Pins, boards, inspiration
& the stranger on your wall
“A computer should be a bicycle for the mind; an open-ended tool to explore what’s possible. The mainstream services we use are more like a stationary bike in the gym than two wheels to go anywhere.”
— Source
(1) My most used app since early pre-teens: Pinterest
My very first social media app was Pinterest. It was the rise of my obsession with quotes and collecting things off the internet, packaging them as boards, and sending them off as gifts to friends (and, here we are today, after 8 years or so). I think it is a beautiful collection of how my tastes have changed over the years, and a deep look into my interests as I grew up. The beauty lies in the archive, the feeling of a diary. It is very rare to have access to a complete collection of everything you’ve ever thought was pretty since you were 10, and I cherish it very much.
There is a very popular trend on TikTok lately, which is making vision boards using random people’s photos on Pinterest, who have posted their picture in hopes of gaining followers. Now you’re printing them and sticking them on a piece of paper in hopes of becoming just like them. There is a stranger on your phone’s wallpaper, in your diary, or on your vision board wall. That’s the first point: I find it really weird to idolize the reality of someone else without context. But that is a major part of influencing, and some argue an inherent quality to having a curated social media presence (an uncurated one does not exist)[1]. In many ways that is the reason we reach for Pinterest for vision boards in the first place: you are, after all, creating a vision.
I am bringing this up because the first thing that comes to mind for many when they scroll through Pinterest is “how do I achieve this?” Maybe you are looking at an outfit, and the proportions it creates for the person: you want them, too. Maybe you are looking at someone enjoying their job as an artist, painting away in a beautiful secluded mansion: you want this job, too. Maybe you are just looking at a photo of a bunch of teenagers in tents up on a mountain at sunrise, dancing to a song you can’t hear: you want this feeling, too. Want. Want. Want. The first question we seem to ask ourselves is how do I get this? How do I get there? The most popular comment I see under posts is “where did you buy this?"
I’m not saying this is entirely unproductive. I definitely think vision boards work. They make your aspirations tangible, imaginable. But we are walking such a fine line with this tool, a step more and we can be bashing Pinterest for the same things that we are Instagram: altering our perception of reality and destroying our mental health. Though most articles on the internet covering social media don’t seem to talk about Pinterest this way. Pinterest is for inspiration — inspiration does not have the connotation of comparison, yet it is so close in our minds. The bottom line is that you can easily go down the path of comparing your life to thousands of pictures sourced from influencers and creators all around the world, paired together to create an ideal collage of a life — a life you can’t possibly have, because it is made up of hundreds of fragments of other lives.
In trying to avoid that, you can put a new hat on. Your main job is to notice. To notice the things that you are seeing and what they teach you. And I can tell you right away that what they are teaching you is not just how to put together the outfit of your dreams, or decorate the room you really desire, but they are teaching you what you dream and what you desire, likely beyond the simple “I like this aesthetic.” Once again — how boring and predictable — mindfulness and awareness really pays off.
Here is the issue: is what you dream and what you desire shaped by what you see on the screen of your phone or is what you pick out on Pinterest an actual reflection of what you enjoy? That’s up to you to decipher. Life is much more peaceful if you believe that you are picking out the things you enjoy. Life is much more troublesome if you start thinking that all of it is just a marketing scheme (with the recent influx of ads on Pinterest, yeah, a lot of it is). Life can tend towards balance if you see your interests as a compound of the external circumstances you are placed in and your life experience, but that takes a lot of reflection. I’m on Pinterest to relax — chances are, you are, too — so let’s put that conversation aside.
One last thing about Pinterest: the magic of the collage. Pinterest only looks good because the pictures are next to each other. I know it seems obvious, but time and time again I find myself thinking about it. You can take a single photo out of your grid and it will never be quite the same effect as the mix.
A similar magic governs your favorite dish (flavors complimenting each other), the outfits of your favorite k-pop group (individually, they are a little funny, but together they just make sense), and the beauty that is zooming out in your photo album. I hope you can see that your photo album is the current vision. What is the feeling attached to this experience?
“Stop cringing — at your future, at your failure, at yourself in the mirror — and stand up and look directly at who you are. Not who you should’ve been, but who you are now. Let that person in. Let her be as mediocre and wrong and shameful and sad and miserable and brilliant and hilarious as she wants to be, because she knows exactly what you need to feel good. She has plans for you. She wants to show you what comes next. She wants to show you what comes next. She wants to take you into the future you’re dreading and say, “See? You never would’ve imagined this.”
— “Ask Polly: Is Life All Downhill From Here?” by Heather Havrilesky
[1] As with many things I write about, there is so much more nuance here. Of course, there are ways to make vision boards without strangers. And then you can argue the uncurated feed to be dependent on intention. And so many more things.
(2) March playlist
(3) New on YouTube!
Signing off,
Zuza