The only time I seem to interact with Pinterest is when I’m searching for images of something on my phone, let’s say “pictures of mountains”. I want to get the image in full res so I go to the site, then I can’t copy it or download it.
From these brief interactions and exploring the site I just don’t see the appeal. Pinterest just seems like a terrible image search engine with the ‘feature?’ that every few scrolls pulls up similar-ish categories to the image search you did(Mausoleum might bring up Pharaohs for example). It could be that I’ve just never taken the time to use it properly, so I thought I would ask people: what is Pinterest good for / why does it exist.
Hopefully is not too harsh I am high atm.
My experience with Pinterest is:
- Search for some recipes and you click a link to Pinterest it takes you to a meta page with a lot of pictures but no recipe.
- While image searching you find a nice picture click on the link to Pinterest and it’s gone, just use the cached image instead.
Looks like Pinterest is the reason for all these dying pixels.
I agree with the other commenters, it is mostly awful, screws up image searches, and I’ve had the browser extension that blocks it from searches installed for years.
But I have also used it, so can partly answer your question. Basically, it lets you build image collections on topics, and has convenient (but also intrusive and data harvesting) extensions / apps that make it easy to add any image you come across online to one of your boards. In the past I’ve used these boards for home renovation, DIY projects, world building, D&D inspiration / mood boards to share with new players, etc. And as well as just gathering together the images you save, it’s pretty good at suggesting similar images.
If it wasn’t so awful as a site (the out of control SEO, demanding you’re logged in, presumably vast data harvesting) I’d actually use it a lot more. But I generally don’t, and I’m looking for an alternative. There’s something called Hoarder that you can host yourself, which could be useful. But without the network effects of humans effectively tagging and linking millions of images, it’ll sadly never be as good at suggesting relevant new images as Pinterest.
High too ATM, that’s exactly what its for, images.
I was suprised to learn most teens exclusively use Pinterest for looking up images, as opposed to web searching.
it also has features like creating boards, for example you can “pin” images to your board, and others can see it. So people try collecting the most images or the rarest ones of a specific person or something else idk, to compete.
I hate the platform, because it puts the whole algorithm thing on images, essentially creating doomscrolling potential for what was supposed to be an image host & share platform. Also its a really fucking slow app & website. +ads, so I wouldn’t ever use it anyways.
It kind of reminds me of a visual bookmark manager.
Some people will use it to gather recipes. They might even group some, like “Thanksgiving dinner ideas” or “new diet.” When you do this, you can even get a little thumbnail that will make it easier to find later.
It’s not limited to recipes. You can link a lot of stuff, like maybe tutorials on how to build a shelving unit. You could put it in a group called “organizing my garage,” along with other stuff you want to do.
You might not even necessarily use it for links, maybe you have an idea for a costume or a picture you want to draw. You can find picture inspiration. Once you find a picture, it can suggest more you might like.
One can of course achieve this type of thing without Pinterest (I do just fine with my own system) but Pinterest does make it very convenient, especially for people that aren’t as tech savvy.
It gloms onto the mental capital around how the internet is supposed to be free and open. But if you make an account you can then download the images etc. When I did make boards and pin things it felt like I was just indicating to interested commercial parties the things I like. But it does show you a large amount of related images quickly which can be handy if you’re looking for something specific.
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Would you be so kind to share more about that extension please?
The one I use is called “Unpinterested!”, and is on both the Firefox and chrome extension stores. You can also use uBlacklist to block the domains.
Sweet, I see in the comments many others have an extension for this. Crazy I didn’t even think about it as an option!
There’s also one called “Personal blocklist” which is very handy.
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Tumblr from 2012 had an unparalleled hatred of Pinterest I know that much. Like far worse than their love-hate relationship with 4chan
It exists to abuse and profit off search engine optimisation. More than half of most image search results are polluted with their results which forces you sign up to do anything useful with them.
I use it to gather recipes, workout routines, pictures of cats, and cool artwork. I also have a “board” full of pictures of stuff from my childhood that I look at if I’m wanting some nostalgia.
I like using it to find recipes for stuff but that’s all I use it for tbh. And also just kind of organizing “aesthetics” that I’m going for when working on projects like dnd campaigns and such.
I actually find it invaluable. I am constantly designing new products so I need a lot of inspiration. Google image search is too focused and I need broad strokes to start. I can type in a few keywords in Pinterest, find one image I like and click on it, then get a large amount of similar designs. I’ve used it for lots of stuff from a variety of unique knurling options on dials to flower knolling layouts for ad shoots. It’s a better image search for my purposes.
When looking for something to paint it’s a good tool too.
It exists to fuck up search results.
Kagi lists the top domains that Kagi users have blocked results from.
https://kagi.com/stats?stat=leaderboard
The top 7 blocked domains are all Pinterest domains.
That’s a pretty damning vote, I’d say.
That’s… Amazing. What a worthless site.
Interesting, thank you for sharing
Very interesting!
I haven’t used it in a while, but when I did I used it sort of as an idea / vision board. For instance, when remodeling the kitchen I created a board where I just pinned a ton of kitchen pictures that had things I liked. Sort of a way to group images together based on themes.
I use it A LOT for work. Basically looking for real life images of the lighting application that I’m designing for to convey the intent to the client in a visual way.
I might also use it for art inspiration but not often.
