Apr 11
Are nonbinary people using Pinterest?
Well, are they? Sprout social recently shared some fascinating insights about Pinterest and its usership as well as how the current platform is performing and the metrics, to put it frankly, are un-be-fucking-lievable.
Pinterest is a bit of a dark horse of social media, an unknown giant in the platforms of social media because it’s really, well, not social. Users don’t go there to interact — not in the comments, not to get reactions but to plan, purchase and research.
I think of Reddit and Pinterest to be two sides of the same coin. The way many folks use Reddit to learn, and find niches, I see Pinterest as the visual cousin to Reddit.
That’s what inspired me to ask my Twitter followers, those that identify as transgender, nonbinary genderqueer, or otherwise gender-non-conforming, if they use Pinterest. And I found the results very interesting:
According to this poll where 35 self-identified GNC folks voted, only 48.6% of them actively use Pinterest. (I wager that if I asked about Tumblr, also a largely visual idea sharing website low on the social interaction spectrum, this percentage may shift)
I personally use Pinterest weekly. And I use it for a variety of things, and those needs for the platform have changed throughout the years.
I think Pinterest has garnered a stigma of being largely for women, in some circles serving as a reminder of the dominating “Christian girl autumn” complex that’s popular among influencers on Instagram and spills over to Pinterest. But I would disagree that Pinterest is a platform about ideas, and in the past year, *male usership of the platform has grown to 40%.
*one shortcoming of Pinterest is their data and metrics on users do not yet accurately portray nonbinary and gender non-conforming users equitably. While many users may be sorted into female/male categories, it is likely that trans folks’ gender identity may be counted among cisgender folks.
Pinterest really is for everyone, and nonbinary people belong there and are searching for a multitude of ideas and inspiration on a variety of topics.
Among responses to the poll, some GNC Twitter users shared some of what they use Pinterest for personally, including:
“I have boards for everything under the sun; drawing refs, narrative/ [visual development] mood boards — any project I work on has a board, home decor and fashion ideas are big ones for me too!”
“I mostly use it for outfit planning or interior design inspo 😊”
“Most recipes I’ll never make, tattoo ideas and outfit ideas with the occasional craft idea thrown in”
“On the rare occasion I use Pinterest it’s for photo poses”
As for my personal use of Pinterest, I have in fact sought out the website for each and every one of these purposes mentioned above. Recipes, photoshoot poses, outfit inspiration, seasonal ideas, home decor, and color palettes as well as DND ideas, etc.
Pinterest is unique in that users come to plan, they come to pin ideas and find visual confirmation of a cloud of thought floating in their head that has yet to be pinned down into something formative. Pinterest will suggest like-minded pins, photos, and even relevant color ideas to help users fully realize their idea.
For example, my summer outfit mood board I was putting together for Stitch fix went quickly from European linens to grunge and alt-aesthetic and eventually included some moody collages of the moon and magazines. I didn’t even realize how well all these fit together to describe the gender euphoria I want to experience with my clothes this summer, and it was purely because I chose to look through Pinterest instead of cutting and clipping images from a magazine or otherwise IRL.
Pinterest isn’t the end-all-be-all to design and home decor, but I do think it deserves recognition as a queer space. With collaborative boards for queer co-ops, users to design parties shared spaces, or even outfit ideas, Pinterest is really the Canva for users who love ideas and planning.
And nonbinary folks are simply no exception to this!
Stay connected!
If you enjoyed this article, come hang out with me on Pinterest or Twitter, I’d love to hear how you use, or don’t use, Pinterest — and why!
