Essays & Confessions

Marie Kondo, Smart Consumerism, & Why Criticizing “Selling Out” Doesn’t Make Sense

经过 | 2020年1月2日,星期四

我第一次遇到整理生活的改变生活的魔力in my late teens, during a tumultuous move with my family to a much smaller apartment. The sheer amount of things I owned was truly staggering, put into sharp relief when I surveyed the dozens of boxes into which all my worldly items were forcibly stuffed.

I’d heard about how the book truly had changed people’s lives, but I was skeptical. I found an audiobook version online, dumped all my clothes on my bed, and pressed play.

在四个小时的聆听结束时,我有几袋衣服要捐赠,我正式convert依。尽管我确实用一粒盐来接受一些建议,但我对玛丽·康多(Marie Kondo)的哲学感到震惊,即对待您所拥有的物品,让它们同等尊重,并努力朝着您自己的个人理想生活方式努力。

When the Marie Kondo brand announced in November of this year that it was launching anonline store,,,,many felt that it was in direct opposition to the lessons that the book preaches.

“鼓励人们扔掉自己的财产只是为了转身并出售替代者是一个舞台。”wrote大西洋员工作家阿曼达·穆尔(Amanda Mull)。“Despite the profound irony, though, Kondo’s pivot from decluttering Svengali to tchotchke retailer isn’t particularly surprising. She has muscled her way to legitimate celebrity status in America, and in 2019 the end game of fame is always sales.”

其他思考的作品和推文比比皆是,批评Kondo卖掉消费品卖光了,使她成为整洁,组织和整洁的堡垒。但是,我对这家商店的推出并不为愤慨的反应而感到惊讶。毕竟,Kondo是一位女商人,她已经出售了数百万本书的副本,国际咨询和课程,公开演讲的门票以及Netflix ShowTidying Up With Marie Kondo。With340万Instagram关注者,在我看来,增加物理产品似乎是一种自然的进步。

“Think in concrete terms, so you can vividly picture what it would look like to live in a clutter-free space,” Kondo wrote in her book. “A person’s awareness and perspective on his or her own lifestyle are far more important than any skill at sorting, storing, or whatever. Order is dependent on the extremely personal values of what a person wants to live with.”

但是,尽管整理可能适合所有人,但商店的目标人群肯定不是。他们中的大多数是“理想的”物品,适合具有中性调色板的优雅,简约的美学。虽然我35美元的宜家餐具套装适合我,但富裕的顾客可能会喜欢混凝土碗和几何托盘。产品范围从可用的,价格合理的日常用品(例如$ 10肥皂盘,,,,$ 9通用清洁剂和十可重复使用的棉花for $20, to more esoteric or strictly aesthetic items like a平衡宝石水瓶,$ 98andaluminum tuning forks with crystals for $75。这least expensive item is an$ 8陶瓷筷子休息,,,,which claims to “[help] to keep chopsticks clean, off the table and ready for use.” The most expensive item is a黄铜工具支架,零售价为275美元,如说明所指出的,可以将其作为花瓶加倍。仅按类别进行价格排序。

我读过的有关商店的许多文章,例如大西洋,,,,tended to sensationalize the expensive aesthetic pieces and neglected to mention any of the lower-priced items, comparing it to Goop, Gwyneth Paltrow’s lifestyle brand, where “wellness” products top out at $3,490 for a24 karat gold vibrator

来自CNN业务的Rachel Metz测试了价值200美元的产品from the shop, including the notorious gem water bottle and tuning fork. She also seemingly selected based on what seemed most intriguing, rather than what she believed would bring her personal value. Metz was unimpressed with many of the items; the tuning fork dented easily, and the set of chopsticks could have done with an extra sanding to make them smoother. She did decide to keep a few of the things she bought: Kondo’s children’s bookKiki&Jax:改变生活的友谊魔法和玻璃茶壶。

“Kondo has preached the importance of having people ‘hold each item in your hands, as close to your heart as possible’ to see if it sparks joy,” Metz wrote. “But this is impossible when you’re shopping on the web, at least until your credit card is charged and the box and packaging are already littering your home.”

这dangers of online shopping hold true for any retailer, regardless of their personal philosophy, but I still couldn’t figure out why people were so upset that Marie Kondo specifically was expanding her brand. If Gwyneth Paltrow can market a sex toy worth more than double my monthly rent, what was so wrong with marketing some minimalistic (albeit expensive) glass containers and aromatherapy oils?

Much of Marie Kondo’s ethos is based on the Japanese religionShinto,,,,and Kondo herself also worked at a Shinto shrine for five years.

“I began this custom [of greeting homes] quite naturally based on the etiquette of worshipping at Shinto shrines,” she said in her book. “I believe I was inspired to do so because the tense expectancy in the air when a client opens the door resembles the atmosphere when one passes under a shrine gate and enters the sacred precincts.”

Kondo鼓励人们通过谨慎触摸或握住自己的物体来磨练自己对“引发喜悦”的感觉。如果他们不“引发欢乐”或不再有用,那么她还建议人们感谢自己的服务。Whether it’s an unread book, an item of clothing that no longer fits, or even an old love letter from a childhood sweetheart, each thing had its time and place when it first came into a person’s life, and it is now time to learn from it and let it go. By integrating these beliefs into her practice, Kondo treats her clients’ homes with dignity and gives inanimate objects life.

In response to these methods, Anakana Schofield of监护人wrote, “Be assured that this joyless frump will not be following Kondo’s advice, to essentially hold my books against my teats and left ventricle to see if they spark joy.”

斯科菲尔德对待昆多的哲学的不屑一顾是无知的,而无需考虑可能带来的更深层次的含义。

“In one video, Kondo helps a woman declutter her books by ‘waking them up,’” Schofield continues. “Surely the way to wake up any book is to open it up and read it aloud, not tap it with fairy finger motions — but this is the woo-woo, nonsense territory we are in.”

神道的哲学可能是不熟悉的,甚至对大部分西方观众来说都是不熟悉的,但要完全拒绝任何课程似乎很钝,是的,甚至是种族主义者。Goop(及其同类)不一定具有相同的文化联系,因此针对Kondo的批评感到特别不平衡。

我不认为玛丽·昆多(Marie Kondo)是嬉皮烟熏卖出,也是推出在线商店的先令。作为一名拥有大量追随者的商人,扩大她的品牌以鼓励人们对某种生活方式和美学的抱负似乎是一步合理的一步。在此之前,她已经通过其他物业从Konmari品牌那里赚钱,并且很可能会继续制作更多。对于消费者和konmari辅助者,他们对“激发喜悦”的态度有充分的感觉,他们可以自己选择购买的东西。

“茶壶和其他一些购买使我想到了有时候,有时候,在自己,在朋友中甚至在家中激发喜悦的最佳方法真的是通过购买东西,”总结after her KonMari shopping spree. “Organization and tidying have their time and place, but there is joy in consumerism, and Kondo is clearly embracing that, too. You might not want to buy from her, but opening the online store is an undeniably clever business move.”

莉安(Lian)是一名24岁,与伴侣一起住在波士顿。

Image viaKonMari.com

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