If you build it...

The Chicago White Sox were at the heart of the 1919 "Black Sox Scandal" and "8 men out" --  when eight players were banned from professional baseball for life as a result of intentionally losing games for $$$.

You know how I know so much about this? Wikipedia? Perhaps a little. But REALLY...what I need to know about the White Sox I learned from "Field of Dreams."

I really like this movie. It's fun and sentimental and takes place in Iowa and there are ghosts and James Earl Jones and a tagline -- "If you build it, they will come."

[I do wonder, though, if Dennis Quaid looks at Kevin Costner and thinks "Dude, you totally stole my career...and I could have done it much better than you." If he did, he would be correct.]

BUT...there's something else that comes to mind when I think of "If you build it.." And that's Pinterest.

If you don't know much about it, Pinterest is a social media pinboard site, where people post ("pin") pictures of things that interest them and organize those pictures into folders, and share that with their friends. Pinterest took off like gangbusters -- in January 2012, it had almost 12 million unique users, and was the fastest site in history to break the 10 million mark. Apparently, they built it, and people came. Quickly and in large numbers.

I don't just blog about Pinterest; I'm also a client. I have a love/hate relationship with Pinterest. I LOVE many things about it:

• I enjoy wasting time
• I enjoy looking at pretty pictures
• I enjoy seeing what my friends are up to and which pretty pictures they waste their time looking at
• I like being able to keep track of things I've seen that I want to get back to later

I HATE the following:

• How much time I can waste on it
• How completely detached from reality most people's pins are (including my own)
• The ridiculousness and pretentiousness that abound

For example, on any given day you will see the following:

• a picture of a mango-quinoa blueberry corn salad posted by someone that you know who subsists on burgers, fries, and chinese food, with the caption "Nom nom! So yummy!" Whatever. You will never make that, let alone eat that. Who do you think you're kidding?
• prints with variations on the "keep calm and _______" theme and exhortations made by 1950's style housewives that the speaker is fluent in "sarcasm and profanity" and other various someecards. Yes, we've all been to the site. They are funny. But do you need to collect 40 of them and refer to them on a regular basis? 
• a picture of a dessert that looks full-fat and fabulous but is called something like "low-fat brownie yogurt balls" with the caption "These are amazing!!! And only 86 calories per serving!!!" Really? Did you make them and eat them? Then don't attest to their fabulousness. Frequently, if you click through these pictures back to the original or semi-original poster (which is the only way to get the actual recipe) you'll see comments like "Huh, you know, when I did the math they were 200 calories per quarter-sized serving, are you sure about that?" Caveat eat-tor.
• Pictures of cupcakes with elaborate toppers and exquisite party decorations that are re-pinned by everyone you know with kids -- "Perfect for Madison's 4th B-day!" Um, sure. Is someone from Land of Nod stopping by to hang all of that crap up for you, or is this for you to show your professional party planner? Or are you really just going to tape up some balloons and streamers and buy the matching Disney Princess plates, cups, and plastic tablecloth from Target? Because THAT'S OKAY too.

My husband asked me "what is the deal with Pinterest? I have no idea what it's about." Here's my answer:

Pinterest is:

• food that one will never cook
• houses one will never own
• crafts one will never do (see previous post re: that damn tooth fairy door)
• quotations one will never say
• clothes that one will never wear
• books that one will never read
• parties that one will never throw
• hairstyles that one could never pull off

Kevin Costner had the Field of Dreams, but apparently Pinterest is the website of dreams.

And that's my baseball post of the day. Time to go pin stuff.