The telos of Pinterest

My friend sent me this question the other day: What is the telos of Pinterest? When I stopped being offended at his obvious mocking tone, I admitted that I had been thinking about it. 

In his last lecture my professor asserted that if Memory is mother of the Muses - the Arts - then memory must be the basis of culture. In this case, I would argue that the domestic arts, too, must be based on memory. In the past (perhaps a glamorized past, admittedly) mothers would teach their daughters to quilt or knit or, more generally, keep a home; however, the shift from traditional mores and familial culture has fragmented families through individualism (I'm going to keep beating that drum) and the mass consumer culture has made housekeeping less of an art and more of a chore through devaluation of unpaid work and increasing dependence on modern appliances.

So, I come to the question: what is the telos of Pinterest?

Marrying Alone: The New Elopement

Forget bowling solo. The new trend is getting married alone.


Since I read an excerpt from David Brooks' Bobos in Paradise for class, I have greatly enjoyed stalking the New York Times Wedding page in all its Ivy League-educated, matching eyebrow height glory (See: the photos requirement). A month or so ago, the Times ran an article on the "New Elopement." An increasing number of upscale brides and grooms are planning elaborate weddings without any guests. A comment from one such couple:

“I wanted the dress, the vows, the flowers and the pictures,” said Ms. Provost, 36, who took the unconventional step of turning the couple’s elopement into a blowout. “But when you have guests, we felt like it ends up being more for them, not for the bride and groom. We wanted it to be for us.”

This sentiment is common for eloping couples. From a wedding blog's profile of another "wedding for two":

"We felt from the bottom of their [sic] hearts that we had to bring the focus back on us, regardless of what anybody else wanted and to remember what we would want first and foremost from our day and that was to celebrate our love for each other, our love for traveling, and enjoying every moment of our day with each other." [Emphasis mine.]

I find this idea of a "wedding for two" particularly interesting for two reasons. First, the radical detachment from any importance of relational ties in marriage and second, the drastic difference between what the Christian's idea of where the focus should be in marriage and the extremes of what this kind of individualism means spiritually.