You could know that Marie Kondo’s comments that her house is now “messy” because she has three children would trigger a collective “I told you so.” It was enough to poke an ear and do a few scrolls to see what the marketing gear behind it calculated to the millimeter: Instagrammable excellence is in low hours, now is time to Be Real – the social network that goes frontal die intention to “be real”-. A very recent example is the viralization of the video tour of Julia Fox’s house, with the bed set up in the middle of the living room, an impassable corridor, her son’s toys everywhere and some shocking statements: They live with an infestation of mice and it looks good. Pictures that we received at home, in the spirit of the actress, and sing relieved: “I don’t do it so badly”. It’s the zeitgeist. In a 2023 that we are still debuting but that already has us at the top due to a series of circumstances that certainly cannot be enumerated, the last thing we need is someone to specify what our drawers should look like. How could he not fit into a victorious mood that Marie Kondo, who embodies the ideal of order and perfection and has built an empire with it, now says it’s true, it can’t be done, life doesn’t give her either .
The media appeal of these words, which he gave in a web meeting with journalists, was used to recall certain important issues: the difficulty of reconciling work and private life and the need to continue to fight against or against the pressures of the hegemonic model of motherhood to rebel the stereotype of the superwoman who does everything (productive, clean, organized, with ideas and sweaters always in place). The point is that after these days of logical euphoria, jokes and news programs asking women on the street what they think of the guru’s “surrender” as if this were news and not commercial, there’s no harm in it think about what really involves the Marie Kondo method.
Like someone who spent a good chunk of childhood afternoons with a great-aunt who kept the coffee-sugar cones in bags and the styrofoam trays from the grocery store in the kitchen cupboards—perfectly organized, yes—the Konmari mantra of “Get stuff going doesn’t bother you Freude” never had many ballots to get me. Maybe that’s why I examined the seams of his business with this article three years ago now. The conclusions from then still stand: since he published his first book “The Magic of Order” in 2014 published Tools to Organize Your Home…and Your Life!(Ed. Aguilar), Kondo has asserted that if we follow comprehensive guidelines for organization at home, we will achieve fulfillment and joy.Spiritual consumerism, aptly named by the New York Times Amanda Hess This commercial trend that tries to directly connect the purchase of an organizer box or a pillow perfume with emotional to combine well-being. As if this didn’t depend to a large extent on other, not so obvious issues, such as decent housing or good working conditions. Then came the consumption trap Marie had set for us: after urging us to empty our homes, she wanted us to refill them with the high-priced, minimalist aesthetic objects for sale on her website.
Following capitalist logic, because I suspect that Marie Kondo has no intention of getting rich – her fortune is estimated at $8 million – it is clear that the guru’s language change implies an intention to sell us something. Basically his last book. But there is more. While promoting The Kurashi Method: How to organize your space to create your ideal lifestyle (ed. Aguilar), this latest publication that contains images of “serene” interiors, recipes from his mother and planner templates intended to inspire everyone who uses them To continue the change, Kondo has made the soft start of what will become the new term to use: time. Kurashi, as he explains in the book’s foreword, translates from Japanese as “ideal pastime.” “My house is messy, but the way I spend my time is just right for me now, at this stage in my life” or “I’ve given up a bit.” [el orden] in the right sense. Now I realize that it’s important for me to enjoy the time I spend at home with my kids,” are some of the statements he released at the above meeting and The Washington Post collected where he met Family refers to this quality time up to five times (the nostalgic tone of the speech and the imagery he now uses would make for an offshoot of this text).
It seems no coincidence that reading these statements, which made me think that Marie Kondo now wants to sell us formulas to get more and better time, caught me trying to optimize mine: in the kitchen , with a mobile phone in one hand and a spoon in the other hand while cooking a soup. Fresh from the year of the big job layoff, still fantasizing about living in goblin mode or, like the protagonist of Ottessa Moshfegh, mired in a dead end of rest and relaxation, reclaiming free time and in turn making full use of it are part of a shared feeling, sometimes contradictory that the Zeta and Millennial generations identify with. I also shared this cartoon by Liana Finck on Stories with a tombstone that reads “Finally a time for me.”
“Think of a workable happiness routine and stick to it for 10 days,” Kondo says in the new book, with the same mantra of the last decade now applied to the organization of time. That’s the kind of formula the happiness industry stands on. Edgar Cabanas, psychologist and co-author with sociologist Eva Illouz of Happycracy: How Science and the Happiness Industry Control Our Lives (ed. Paidós), told S Moda, “Part of the success lies in this seeming simplicity. I offer you a series of recipes that are easy to follow and understand, and you don’t have to change anything in your life other than yourself, a matter of attitude, here accompanied by a small task based on a neoliberal ideology, place ultimate responsibility on the individual, ignore the weight of socioeconomic circumstances, and lead to future frustrations when repeated steps do not achieve what is desired.
I go back to Marie Kondo’s Instagram, to her website, I leaf through the book. Nothing, not a trace of the pictures of this messy house we’ve been talking about for a week. In the last post on his site I read, “embracing imperfection”, but the photos reflect the same as always: with his children, in an immaculate house that is actually a decoration in which the only concession to clutter is a strategically rotated wicker basket. What I find are the organic cotton pajamas she wears herself to “sleep better” (was $190, now reduced to $139), a drawer for storing the kids’ toys ($59), or a canvas organizer for them Wall at 117. Marie wants her language changed, but the deal stays the same.
The Marie Kondo Trap: From Minimalism to the Business of Spiritual Consumption