Pinterest Fails

Almost two months ago I started using Pinterest at Teresa's insistence. (Check out her "Olson rule" for Pinterest.) Although time-consuming, it's really fun for those of us who saved newspaper clippings and magazine pictures all of our lives. If you haven't tried it out yet, Pinterest allows you to "pin" pictures from websites onto your own "boards." Cracked.com gives a bemused explanation of the manicure tutorials and Doctor Who pictures that make up this new form of social media.

Despicable Me also appears frequently on Pinterest...

Oh, and CAT PICTURES!

My discussion of Pinterest will focus mostly on Pinterest fails, but not in the sense that most of us know the phrase. A Pinterest fail is usually when you try out a recipe or craft from Pinterest and it comes out nothing like the original pin.


I would like to introduce my version of Pin fails:

Pincorrect

The following picture describes my meaning:

Sounds legit.

Many of you will have seen the joke before. There's no way those are the words of Abraham Lincoln, because he died long before the existence of the Internet.

Try this one:

Oh yeah, I remember him saying that in Star Trek!

 Know Your Meme explains troll quotes so that you can make your own, but you probably get the gist. Dumbledore didn't say those words, Yoda did. And that bearded fellow in the picture is not Dumbledore, that is Gandalf. Although this picture should make you laugh, it perfectly expresses one of my pet peeves with Pinterest (that...was a lot of alliteration):

 WRONGLY ATTRIBUTING QUOTATIONS

It is one of my pet peeves because I LOVE quotations. I memorize them after only a few hearings or readings, which came in handy on quotation quizzes in college. I'm always quoting books, movies, songs, and Internet videos, which you'll probably notice in my blog. Unfortunately, I also have the bad habit of correcting people when they don't quote a line exactly right. Hence, this post on why people should check their accuracy on the Internet. Let's look at some examples.

Shakespeare did not write everything.

 I first noticed the Pincorrect phenomenon when I was browsing the "Quotes" page a few weeks ago. I saw this:

Awwwwwwwww.

Cute, right? I was immediately interested, because I like Shakespeare and I was curious what play or poem this was from. It wasn't something I'd read before. Also, I was a little suspicious. The iambic pentameter here is a bit dubious.


Pincorrect! Sure enough, this line was NOT written by Shakespeare. Arrigo Boito wrote it, and it gets confused because he wrote some operas of Shakespeare's plays.

This one has been repinned hundreds of times: 

A kindred spirit named Jessica had commented this on it: "You do know this isn't actually Shakespeare, right? They didn't have umbrellas in the Elizabethan era."

I should follow Jessica, come to think of it.

Pincorrect! Forget that, they hardly had windows! Now I know some people might not have any idea, and just like the particular quotation. And I don't want to obnoxiously comment on everyone's pins. So, here's a website to save us all: http://www.notbyshakespeare.com/

By the way, did you notice that cat picture at the beginning of this post had a spelling mistake?

Another name for English major.

Your fandom does not have all the answers.

Each of us has a favorite fantasy world(s) we love to dream about. Nothing wrong with that at all, but on Pinterest, things have gotten a bit out of hand.

I haven't been able to find the original post, but this was what a pin I saw a few weeks ago said:

"The phrase 'out of the blue' refers to the TARDIS!"

The caption said, "Mind Blown!!!!"

The big blue box is the TARDIS:

The man is a Tennant.

Anywho (heh), some Doctor Who fan apparently thought that the TARDIS' time-travelers came "out of the blue" when they return from their galactic adventures.

Pincorrect! The phrase "out of the blue" has been around since the 1800s, and it just means the blue of the sky. Yes, it refers to an unexpected event, but originally that meant lightning, not a British alien.

So pinners and non-pinners, the Internet is tricky! And my rant is over. Go, and spread truth to the Internet. Oh, and somebody put up some pictures of actual Shakespeare quotations; there are not nearly enough on Pinterest. Leave comments (here, or on my Facebook, Brianna the Writer) telling me of any incorrect quotations or fandom "facts" you may have seen, and follow me on Pinterest!