The agony and ecstasy of Pinterest

Confession: Before I found Pinterest, I lived a normal, happy and fulfilling life. I never once considered in how many ways a candle could fit into a mason jar. I never thought to make cupcakes with handmade paper flowers on them, plan an imaginary wedding or put together virtual ensembles of virtual clothes I did not own and name them things like "Pink Chic" or "Girl's Night Sparkle."

Watch: Why all the interest in Pinterest?

All of that is changed now. Those who aren't on Pinterest have heard of Pinterest, and those that haven't heard of Pinterest are hiding out under very un-chic rocks and probably don't even own mason jars. 

"I'm confused," the uninitiated say. "Isn't it just like, a bunch of pictures you look at?" Yes, yes it is. And that is the problem. It is a dangerously simple concept, and the result is beautiful: Picture the most well-curated bulletin board you can think of, without crinkled paper or thumbtacks. 

At first, the curiosity is excusable. You can browse the pins, anonymously of course. "Pins" in this case are the pictures; Pinterest is all about the visual, and information about say, how to construct a wine rack out of vintage plates is often fronted by a beautiful image of said vintage plate wine rack. There are also the permeating memes, geekery and cute animal pictures that have populated the Internet since its inception, and, of course, inside jokes about how addicting Pinterest is. 

For a while this was okay for me, but then I started seeing way too much cool, life-improving stuff and was tired of circumventing the Pinterest protocol, so I broke down and requested an invite.

Part of the nearly-unblemished fun of Pinterest is the lack of spammers, bots, predatory companies and other internet fun-ruiners, and this environment is maintained by making the site invite-only. Lucky for you if you have Pinterest-literate friends who can throw you a line, but if you don't you can request an invite from the site's powers-that-be. Once you get an invite, you also have to have a Facebook or Twitter account to seal the deal. 

"Thanks for joining the Pinterest waiting list!" came the email. Really? "You have to request an invite AND get on a waiting list for Pinterest? That's BS." I tweeted (expressing anger non-digitally is so passe). Then, magically, within moments, a chirpy reply: "Happy to help you there. Here's an invite! enjoy :)"

As it turns out, good things CAN happen if you whine on Twitter, and judging from the thousands of similar replies by the Supportwing account, that's all you have to do to get an invite. Voila! Let the pinning begin.

And remember, please pin responsibly.