(Don’t worry, ladies. Only half of this post will be spent gently teasing you for your wedding board.)

In 2010, I was a sophomore in college in the early stages of my psychology coursework. For me, this translated to long nights at the library/at my desk/in my bed, sitting on the computer, trawling for anything to do other than study. Just when I thought I’d perused the entire corner of the Internet reserved for slacking assholes like myself, someone invented Pinterest: a haven of easy, fun, instantly rebloggable internet garbage (I use this term lovingly) that one can categorize and display in any way she sees fit.

I was in trouble. I didn’t even pretend to study for weeks. I was losing friends, alienating family, and sacrificing all meaningful relationships that threatened to jeopardize my constant perusal of “Easy!!! Chocolate Chip Cookie Ice Cream Bowls!!!” After the intervention (in which my loved ones disguised themselves as Homemade 3-Ingredient Rosemary-Lavender Skin-Soothing Aromatherapy Footscrubs, crept up behind me, and set fire to my computer with a blowtorch), I am now able to see Pinterest for what it really is: the most unintentionally hilarious social media site out there. At any given moment, you will find all of the following posts on your Pinterest homepage:

-DIY MOTHER. FUCKING. EVERYTHING.

“Stop Putting Harmful Chemicals On Ur Baby’z Delicate Lil Buttcheekz and MAKE UR OWN DIY BABY LOTION!”; “DIY 5-Minute 3-Ingredient Lip Balm! MAKES UR LIPS SO SOFT YOU’LL LITERALLY SHIT ALL UP IN YOUR PANTS!!”; “DIY Banana Hair Conditioner!! Don’t Ask Questions Jessica Your Hair Looks Busted Rub Some Fucking Fruit On Your Head Or I’ll Cut You”. I have never searched for “DIY Murder” on Pinterest -already on too many watchlists- but I am confident that this horde of terrifyingly resourceful women has successfully pulled off thousands of Cheating Husband Disposals.

My favorite thing about DIYers is that, in order to make her big batch of *DIY Baby Lotion 4 Ur Baby’s Butt Becuz Chemicals R So Yuck :(*, Well-Intentioned Supermom will trek across town to Whole Foods in her gas-guzzling Suburban, put the ingredients in disposable plastic bags, and eventually heat everything up in a Teflon pan. CHEMICALS ARE IN EVERYTHING. If making your own Butt Lotion helps you feel like a Home Ec Wizard, get down with your bad self, gurl. I feel that. But if you think you’re doing Av’eryiAnna some huge favor by making her buttcream yourself, stop that. Buy some baby lotion. The good kind (even though it still has “chemicals” in it). Repeat after me: “Water is a chemical. Everything will be fine.”

-RECIPES

Oh man, I am so guilty of this one. I have a board called “Eats” where I pin recipes that I will almost definitely never look at again, but would definitely like to put in my face if I lived in an alternate universe where I successfully create/feed myself food that doesn’t come out of a DiGiorno’s box. Almost all of these recipes contain the words “healthy!”, “easy!”, or variations thereof. I admire the tactic here of appealing to the fact that we are all fat and trying to be less fat without expending any time or energy. Unfortunately, this concept is flawed, because nothing is going to be quite as easy to make for dinner as the Cool Ranch Doritos that I’m shoving into my face with one hand while I use the other to pin a recipe for Cilantro Lime Shrimp with Green Beans.

-WORKOUT TIPS 

See also: recipes. Gurl, pinning the 30 Day Squat Challenge onto your “Twerkout! <3” board has done less for your butt than these Doritos have done for mine. This is why I love humans. We will spend all day planning Our New Workout Routine©, which will almost immediately turn us into a Victoria’s Secret Angel/Channing Tatum and also make Jonathan/Ashley realize what he/she’s been missing for the past 7 years. Then we will not work out, and we will order a pizza for dinner because we’re starting Our New Workout Routine© tomorrow and it’s totally stressing us out.

-“My Style”:

Collages of women who are 6’1 120 lbs wearing a flowy mint green top/white skinny jeans/gold sandals/a spray tan/John Frieda Beachy Waves Texturizing Spray/chunky coral jewelry which for some reason is shown to be the same size as the shirt and pants. Why is the bracelet so big and the shirt so tiny? Is this a shirt for ants?

When I see My Style boards, I picture myself attempting to:
a) PantsYoga all of ~DiS JeLLy~ into a pair of white skinny jeans without requiring the assistance of a paramedic
b) wear a color other than black without breaking into nervous hives
c) accessorize without looking like I just woke up in the dumpster behind a strip club

and I just laugh and laugh and laugh and sob in the shower and laugh.

-“Humor”

I have placed this word in quotation marks because these boards are where humor goes to die. They are a place where nothing funny has ever been, or will ever be. “Humor” boards are the shadowy place in The Lion King. You do not need a “Humor” board. If your urges to post shitty SomeEcards on Pinterest are truly impossible to wrangle, make a secret board called “My Silent Cry For Help” and post them there. Otherwise: Don’t. Please. Think of the children.

-Everyone’s Manicure In The Entire World

I am SO down for this. I love nail polish. I love seeing other ladies’ nails. I love you all and think you are Fantastic, Special Nail Painting Ladies. However: PLEASE STOP TRYING TO WATER MARBLE. IT IS NOT. GOING. TO WORK. IT IS GOING TO LOOK LIKE THIS:

Jesus Christ, this picture is giving me a goddamn panic attack I need a glass of wine and a quiet place to crouch and slowly rock back and forth on my heels.

-WWWWEEEEDDDDDDDDDDDDDIIIIINNNNNNNGGGGSSSSSSSSSSSSS!!!!!!!

Hey, you guys. Did you know that sometimes humans get married and also that it’s the singular most important day of a woman’s entire life and if everything isn’t #PinterestPerfect she will be #flogged and #ostracized from #society and made to live in a colony comprised of #vultures, snakes, and other shunned women whose #bridesmaids didn’t all wear the exact same shirt from #etsy to the #bacheloretteparty?

Let me be the first to admit: I am BATSHIT crazy about weddings. I stay in on Friday nights to uglycry over Say Yes To The Dress. I am a Certified Insane Wedding Person. I am absolutely not trying to shit on women who save ideas for their eventual, hypothetical weddings via Pinterest board. But even as a Certified Insane Wedding Person, I have not (PUBLICLY 😉 😉 😉 ) planned every last detail of my nuptials in a sprawling, thousands-of-items long Personal Wedding Catalogue.

Ladies: Pinterest hath seen thine thirst, and hath granteth thou ye olde Secret Board Feature. Go insane! Be completely, absolutely out of your mind fucking STOKED about planning your eventual, hypothetical wedding! But do it in a way that, if a man were to Google you after a first date and find your Pinterest account, he would not fear that a groomnapping and/or hostage wedding situation was moments away from occurring in the doorway of his apartment. This rabid “Insert Groom Here” mentality makes it seem like you don’t even care who you’re swearing to spend the rest of your life with, as long as he wears a Tiffany blue pocket square and is willing to pay $15k for Persian daylilies, and gurl, you and Chadwick both deserve better.

At its core, Pinterest is a cutesy timesuck that makes us feel as though Our Style, our manicures, our delusional attempts at diet and exercise and cooking food that isn’t a frozen pizza are valid and important and worthy of being shared with others. And you know what? They are.

YOU DO YOU. Pinterest long; Pinterest hard. Make some chapstick. Accessorize like there’s no tomorrow. Think about making “Broccoli Cheddar Soup From Scratch” as you text the Pizza Hut delivery man a pleading “WHERE R U?”. Ignore the pleas of your friends and family as they call your name through closed windows and drawn curtains, hoping to pull your eyes away from the screen- all in vain, because you’ve just found a recipe for “Copycat Red Lobster Cheddar Bay Biscuits”, and damn if you aren’t totally going to try that someday (Cheddar Bay Biscuits: Carly’s Real Fuckin’ Into Those).

Oh, and here’s a link to my Pinterest, in case #YourNamesIntoThat. Call me a massive hypocrite, compliment my now-old-as-all-hell manicures (thank you in advance), or tell me your favorite kind of dork-ass Pinterest boards in the comments.

Xo.