Leave Marie Kondo Alone

Marie Kondo is a Japanese tidying expert, and she’s got a show on Netflix, called Tidying Up with Marie Kondo.  It’s on my queue, but I haven’t watched it yet.  On the show, she helps people clean up their houses by getting rid of stuff they don’t need.  Kind of sad that we need to be taught to clean up our houses, but yes, this is a problem here in the West.  I’m a big fan of hoarding shows, and I figured that this would be up my alley.  Plus, I lived in Japan as a kid, so I pretty much love anything Japanese (I really miss Japan…sigh).

Well, I guess on one show Ms. Kondo revealed that she personally keeps the amount of books in her home to a minimum of 30, and people on both sides of the political aisle lost their minds.

Look at the featured image above.  Her big schtick is to keep things that make you feel joy.  She never said that EVERYBODY needs to keep a minimum of thirty books in their home.  She probably used that as an example – apparently, too many books in the house doesn’t spark joy for her.

I can relate, because I have the same problem.  Okay, confession time – I live in a big house, but it’s my grandfather’s house.  I live with him, and I have plenty of room, but right now I have entirely too many books.  I’ve already started to get rid of them, and I need to get rid of many more.  Right now, the amount of books sitting around in this house gives me anxiety, especially given my potential future plans.  I won’t get into that, but yeah, I kind of get how she feels.

That doesn’t mean Ms. Kondo is anti-intellectual or whatever.  How many books to people read in a year anyway?  She’s not telling you to stop reading.  She’s telling you to think about the tangible items in your home, especially if your space is limited.  Many people in Japan live in apartments (and many of those don’t allow pets, which is why cat cafes became a thing over there…I love cats so much.  I just had to work that in there).

Besides, people act like eBooks don’t exist.  My advice would be to yes, if you have a lot of books in your home and need the room, consider swapping your paperbacks or hardcovers for eBooks.  That’s what I’m doing right now.  Plus, she never said to throw them in the trash.  Instead, donate them to your local library or charity.  Passing on books is a good thing, especially for those who cannot afford books (of which are getting really expensive these days…even eBooks).

So I mentioned in yesterday’s post that I did not like Ellen Oh.  She’s a YA author of Korean ancestry, I think, and she was one of the people dogging on Amelie Wen Zhao.  Of course, she did it with love, but when it came to Marie Kondo’s more unhinged critics, she went into super saiyyan bitch mode.

 

Here’s one of Ms. Kondo’s more unhinged critics:

No, she’s not a monster.  This woman eventually deleted this tweet, and probably because of reactions from nutcases like Ellen Oh:

 

Gee, she didn’t have such sentiments for Amelie Wen Zhao, who was simply inspired by the slave trade in China and other parts of Asia.  But the point of this is that Ellen Oh is accusing Jen Ashley Wright and Ms. Kondo’s crazier critics of fucking racism because they called her a ‘monster.’

Let me be clear:  Marie Kondo is not a monster.  Jen Ashley Wright called her a monster because she thought Ms. Kondo was telling people to throw their books away, not because she’s a Japanese woman telling us Yankees how to live.

Ellen Oh, in my humble opinion, is the real monster here.  She didn’t stick up for a woman whose culture was quite different from that of her critics.  She helped nuke the woman’s career, likely because she wanted to score some sweet Progtard Points and wanted to take out the competition.

As I said yesterday, who the fuck needs enemies when you’ve got ‘friends’ or ‘allies’ like Ellen Oh?  You can read the rest of her twitter thread at this archive link.