Visual boards help bring ideas to life and the go-to visual board for many has been Pinterest. What Black people had to do was attach their skin color to every search to get results. Many felt it was about time melanated individuals had theirs on pinboard curated to serve them. That has given birth to Melaninterest.
The app was developed by Gail Stepney and is meant to serve Black culture since already existing technology apps have not done much justice to the Black community.
To get content from Pinterest for a melanated individual, the search word must contain ‘Black girl’ and the results are not as extensive as they should be either. Pinterest has tried to build on its algorithm by adding new features to improve the user experience for Black people.
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A tweet in September 2020 sparked an interesting conversation on Black Twitter. It was by @AlettaNevobasi, which said “we need a Black Pinterest. I can’t keep typing ‘for Black people’ at the end of everything…”
we need a Black Pinterest. i can’t keep typing ‘for Black people’ at the end of everything…
— lettie (@AlettaNevobasi) September 10, 2020
The original tweet garnered over 42K retweets at the time and more than 165k likes. Many people shared their thoughts on how the Pinterest algorithm had “prejudice undertones.”
Creators of Melaninterest jumped into the conversation to sell their platform to users. At the time, they had just the desktop and Android versions. Now the IOS version has caused the app to rise in the App Store Lifestyle chart, with users celebrating the launch on social media.
Melaninterest is specifically meant to inspire Black girls to feel more beautiful. According to the company website, “Melaninterest was created to serve our culture online. In today’s day and age, most technology apps have algorithms that do not serve our community.
“Usually in searches, you have to add “black girl“ and even then the results are underwhelming. We have a solution for that. Melaninterest’s purpose is to create an online directory that allows melaninated individuals a way to easily find content that serves them.”
For starters, this is a representation at its best. There will not be the need to filter searches anymore and the content that pops up in any search serves the needs of the individual to the teeth.
Also, Black culture now has its platform dedicated to serving Black people who are dreamers, tech-savvy, fashion inclined, fitness enthusiasts, foodies, and most of all those who want the perfect vision board to help them execute their plans.
Now all they must do is input searches to get content specifically tailored to them in a safe space where Black people can fully express themselves.
