Chances are you've heard someone, probably your girlfriend, mother, sister or lady probation officer, breathlessly praise the glories of Pinterest. "It changed my life!" they say, followed by a gurgled orgasm noise and a swift, moist exit. With 20 million monthly visitors to the site, Pinterest is now the fastest growing social media site ever -- faster than Facebook, faster than Twitter. Maybe you've moseyed over to Pinterest to see what the hubbub was about, only to be crushed under a tidal wave of random thumbnails of cookies, clothes and crafts made from repurposed toilet paper rolls.

If you're confused, and you will be if you look long enough, Pinterest is basically a virtual "vision board" -- and a vision board is a poster that you paste magazine cutouts expressing your personality and hopes and wishes onto. There was a time when only aspiring kidnappers were allowed to use magazine cutouts to express their hopes and wishes but, you know, OBAMA. Thanks to Pinterest, women (and a tiny number of men, but we'll get to them in a minute) from all over the world are virtually "pinning" their "Pinterests" to their "pinboards" via "the Pinternet." So far, so good? Pinterrific.

Then other people are free to share your pinned recipes, crafts, inspirational photos, etc. on their boards, and so on, at a rate of several billion times a second (probably). Got it? OK, now here's where it gets weird. For instance, you're probably wondering ...