The Internet is all a Twitter about a fictional story created on Pinterest, of all places. I say “story” very loosely—someone has made a collage of similar pictures about their “Imaginary Well-Dressed Toddler Daughter” and captioned them to tell the story of “Quinoa” and her band of equally incorrigible friends, played by “pins” of any number of disturbingly dolled-up children.

It’s silly, but I’m glad someone has the good sense to make fun of the ridiculously aspirational consumerism that Pinterest feeds off of. It reminds me of this lovely Tumblr that flips people’s home décor choices the bird. Or this Tumblr that chronicles the agonies of lavish home architecture. Or this Vimeo series about a gang of J. Crew models.

All of these “stories” re-appropriate the visual language of consumerism and use it to blur the line between advertising and self-expression on the Internet, while most people simply advertise themselves on Facebook and Twitter and pretend it’s self-expression. It’s all fiction, and one way or another it’s all laughable.

– Michelle L.