Pinterest as glorified in 2021 by Gen Z as Tumblr was in 2014 by Zillenials? What made Pinterest cool again?
I’m not sure that there’s a perfect answer, but it kind of makes perfect sense.
There seems to be an increasing desire for an “anti-social social media.” Pinterest, filled with its moodboards, recipes, and DIY-craft inspiration, harbours none of the preoccupation over followers and likes that TikTok and Instagram do. It seems, at least on a surface level, that Pinterest can be a corner for yourself on the internet: a place for digital collaging.
Evidently, the desire for this anti-social media has also risen in part due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Since 2020, Pinterest’s stock price alone has jumped over 200 percent.
However, with this sudden shift towards Pinterest being cool again (or maybe cool for the first time ever), a whole new internet culture has grown. Pinterest is now a place to curate your own personal “aesthetic”—one which has been romanticized in bits and pieces by some magical force across the internet.
If you pin photos of little wooden houses and girls in white dresses frolicking in fields, you’re “cottagecore.” Old stone buildings and leather-bound books? “Dark academia.” The colour pink? You’re some variation of a Y2K Bratz Barbie Bimbo.
As fun as it all sounds in an abstract sense, I wonder whether these pre-described boxes are limiting creativity. Why can’t we be both? Or a whole host of things? Pinterest aesthetics are all about being an individual—so long as you’re easily and recognizably categorizable.
The most interesting thing to me is how, in this realm of various romanticized lifestyles, Pinterest also has its very own aesthetic. The “Pinterest Girl” (or simply “that girl”) is the ultimate It Girl. She gets up at six in the morning to work out and drink lemon water. She probably has a “perfect body” and the trendiest clothes. She’s productive all day, achieving every goal she sets her mind to, without any signs of stress.
The “Pinterest Girl” is an anonymous influencer. Nobody specific, but equally every one of them at once. She is a collage of “perfect” girls from across the internet. Her existence spoils the otherwise blissful ignorance of Pinterest.
And so, what I think it all comes down to is this: reveling in the romanticization. Pinterest is a perfect blank canvas for painting the picture of the life you wish you had, and I think it’s important to remember that while this can be fun, freeing, and creative, it can also be damaging. The magic of escapism is far better enjoyed in moderation. Real people aren’t walking aesthetics, and that’s A-okay—it’s far more exciting to break away and build your own, anyway.
