(Whoever you are, you're probably not reading this blog. Because I'm talking about Pinterest. GET IT? IT'S FUNNY.)
So. What is Pinterest? It's a virtual corkboard. You have one (or several) boards that you can theme any which way you'd like, and what you do is pin images of things you stumble upon on the Internet to this virtual corkboard. The pin includes a link taking you back to the original site. It's an image-based link-cataloging service. It's del.icio.us with pictures. There is absolutely nothing gender-specific in its concept or its design, which is oft-noted in pieces about the site with titles implying it's just for women.
Why is everyone talking about it? Well, it's proven itself in a very short time to be a phenomenal traffic-generator. But I don't really understand the techie-stuff. I get that it's a big name player because it is capable of driving traffic to sites, and that means those sites pay attention to it and its users because it wants that traffic, because I understand basically how the internet works and how to make money off of it.
(There's a reason I don't try an "monetize" this blog. I mean, I love you guys, and I love you guys for reading it, but I just don't get enough traffic. See? I totally understand the internet.)
So, I'm not real tech-oriented and that's not what I want to talk about. I want to talk about gender and Pinterest. Because, OH MAN.
Props to The Atlantic for writing the only gender-neutral piece on the explosive popularity of Pinterest that I can find. Credit where it's due.
And now we can get into the bizarro male-oriented world of tech blogs.
The one-liners in some of these pieces make my head spin:
"Well, there's a reason it's not called Dude-terest."
Really, readwriteweb? Really? Are you really trying to say that things must be named in gender-specific ways so that we all understand who is supposed to use them? One, that's pretty insulting to just about everyone, and two, it doesn't actually make sense, since I cannot for the life of me come up with a way that "pin" is female-centric somehow.
"Pinterest is Tumblr for Ladiez."
Really, gizmodo? Your writer is trying to mitigate the blow of all that misogyny by claiming some sort of special privilege by sort of being ironical, and also maybe having a lot of female friends. Sort of like "I have a lot of black friends?" I can't tell. But let me just get right to the point: Ladies use tumblr. In fact, tumblr has perhaps the most even-steven gender split of any social networking site, at 51% men and 49% women.Essentially, what is going on here is that contrary to what is generally accepted to be the case for new technology, the early adopters of Pinterest are women. Young women. Whereas Facebook is at least partially grounded in the horribly anti-women idea of comparing female faces for hotness, and Twitter's early adopters were heavily skewed towards men and coasts, Pinterest is being embraced first and foremost by young women in fly-over country.
Perhaps it's really the "fly-over country" thing that these tech blogs object to, but you wouldn't know it from titles like "A Guy's Guide to Pinterest" or even "Gentlemint Offers a Manly Alternative to Pinterest." It would appear that what galls is that ladies like it.
So, while women were capable of taking Facebook, with its petty start, and make it their own (currently something like 58% of Facebook users are female), men are not capable of doing the same with Pinterest? Or, because Pinterest has been embraced by women, it is doomed to some sort of niche-internet? How disappointing. I was pretty sure men had more creativity than that. The casual marginalization of something popular among women is both offensive and deeply disappointing.
Pinterest is not tumblr for ladies. It is not for ladies, period. It's for anyone that wants visual link-organization. And you may not be looking to plan a wedding or construct an elaborate shopping list, but you can still use the site. And you may not want to use the site, because we all could probably do with one less social network rather than one more, but the reason you don't want to use is not that it is "for girls." Or, maybe it is, but if that's the case, I really don't think we should be friends anymore.
Depressingly, it's a pretty common occurrence in (at least our) society that things that are considered male-gendered can be adopted by females, but things that are considered female-gendered are not as readily adopted by males. We see it in clothing (it's now broadly socially acceptable for women to wear pants but not for men to wear dresses and skirts); names (male names that start being used for female children slowly stop being used for male children; I read the numbers on this once but can't remember where); it's badass when ladies like sports but "gay" when men like theater or opera (in general, not to you or I, clearly); and of course this lovely example.
ReplyDeleteOne convincing piece I read on this, I don't remember where, postulated that this is because male is considered the superior category in our society. It's "natural" for a female-gendered person to aspire to be "better" and adopt the male-gendered things. Conversely, it'd be aberrant to be male-gendered and want the female-gendered and thus inferior things.
I said it was convincing to me. I also find it incredibly depressing. BUT, I do think having this understanding makes it easier to fight against.