Last week, it was announced that Pinterest, the virtual bulletin board of "stuff we like or find interesting" had quickly become the third most-popular social networking site, after Facebook and Twitter (sorry, Google Plus!). However, it would appear from my Facebook news feed that there are only women using Pinterest in earnest. I have one male friend who uses it, but only to point out ridiculously funny and dumb stuff that he finds on the site. More conclusive data claims that 80% of Pinterest use is from women, which sounds about right. 

Pinterest.jpg

Whether or not Pinterest has more women because the subject matter that best lends itself to the format is feminine, or if women just jumped on Pinterest, then made it all girly is a chicken-or-the-egg argument that really doesn't matter. What matters is that when you enter Pinterest's homepage, you're hit with a barrage of inspirational sayings, lots of pictures of flowers, and just shittons of pictures of food. Not exactly the most masculine destination on the Internet, though I have to say I got pretty distracted with the food and drink recipes for a few minutes. 

So, is there a reason for men to be on Pinterest? Right now, it doesn't really look like there is, unless you tend to specialize in marketing to women or have an interest in the exceedingly girly content on the site. However, as an instrument of social media, Pinterest serves as only a medium, and not a message in and of itself. You could put whatever masculine things you want to on the site. In fact, one of the most interesting things about Pinterest is that women seem to post more scantily-clad pictures of women than women do. 

Unfortunately, I'm not sure many men are going to make the leap. Pinterest in many way serves as a user-generated women's magazine, like Cosmo or Elle, and with those connotations, it's not going to be easy to get men on their girlfriends' and moms' favorite new site. I actually really like the idea of women getting together and taking ownership of a site like this, if only because I'm not subjected to quite as many "dance as if no one's watching" posts on Facebook, but also because I think the lack of men makes Pinterest a more interesting place. Not for men, mind you, but for the women that frequent it. 

Understandably, Pinterest isn't in a huge hurry to shake things up. It's achieved a lot of success by serving as a women's site, and overreaching could result in a large-scale abandonment of the site by its core customers. However, lots of clone sites are hitting the market now, with little fanfare, and the one that is most pertinent to this discussion would be the unfortunately named Mantersting, which sort of makes me lose my manterest in living. Manteresting does serve as a pretty decent snapshot of "Pinterest for men," but I just don't see the allure, making me believe that the way women can flip through their 600-page September Vogues, seemingly taking in all the visuals and text through osmosis isn't a skill that men have or want. 

But that's just me. I'm sure if men want to be on Pinterest, they will either be on Pinterest or get their own site liek the aforementioned Manteresting. 

Careful guys, this could get really manteresting really quick. 

(Sorry.)