Jay Gabler

MCST 294-03: Reports from the Pinterfield

This week my Macalester College students looked at Pinterest. They made some discoveries, and had some opinions.

mcst294-03:

So continuing with my “beauty” search, I was shocked by the amount of utter white-washing that seemed to be happening on this site. I mean, the vast majority of people I saw under the “beauty” tag werewhite, skinny, and blonde women:

great.

I was only able to find a handful (aka two or three) WOC who were either black or ethnically ambiguous. It was either that or a WOC being fetishized or how to get that “asian eye makeup” (not even joking). What is being said here is that the beauty ideal is still thin, blonde and white. And this is coming from WOMEN who post this, geared toward other women!

Then after a suggestion from Noah, I searched for (don’t let me lose you, I’m going somewhere with this) “black people” and the first thing to show up was a Pinboard (woah apparently my brain knew that word?) called “Beautiful Black People”. Of course, the first thing I did was go to the user’s profile and check out their stuff. I found a lot of well, fucked up things.

So………………………………………what even?

Michelle Gibbons: “I should make a pinboard called NOPE.”

Au contraire: the strangely high diction and poor punctuation of the young will give you plenty to smile about when you’re old.

“Make it into a chandelier” is the new “put a bird on it.”

A crowd was gathered around a burning building, with a woman leaning out a fourth-floor window. “Help! Help!” she cried. “Somebody save my baby!”

No one knew what to do, until out of the crowd leapt a man in shoulder pads. “I’m an All-American wide receiver!” he yelled. “Throw the kid down! I’ll catch him!”

“But what if you miss?” cried the baby’s mother.

“I’ve never missed a pass in a Hail Mary play!” yelled the receiver. “Throw the kid down!”

Left with no other choice, the baby’s mother held the baby over the receiver and let go. The baby twisted in the air and fell away from the receiver…but the player made a heroic leap and, landing face-first in the dirt, caught the baby to save its life!

The crowd burst into cheers, and the receiver stood up, grunted victoriously, spiked the baby, and drop-kicked it across the street.

Pinterest has a Gil Elvgren moment.

French a la Pinterest.

“Yeah, so I’ve basically won the lottery—I’ve got a boy’s part and a girl’s part under here.”

From the Pinterest Nightmare Series

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