‘My house is a mess’, the advantages of being disorganized

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“Unaesthetic” houses, the change of organizing expert Marie Kondo and the so-called “British Woman Burnout”: there is a realist new wave about how we live our lives. The Japanese Marie Kondo, specialist in domestic organization. Michael Buckner/Getty Images via BBC “My house is a mess.” Five innocuous little words. But when they came from home organization guru Marie Kondo, they were enough to set the internet abuzz. For nearly a decade, Kondo has introduced the world to the concept of only keeping items in your home that “bring you joy” and teaches you how to fold pants into small envelopes. Success made her create her own TV show on Netflix. But, apparently, the birth of her three children radically changed Marie Kondo’s lifestyle. According to the Washington Post, having a super tidy house stopped being her top priority: “I kind of gave up on that and it was good for me,” she says. “I realized now that the important thing for me is to enjoy time at home with my children.” The interview generated an explosion of comments on the paper’s website. Some showed the revolt of people who felt deceived. Mothers were distressed by what they perceive as Kondo’s hypocrisy in changing his mind about these exceptional and even impossible standards of organization. But most of the reactions were actually quite positive. The most common feeling in the latest wave of comments was one of relief. After all, someone who has built a highly profitable career based on organization has admitted that priorities are different at every stage of life. Marie Kondo’s change of heart is undoubtedly authentic. There’s nothing like a baby to make tidying up seem like an excruciatingly tiring job. And few things bring more joy than playing with a baby. But she may also be keeping an eye on the passage of time and tapping into a new wave of realism about the way we live. Calling this wave a “trend” seems hypocritical when, for many of us, it is simply a common way of being – but this time, what is in fashion is the complete and utter mess. Marie Kondo seems to be smartly tapping into a new trend to make the house messier. Getty Images via BBC The Oxford English Dictionary’s 2022 Expression of the Year – chosen by a large majority of public votes – was “goblin mode”, defined as an “openly self-indulgent, lazy, slovenly, or selfish, typically rejecting social norms or expectations”. After all of us became obsessed with keeping our homes beautiful and comfortable during the pandemic, it seems like 2022 was the year we gave it all up and embraced the chaos and mess that come with normal life. To understand why we might now be embracing clutter, it’s worth remembering the strength the anti-clutter movement has gained in recent years. Marie Kondo is not alone – there are several other TV shows about decluttering such as the BBC series Sort Your Life Out and Netflix’s The Home Edit. And it’s no coincidence that this obsession with tidiness, order, calm and cleanliness emerged around the same time that photo and video social networks became mainstream. Instagram, YouTube and, more recently, TikTok – the video-sharing app that spawned thousands of trends – are largely to blame. TikTok has proven to be the perfect vehicle for sharing neat, artfully decorated, unsustainably minimalist homes – and of course there’s a hashtag for that in English. Posts tagged with #aesthetic have reached over 202 billion views! And you’ll probably recognize the form of these posts, even if you don’t use the app: beautiful, well-produced images that show people’s lifestyle in calm and relaxing homes, painted in beige and white, full of clever solutions for storing objects. and hyper-tidy drawers, with just a few scented candles, elegant coffee tables and suspiciously healthy potted plants, to add a (very generic) touch of personality. Think of Kim Kardashian’s bare rooms, or a bespoke luxury goods catalogue, depending on your generation, to get an idea of ​​the images. And the interior design seems to have been influenced by another trend that became popular online, called “That Girl” – “that girl”. The girl who wakes up posts online, drinks a green smoothie, does her morning yoga session in pastel workout clothes, and sips a matcha latte for breakfast. She likes healthy food, natural beauty, a clean house, and posting it all online. “That girl” is the exact opposite of “Pixie mode”. But there is now a serious backlash against all of this – which shouldn’t come as a surprise, as these lifestyle goals are unattainable and even comical to most people, as well as being expensive, labor intensive and, well, boring. And not everyone finds organization therapeutic. For some, in fact, tidying up is a source of anguish. Signaling the changes, the biggest app launched last year was BeReal, which encourages users to take honest photos wherever they are, showing what they’re up to, at random times every day. It is intended to be the true antithesis of the heavily staged content we’ve all grown accustomed to seeing. Embracing Chaos TikTok can be fast and relentless. It shouldn’t be taken too seriously, but it’s still a practical thermometer of these changing trends. Organized clutter has been popularizing for some time, with the arrival of the so-called cluttercore, the opposite of minimalism – the art of keeping huge amounts of things at home (such as old trinkets, collections or retro objects) and adopting colors and noise. It’s messy maximalism: real chaos, but lovingly arranged chaos. Another current microtrend on TikTok that also seems to embrace messiness is girls showing off their untidy bedside tables. But while they might look messy, it’s easy to suspect that, in fact, this furniture is extremely well managed. After all, you can see an array of selected skin care products, delicate jewelry, enviable stacks of books, more candles… but not a dirty mug, not a used handkerchief in sight! Another recent trend seems to offer another view of the unvarnished reality: videos of “non-aesthetic” houses. They are completely ordinary houses, with ugly furniture, piles of laundry, children’s toys scattered on the floor, pet beds, dripping faucets or poor quality appliances. The images are real and we can identify with them. They remind us that many people can’t live in a sparkling model home and don’t have the time to maintain that impeccable cleanliness. But a lot of these home videos tagged #nonaesthetic (something like ‘no aesthetics’) are about tidying up, cleaning or reconfiguration – resetting, another hugely popular category of online content. They even go against people who were never convinced by Marie Kondo that decluttering is a way of life and not a chore. At the very least, the non-aesthetic cleaning videos appear to be a little more realistic than some of the staged content available online, such as @kaelimaee’s video on TikTok, showing a parody of herself “aesthetically” filing her tax return and the calming effects of your stack of receipts. Busy and charmingIt’s not just our homes that are in question. One of the fashion microtrends that has drawn the most attention on TikTok in recent months is the so-called Frazzled English Woman. Gen Z youngsters have long admired the Y2K trend (fashion of the year 2000), but surely no one predicted this look would be revived: it’s the edgy, burned-out middle-class white English women of early 20th-century romantic comedies. 21, with her lovely hair disheveled, tied back or in a bun. They can throw on a comfy coat, tall boots, comfortable knitted sweaters, an absolutely ordinary knee-length skirt, or a tiny, pointless scarf, without worrying about matching the pieces. Some examples are Bridget Jones (Renée Zellweger), Kate Winslet in Love Doesn’t Take a Vacation and Keira Knightley in Love Actually. And you get points if you wear a hideous men’s hat and a cardigan. But the key word here is “sold out”. What attracts this look is certainly not the details, but the mood of the clothes that don’t match, of those who can’t find their hairbrush, the realism of those who are always late. It’s an aesthetic that has never been pretentious. Even in films from the 2000s, it wasn’t about the shabby hats, but rather to provide a visual cue that quickly shows that they were busy, concerned, ordinary, charming women. Of course, we also need to look at these labels critically. Millennials can have a hard time predicting what a few videos tell you about fashion trends, but keep in mind that many of these trends never leave the mobile screen. One example is the return of the late 2000s indie sleaze trend, which caused more nostalgic discussion than people actually wearing ballet slippers in the woods. That is, most of these trends live predominantly online. And that’s okay, as fashion has always been about fun, escape and imagination. Fashion designers have long been creating crazy little trends that, in fact, no one follows. And it’s great to see that random young Gen Zers are now trending with their phones. Even if it’s unlikely to see an army of teenage girls in angled skirts and high boots scurrying through the neighborhood streets, there’s something amusing about this idealization of the romantic role of the messy, normal, and somewhat disheveled woman. And, let’s face it, the Burnout English Woman is the complete opposite of That Girl. Maybe that’s why she’s so successful, even if mostly online. The Burnout English Lady may have her disheveled charm, but she also knows what’s important in life – not looking perfect 100% of the time, not having a spotless house, but drinking wine with her friends and attracting both Hugh Grant and Colin Firth, like Bridget Jones did in the movies. And while it’s unlikely that Marie Kondo will ever wear a tiny crochet scarf, it’s safe to say that she’s coming to terms with the idea of ​​not only tolerating a little mess, but actually enjoying it, so she can spend more time on what really matters. in life – the people you love. Holly Williams is the author of the novel “What Time is Love?” (“What time is love?”, in free translation), released in February 2023. Read the original version of this report (in English) on the BBC Culture website.

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