Goodbye to the Pinterest We Loved. Now, We're Reclaiming Creativity.

Bye, Pinterest! As January kicks off with vision board nights and personal rebrands, the cornerstone of online scrapbooking is rumored to be quietly changing ownership and positioning the beloved website for more AI slop and commercial manipulation.

As the social media service has already begun to lose its core audience of millennial women, it may be time to find an alternative – preferably one that nourishes our minds and hearts instead of offering commercialized "inspiration."

If you’ve recently logged on to Pinterest.com, you might have found it a tad shocking. Particularly when searching for recipes, you’ll find little inspiration beyond AI-generated renderings of dinners and ingredients, paired with cooking methods that often are missing obvious steps. The days of scrolling the scrapbooking site to find dinner ideas, capsule wardrobes, and cheeky quotes seem long gone.

 In fact, the entire Pinterest process has been turned upside down to now rival Google as a search engine predominantly tied to transactions. Fueled by Gen Z’s fixation on finding and purchasing products that suit their taste and style of the season, Pinterest has turned from a quiet musing place to a storefront, rife with trends focused on pushing you through to a sale– in fact nearly 40% of visual space on the personal feeds is now advertising, strategically disguised as a save-worthy post you’d want to add to your board.

Worse, the AI images aren’t labeled on the main feed and are only shown once the image has been clicked-- a step specifically designed to “enhance user’s ability to discover and act on their inspiration”, according to the company’s blog in 2025.

AI images riddle Pinterest

With the rollout of their AI shopping assistant aimed to bring more targeted promotions, the bend towards Artificial Intelligence and transactions is only set to increase. Pinterest’s transformation from an inspirational platform to a monetized discovery engine, rumored to be soon owned by ChatGPT's overlord OpenAI, seems to be the end of our beloved platform. Sigh. 

While the audience feels this strain, these changes haven’t brought the attention or revenue the company hoped for, as shares tanked 20% in November after their quarterly earnings did not meet expectations. Still, the company carries on, committed to this direction in the name of artificial inspiration.

The data clearly points to a Pinterest success plan they aren’t following: return to the authentic and organic inspiration people crave. But considering their drive to manufacture artificial "inspiration", can AI really ever inspire us by matching or outpacing human creativity?

Pinterest Headquarters in Sydney, NSW

Pinterest must now face this serious proposition.

Will they become the face of machine-created “inspiration” and lead the way for computers to serve “emotion” on a silver platter? Or go back to their original business of providing organic and curated creative inspiration?

While hybrid models of AI and organic content are possible, it must be noted that if creative inspiration is framed by Pinterest only in terms of the emotional response we feel when we find an image we like, which can be replicated by creating AI renderings, we are forced to detach the act of creation from its source by severing the created from the creator and valuing the outcome without regard for its origin. That origin, the photographer, painter, or designer who hand-created whatever we loved on Pinterest initially, is now completely disregarded.

As we Classically Feminine women know, true creativity cannot be viewed without its source– primarily that of God, and how he is reflected in the world through the transcendentals of Truth, goodness, and beauty. This cannot be replicated. Nor is inspiration merely an outcome; we must be inspired towards something, not just mere "inspiration" that will quickly fizzle.

Allowing Pinterest to become the example of “inspiration” and “creativity” online in this artificial form sacrifices another cultural institution to the arms of consumerism and globalism that has replaced hand-crafted artistry and human creativity.

The crossroads Pinterest has stumbled upon is one that the majority of businesses, especially those online, will also confront in the coming years. What actions should be taken in the name of celebrating human creativity? 

If you feel the call to preserve artistry in light of these changes, there are several steps you can take to curate your aesthetic, support artisans, and have an annual vision board night with authentic and human inspiration. 

It first starts with changing the game. Consider closing your Pinterest account (but download your original images if you can), and if you care to express your concerns, write the company. 

In the loss of old-school Pinterest, several smaller alternatives are rising up that need our support, like mymind and Designspiration. These provide similar features, but allow for quotes, photos, screenshots, and reflections to be added to your portfolio. If you’re looking for inspiration that is ad-free and need an online Pinterest replacement, this is a great place to start. 

Never forget the fun of cutting out beautiful images from magazines and newspapers with paper and scissors. The hunt for cut-outs by digging through print media outshines the pre-made “vision board kits” that have been all the rage for the last few years, after the decline of typical print magazines. Next time you find a beautiful publication, bring it home with you! Maybe next year you’ll cut it up and find some inspiration in it for the coming year. In the meantime, you’ve just supported a small business with writers who actually care. 

The very idea of creativity is now in question– and havens like Pinterest no longer exist for lovers like us of human artistry. While this may seem disheartening, this is the greatest opportunity for Classically Feminine women to shine. As handmade photographs fade and the artificial takes its place, we can reclaim a deeper way of engaging together, restoring meaning to a world that has forgotten the beauty of making something by hand.