Friday, January 4, 2013

Pinterest Post: Sadface Edition

Most of the time I love Pinterest. In fact, I love it so much (and, to be fair, have filtered my boards and the people I follow so well) that I actually have a really hard time finding stuff that makes me look like this:


But because that's exactly how I feel right now, having sent my boyfriend on a flight back to Stockholm, I am going to indulge.

GRUMPY CAT MODE, ENGAGE!

To be fair, I also got the idea for this post from a sad-making pin, on a board which I then promptly unfollowed. That's why I can spend so much time on Pinterest with so little rage; I filter out any board the instant a terrible pin appears. Here it is:


This one chafes me on multiple levels. I don't know if I've ever mentioned this before, but I hate weddings. The cultural mythos of "every little girl dreams about her wedding" never really applied to me, and now that I'm at an age where my peers are starting to tie the knot, my apathy has turned into some kind of allergy. It won't be long now until an ad for David's sends me into hives. It doesn't help that, because I've started taking feminism ~seriously~ and read stuff and pondered stuff, all I can see in wedding photos is a misogynist money-grubbing industry that serves to reinforce an outmoded patriarchal tradition, which in turn gets marketed to women as "the best day of your life," as a distraction from the fact they/we get the shit end of the stick in almost every other regard.

Yeah, I have a lot of feelings about weddings.

Then pair that with The Beauty Myth and our culture of thin-worshiping (because the implied sweating is happening because the owner of the tank, presumably, wants to lose weight) and it just makes me sad. I guess there's a cute-sy ha-ha funny idea in there, but I just don't see it. "Sweating" and "wedding" are (slant) rhymes? Ha-ha?

I don't think I'm going to be a bridesmaid again any time soon; at least the few people I can think of who would ask that of me have the good sense not to get me something like this as a gift. Though you can always get one for yourself, or as a passive-aggressive dig at the bride-to-be, if you want:




That said, RufflesWithLove has other stuff that I would wear if I ever worked out in a public place. It's private yoga, calisthenics, and DDR for me, thanks. I've tried gyms and I just can't feel comfortable.


Judging by the DIY stuff that shows up on Pinterest, everyone has approximately a thousand unused Mason jars cluttering up the place. And also glitter. I'm reminded of a TV show I've never seen, Portlandia. Just replace "bird" with "glitter."


Those mason jars just need a bird and they're all set. 

This next one is a representative of what seems to be the sum total of nearly every other woman's post on Pinterest. It is also the kind I hate the most.


TRUST ME LADIES YOU ARE FINE JUST THE WAY YOU ARE. YOUR BUTT NEED NOT RESEMBLE THE ONE ON THE UNDERWEAR MODEL.

And the last one is another representative pin. This is the only kind of pin I see regularly, as it isn't quite as rage-inducing (normally) as the above example so I can never bring myself to unfollow the boards they're pinned on.



The concept of "fake geek girls" deserves a post on its own, but this pin is another one that bugs me for multiple reasons:
  1. "I'm better than those 'some girls' because I idolize Doctor Who, not a prince."
  2. "OMG I'm such a geek because I love Doctor Who~!!"
  3. "I still want to be subservient and secondary to the male genius hero."

To which I say:
  1. Good job on being such a ~speshul snoflaek~.
  2. Wow, you're a geek because you're a fan of one of the most popular TV dramas of all time?
  3. Fuck running with the doctor, why not be the doctor?

3 comments:

  1. I need to use your policy. Unfortunately, my two Sadface Rae-making pinners are related to me, and I don’t want to deal with the drama of unfollowing right now. They are also hardcore religious and practically anti-feminist, so you can fill in the blanks of their pins, particularly the 19 year old’s.

    This is a much better anti-prince one:
    which I can’t embed in a comment

    P.S. You can totally be my bridesmaid in my wedding. We will have to get botox together and have half our hair removed and probably lyposuction to so that the pictures look good. But you have to be just a smidge larger than me still, so that I will look the best.

    Just kidding. In fact, it kind of hurt to type that (but I’ve seen brides legit tell their ’maids similar). If Carl and I ever do actually get married (like say, for the legal protections it provides for kids if we decide to have them, since doing so otherwise would just cause us to pay more in taxes, damn marriage tax), we’re eloping. I just can’t deal with it all—family drama and crazy expensive spotlights on me, no thanks.

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    Replies
    1. Ditto on eloping, or visiting the nearest court house. I'm not sure how marriage will or won't affect my immigration attempt: that's the only reason I'd have to get married. But hot damn, what IS it about weddings that make people go so bonkers?!

      Thankfully no one in my family is on Pinterest. That blows. :C

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    2. My world just changed and I have to share: I just learned that you can easily unfollow just one board from a person without having to unfollow them completely and start following specific boards of theirs. (Yes, I’m probably slow on the uptake.) Yay! No more annoying religious, wedding, and weightloss shit from family members (unless they pin it to other boards)!

      [Uhh, for those who are slow like me, you just go to that specific board and click unfollow. You’re still following the rest of the person‘s boards. So simple.]

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