So... Pinterest...

Some of us are visually stimulated and some of us are stimulated by other things.

I’m an odd fish. I am part artist, as some of you will know, so the visual is very important to me. I’m also very disrupted by it, so much so, in fact, that I try to work without visual distractions, and my virtually empty desk sits in front of a window that faces onto an empty yard.

Anyway... Pinterest... It’s a thing, now, and, you know me, I do like to join in.

I’ve been on FaceBook for years. I’ve also been on Twitter for quite a while, with the husband as @VincentAbnett and solo as @N_VincentAbnett. I like Twitter. FaceBook and Twitter are oddly competitive, though; even I find that I’m charmed when people like me.

My favourite social networking site is This Is My Jam. I set up an account there, N_VincentAbnett, a few weeks ago, and I post a tune almost every day. I do not care whether anyone follows me; I do not care whether anyone listens to or likes my tune choices. I do not care whether I appear to be hip. I simply post the tunes that are in my head at any given time, and that’s that. Bliss!

The husband was the first of us to join Pinterest, Dan Abnett. It makes sense for him. He is visually stimulated and already uses images as shorthand. For as long as I have known him, he has collected postcards and picture books. He continues to clip from magazines and newspapers, and keeps scrapbooks. He takes photos, both film and digital, and he downloads, prints and collects images on-line. He can shortcut many of his collecting rituals by using Pinterest; it will save him time, and probably expand his picture collecting and his chances to edit his visual thoughts.

I’ve joined Pinterest, too NVincentAbnett, although I suspect I shall use it less than the husband does, and more cynically. My instinct was to name my first board, “Things I Covet”, and, surprise, surprise, I have a virtual shopping list. It’s the girl in me, I suppose. My second board is “Art”. Again, no surprises there.

I do have one small problem with the whole thing, though, and it’s something we should all take up with Pinterest. The one rule that is writ large on the site simply says, “No Nudity”. It means that there is a very great deal of wonderful art, by artists from Rubens to Mapplethorpe that I have been cordially invited not to pin to my boards. I think this is a great pity. 

They could have suggested “No Violence”, but, as usual, the idea that we might be sexual beings offends us much more deeply than does the very real possibility that we might be angry ones.

Shame on all of us.