(I’m)perfect.
Recently, I noticed an interesting side of Pinterest. For those of you who never heard of it: Pinterest is an online community where you share your interests in “pinning” pictures of your favourite musicians, places, drawings, Siamese cats, outpourings of some 19th century literary men — basically everything — on your profile wall. You save these pictures for the others and for yourself.
But Pinterest isn’t just functioning as a wild collection of deadwood. For some, it even serves as a kind of a self-help group.
In a way, a Pinterest profile is a presentation of you as a person: Self-representation in social media — well, nothing spectacular anymore, as most of us 21st-century kids are frequently confronted with half-naked selfies straight out of the gym on Instagram or Facebook. But at this point, an interesting difference between these platforms and Pinterest becomes clear: While Instagram and Facebook are all about keeping up an image, presenting the most possible ideal of the self; the Pinterest-community concedes some free space for our weird and problematic sides, as well.
There are comics dealing with serious issues like anxiety or depression in a refreshing way, snippets of inner feelings and thoughts as well as encouraging words to get through tough times.
I’m not a fan of public emotional outbursts; just as little as I support networks calling themselves „social“ in replacing trusted persons in real life. But I have to admit that, in a society solely aiming for perfection and still stigmatising and hiding mental issues, it’s truely refreshing to see some imperfectness shown.
