As far as I’m concerned, Pinterest is one of the greatest inventions of the internet age. I love it – especially the DIY section. It’s the best source I’ve ever seen for cool and creative crafts, clothes, and home decor. I’ve even launched an Etsy business inspired by something I found in a pin! It’s an endless and always-new stream of ingenuity and the world is a better place because of it.
Unfortunately anyone who trawls the DIY section will inevitably run into fake pins. They suck you in with a spectacular photograph and then utterly fail to work (or worse, they work in a way that’s destined to land you on Pinterest Fail no matter how precisely you follow the directions.) Most of the time this isn’t because someone’s trying to mess with pinners, it’s just a game of Telephone gone bad: someone posts a pretty picture they like, and someone else repins it with a comment wondering if they can do _________ to get that effect, and a third person (who lacks some reading comprehension skills) misses the part where it’s just a theory and repins it like it’s actual instructions. At that point a pin will take off, because everyone thinks someone else already tried it and it worked. Wrong.
The great news is that almost all of these disappointments can be avoided with some attention to detail. Does that photo look a little too perfect? It’s probably Photoshopped. Do the instructions call for Mountain Dew? No, it’s not going to glow. Sometimes I see pins that make me want to leave blisteringly snarky comments pointing out the blatant physical impossibilities. But I think it’d be pretty rude and mean-spirited to tear down pinners’ excitement with sarcasm, and anyway I have several million better things to do than police the internet. Who has time for that?
Instead, I’m starting this blog in the hope that my years of experience with photography, Photoshop, makeup, and crafting will help others to spot the booby traps… and steer clear.
A Pinterest Primer 