Help! I'm Addicted to Pinterest

Using a visual orientation, the social network is very much focused on the concept of a person's lifestyle, allowing you to share your tastes and interests with others and discovering those of likeminded people. Users can either upload images from their computer or pin things they find on the web using the Pinterest bookmarklet. 

What's the attraction? I don't do social media like Facebook and Twitter myself. And, I'll say it now, there seems to be some truth that Pinterest is a woman-oriented social media, often for the type who likes to scrapbook and do crafts and share recipes and decorate. 

But is that dynamic all that's going on here? You know, that whole men are from Mars, women from Venus binary? Here we go again! 
 

One article makes the claim that women use Pinterest as a wish list, but men use it as a shopping cart. Now, that kind of makes sense, because one might argue that women shop for shopping's sake or to “just look,” but men shop with a specific purchasing goal. 

I wonder, though: Is there maybe something about pinterest that mirrors women's social experiences? You know, the “sharing,” that used to occur in retro coffee klatsch and tupperware parties or now “girls night out” gatherings. Oh, what a cute top! Do you have shoes to match it? 
 

Another article claims that men don't have the patience for what is essentially an online scrapbooking response to an image that evokes an emotion. Men do get emotional of course about many things online as much as women do, especially sports and politics and religion. 

But something like fanatical viewing of sports games that regularly occurs this demographic is more of a moment by moment “in the game” dynamic. Not something to patiently scrapbook and share. But then, remember those baseball card collections? Perhaps there are socially acceptable ways for men to find their pinterest mindset! 

I can't address all these opinions in this short blog, but what I find interesting is gay men (often tending to be socially and emotionally in league with straight women) are using it more and more. And not just to shop. For example, both can share with their straight women pinners pictures of hunky guys (minus the dicks, of course, though Pinterest does allow artistic nudes). 

Voila! Pinterest might be a mostly “no-bro” area for straight men, but not for gay guys. In fact, I was already invited to pin to one of the more risque boards of almost naked guys, and of course (ah, the stereotypes resurface), the overlapping interests in vintage movies and movie stars and goofy retro/kitsch connect these users as well. 
 

We carry many of our products for convenient shopping on Pinterest, plus we've set up some other boards that reflect the research into LGBT history we do in these blogs. 

See http://www.pinterest.com/bijouworld/.