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In a chaotic world young people have little say in, it's no wonder millennials are flocking to Marie Kondo's tidying show

Kondo’s ethos, which encourages people to hold on to items that ‘spark joy’ while decluttering their lives of everything else, is in its purest form a method of self-care – tidy room, tidy mind

Louis Staples
Friday 11 January 2019 13:22 GMT
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Tidying Up with Marie Kondo - trailer

The world can be split into two types of people: those who make their beds every morning after starting the day and people who think nothing of leaving the bed in a crumpled mess before darting out the door.

Tidying up is something we’re told, begged and nagged to do from a young age. Yet despite this, after we make our way into the world as adults, it’s an essential life skill that that many of us never quite grasp.

But people like myself, who have a habit of crumpling things away in drawers that are already bulging with miscellaneous mess, have been given much-needed inspiration from a tiny 4ft 7in Japanese woman with a larger than life vision for clutter-free living. Tidying Up with Marie Kondo – an eight-part series hosted by “organising consultant” and author Marie Kondo – dropped on Netflix last week.

The series sees Kondo travelling around America helping families and couples to revolutionise their lifestyle through “tidying up”. Her 2011 book, The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up: The Japanese Art of Decluttering and Organizing, has been published in more than 30 countries. It was a best-seller in Japan and in Europe, and was published in the US in 2014. Yet her Netflix show, which brings Kondo’s infectious positivity and calmness to the screen, has introduced her to a younger audience who might not traditionally express an interest in tidying up.

Younger viewers – millennials, generation XYZers or whichever term you prefer – have fallen in love with all things Kondo, and it’s not just because of her beautiful smile or her remarkable skirt collection. Twitter has been full of young people proudly showing their meticulously folded clothes drawers after mastering Kondo’s space-maximising storage techniques.

But is it unsurprising that young people, often unfairly stereotyped as being averse to hard graft, are flocking towards Tidying Up? In reality, millennials are constantly sharing their experiences and looking for ways to untangle the complex mess of modern life. Kondo’s ethos, which encourages people to hold on to items that “spark joy” while decluttering their lives of everything else, is in its purest form a method of self-care. Tidy room, tidy mind.

Many young people, still finding their way in the world, might be watching Kondo’s show on an old laptop in a small, overpriced bedroom surrounded by furniture they found on Gumtree. But Kondo’s approach of thanking the home for shelter and acknowledging our emotional ties to objects can be meaningful to anyone, no matter how plush their surroundings. By instructing us to verbally “thank” the objects we discard, Kondo encourages gratitude for what we have, giving a much-needed sense of perspective in a materialistic world.

Cleaning shows are nothing new. Channel 4’s How Clean is Your House? saw hosts Kim Woodburn and Aggie MacKenzie gasp in horror at homes that had descended into chaos. Given that Compulsive Hoarding Disorder was newly defined as a mental health condition in 2013, past cleaning shows like Hoarders – which often presented their contestants as deranged or just slovenly – now seem rather exploitative and tone deaf.

But Netflix’s foray into the cleaning genre is refreshing because none of the contestants on Tidying Up could be categorised as hoarders. Most have merely struggled to adapt to a big life change, such as having children or losing a partner. The contestants – such as a young gay couple – are reflective of the modern world. Rather than passing judgement, viewers can relate to people on the show and reflect on habits they have which are similar.

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But young people worshipping at Kondo’s alter cannot be solely attributed to Netflix merely giving the cleaning show genre a semi-woke rebrand. In such politically uncertain times, with the tectonic plates of global power constantly shifting and vast challenges emerging, young people sometimes feel like nothing is in their control. With a lack of secure work or realistic opportunities of getting on the housing ladder, while right-wing governments, Donald Trump and Brexit – which young voters overwhelmingly rejected – wreak havoc, Kondo’s ethos is the perfect distraction. Through tidying and editing, she encourages contestants to steer themselves in a positive, stress-free direction and ultimately take control of their lives.

The world – the larger home that we all share – often seems like an irreparable and inescapable clusterf***, with social media further cluttering our minds with constant, maddening noise. Can we really be surprised that young people, who are sick of feeling powerless, want to tidy up the mess?

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