KonMari: A License to Throw Away?
“No, this one belongs in the trash.” Although heavily countered by my father’s exhaustive protests, the aged table linen did in fact find itself within the rubbish bin. As my father retreated to hide his remaining treasures, in hopes that they would live to see another day, my mother stood triumphantly against the large pile of items in the trash and donation pile. When it came to objects, my family always held a divided opinion. On one side was my father, who grew up in a rural village, which emphasized limiting possessions while maximizing their lifespan. This was sharply contrasted with my mother, who grew up with strict standards of cleanliness. While my mother did agree with my father on the former, her view of objects came mainly from the idea that they must always provide value to us, or else it is simply clutter left within the home. Indeed, the dichotomy on the use of objects resulted in small but frequent disagreements, one that represented my family’s view on the objects that we own. However, one shared view was their continual surprise of American consumption habits. When they looked towards our neighbors, who constantly bought and threw out perfectly fine items, they considered it as wasteful. With these experiences in mind, I was surprised to see the KonMari method, a Japanese-based style to cleaning and home organization gain so much popularity in America. How could these two societies with seemingly opposite views towards consumption come together? While many claim that the enthusiastic acceptance of Mrs. Kondo’s book by American audiences is due simply to our excessive propensity to buy, I argue that the underlying reason for the mass popularity of her method is the semblance of control that she helps her American audience regain. Shaped towards to the American audience, the KonMari Netflix fails to address the primary reason for our clutter, and thus Americans may simply see this newfound control as a calling to both consume, and dispose of more.
When Marie Kondo debuted her show on Netflix about 3 years ago, the show caught on rather quickly among audiences across the world. Based on her original book, The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up, Marie presents her audience with a rather simple concept: treating objects with respect, regardless of their monetary value. For domestic audiences, this seemed obvious, Japanese culture takes cleanliness seriously — it is a defining virtue and a building block of community. From their childhood, citizens are taught the importance of not simply cleaning their surroundings, but respecting them as well. Indeed Shintoism, the dominant religion in Japan, teaches its followers this very concept. In the Shinto religion, Kami, or spirits, are deities that live among the environment. Whether it is the surrounding landscape, temples itself, or even items that are in everyday use, Kami is everywhere. Thus, when Mrs. Kondo released her KonMari method, which taught organization techniques with Shinto influences, some of her domestic audiences dismissed it as “cheesy”. Some Japanese citizens, looking at her tutorials, shows, and books wondered why something so obvious to them would be so popular and even further, need such a framing. As one Japanese writer puts it, “I feel the concept (regarding the Netflix show) is a bit too optimized for the western market and overrated” (Lark). While it is not an opinion shared by all Japanese, it is nonetheless one interesting to think about. Kondo’s original method was devised through her personal experience in life, including her five-year tenure as an attendant maiden at a Shinto shrine. Her first book was released in 2011, and remained exclusively in the Japanese language until an English translation was released 3 years later, in 2014. Thus, while the original copy was aimed towards the domestic audience, the subsequent Netflix show is not. So what makes Netflix show so different? Jennifer Le Zotte, assistant professor of history and material culture at the University of North Carolina Wilmington explains that
“the show bears only a superficial resemblance to the book. The 35-minute episodes necessarily elide a number of important steps in Kondo’s tidying process and entirely omit much of the meaning. To appeal to a broader audience and in keeping with the brand of reality show it is, “Tidying Up” focuses on the individual stories of the people whose homes Kondo helps declutter, rather than the decluttering itself.”(Le Zotte)
While different than the book, what exactly makes it “optimized for the Western audience”? Why have Americans specifically taken such a liking towards the show?
I believe the answer lies within control. As Professor Le Zotte, explains, the constrained time period of the show relegates it to display what the producers believe to be the most captivating to the target audience. In the case of Tidying Up, it is the process of disposal. Enrapturing viewers with short and memorable soundbites (i.e “this one sparks joy, this one does not spark joy), Ms. Kondo plays into a form of shared catharsis that Americans love: throwing things out. This fascination with disposing and “decluttering” is not apart of a recent trend or fad, but rather has it roots with a deeper economic trend: globalization. With the victory of capitalism at the end of the Cold War, one may note that the quick growth of vast economic linkages in the world improved the equality of life for most. Indeed, the rise of a market-oriented globe allowed for mass manufacturing systems to be implemented, and with it a rise of cheap and accessible products (Barber). Likewise, the spread of these products around the world allowed for their cultures and traditions to travel with them, creating an increasingly fluid world. Unfortunately, this process of an “economic” based globalization also redefined our perception of goods. While previous generations looked towards to their goods with a strictly practical approach, the rise of globalization fundamentally changed the market. The growth of free labor markets, complemented with a general rise in income across the globe led to the rise of a new rung on the social hierarchy: The middle class. With a growing disposable income, this demographic became the target market of goods within the era of globalization. And while the price of goods decreased, the quality did as well. Soon, a general view on products was created, one that emphasized that goods must always be in fashion or trendy. As this trend grew, economic policies and a system of planned obsolesce complemented the rise of this mindset. Thus, the rise of a consumerist society necessitates a strong propensity towards the antiquation of products for the next cycle. A more radical approach would even surmise that it is this constant spending that proposes that it is this constant spending that fundamentally props up the economic and world order. While this may be on the extreme, it is inherent that economic policy and the growth of a strong capitalist economy is predicated on the consumption of goods (i.e GDP growth).
Thus, one arrives at the fundamental incompatibility between Kondo’s method and American audiences. The disposal of products is ingrained within an audience that grew up with a consumerist mindset. The producers of the show, cognizant of the fact, chooses to focus the show on a process of disposal and decluttering, while noticeably leaving out a couple of important complement topics touched upon in the book. In the book, Kondo leads her readers through an extensive series of her reasoning to why objects should be treated with respect and not as a commodity. Yet of these points, the most applicable to the American audience is not reflected in the show: that of simply consuming less (Scherer). Ironically, in order to appeal to the target audience, the show drops out the solution to the root of American clutter.
Our unhealthy relationship between the pairing of “throwing away” and “buying anew” is one that has inherently been shaped by the rise of globalization and the mass production of consumer goods. Unfortunately, it is these forces as well that paradoxically upholds it’s own dominance. In the case of America, its myopic view of clutter and cleaning places its blame on anything but consumerism itself. Thus, it shapes books and media such as the KonMari method in way that complements the status quo. While western audiences do enjoy the control that eventually comes with simply throwing away their possessions, the show fails to reference the primary cause of our clutter, and ironically is the reason why it is so popular overseas today.
Works Cited
Barber, Benjamin R. “Shrunken Sovereign Consumerism, Globalization, and American Emptiness.” World Affairs, vol. 170, no. 4, 2008, pp. 73–82., https://doi.org/10.3200/wafs.170.4.73-82.
Kelsey Lark Writer/translator who loves traveling. “Here’s What Japanese People Really Think about Marie Kondo.” GaijinPot Blog, 17 Jan. 2019, https://blog.gaijinpot.com/heres-what-japanese-people-really-think-about-marie-kondo/.
Scherer, Jenna. “Why Everyone Is so Obsessed with Marie Kondo.” Rolling Stone, Rolling Stone, 8 Feb. 2019, https://www.rollingstone.com/tv/tv-features/why-everyone-obsessed-tidying-up-marie-kondo-791315/.
Why Marie Kondo’s Netflix Show Won’t Actually Change Us | CNN. https://www.cnn.com/2019/02/04/opinions/marie-kondo-netflix-konmari-spark-joy-le-zotte/index.html.
