Crazy World of Pinterest

If you haven't been on Pinterest, you should have a visit, just to see how strange our society really is.  It's a website that allows you to "pin" a picture and web link to a virtual board.  It can be addictive, but I've found that, due to the repetitive nature of what gets pinned, the novelty wears off fairly quickly.

Repetitive?  Oh, yes.  According to Pinterest, our society is obsessed with the following: food, dresses, food, decorating, food, braiding hair, food, alcohol, food, eye shadow, food, jokes, food, exercise, and food.

If you look up my boards on Pinterest (there are no Facebook-like privacy settings, so feel free), you'll see that I mostly pin recipes, which isn't terribly shocking considering my obsession with cooking.  Look up anybody you like and you'll see what makes them hit that "Pin It" button.  For instance, a few months ago I came across the Pinterest profile for the wife of a friend of mine.  She'd pinned a bazillion pictures of children and child-rearing tips, even though she has no children of her own.  I hope he knows he has fatherhood in his future.  

In fact, most of the people on Pinterest are women, so I'm a little concerned by all the pictures of nearly naked women on there.  They all have a comment under them like "Great diet tips!" or "How to lose weight in a healthy way!"  Really?  Is seeing a woman in a bikini with hips like an adolescent boy and no body hair an incentive to exercise?  Frankly, it makes me want to sit and have another cookie (according to the Pinterest picture at right, cookies should be pink!).

One of the most consistent trends I've noticed on Pinterest is that you can serve anything in a canning jar.  What?  You didn't know that canning jars were vital to a well-laid party spread?  Oh, ho ho!  Yes, indeed.  Canning jars are not just for jam and pickles any more.

Why, just look at the following:

I've never liked oatmeal, but perhaps that's because
I never ate it cold out of a canning jar!

A wash tub filled with bottles of beer or cans of soda is not enough.
You must serve a variety of mixed beverages in canning jars! 

Salad in a mason jar.  Why?  Because bowls are so 2010!

A few weeks ago I gave you a link to a website featuring Weight Watcher recipe cards from the 1960s.  The site makes fun of the absurdity of the recipes and the absolutely appalling way that food was staged for photography back then.  A few minutes on Pinterest, however, and I've come to the conclusion that nothing has changed.  We're still making crazy recipes and serving them as weirdly as possible.

So have fun on Pinterest, and may all your cookies be pink and all your oatmeal come in a Mason jar.