
Marie Kondo betrays her whole premise by launching e-commerce store full of junk - ilamont
https://news.avclub.com/marie-kondo-betrays-her-whole-premise-by-launching-e-co-1839960688
======
signalsmith
I've seen the question raised whether the "minimalism" (in terms of not owning
much) often attributed to Marie Kondo is actually an accurate representation
of what she says. The alternative interpretation being something more like
"mindful ownership".

I'm in that second camp, slightly confused by people saying things like "Marie
Kondo thinks I shouldn't own more than 20 books" or whatever, because that
wasn't what I understood. The point is to _think_ about whether that number of
books is an effective use of your living space - and the answer can be yes.

So yeah, an online store seems a little odd, but by this point my default
position on anything M-K related is "take a second and make sure this isn't
misrepresenting her views". Maybe a little shop full of neat things that Marie
Kondo likes is... fine? ¯\\_(ツ)_/¯

~~~
ggggtez
On the other hand, a $14 empty bottle for hand soap, or $180 for a cheese
knife... I mean, come on.

There is mindfulness about what you own, and then there is selling overpriced
junk using your brand just like everyone else. Sure, you can be mindful and
enjoy your MK $220 fruit bowl, but really what you are buying is the brand,
not the bowl.

I think there is an implicit "don't buy things just because you want other
people to see you bought it", which is contradictory with the idea of selling
overpriced knickknacks that only serve to show other people that you bought
into some kitchy fad.

~~~
yellowapple
I can understand the soap bottle¹. A dedicated reusable glass container
instead of a bunch of single-use plastic ones is less wasteful, and looks
better, in my opinion. $14 ain't bad for that, price-wise, assuming they're
good quality (which is a big "if", in fairness, but still).

$180 for a cheese knife, or $75 for a tuning fork and a crystal the sum of
which costs half that on Amazon (let alone Alibaba), is on the other hand
quite absurd.

\----

¹: Disclaimer: my employer sells (among many other things) glass bottles
pretty similar to the ones on shop.konmari.com. something something these are
my opinions something something not representative of my employer something
something

------
jgeada
Minimalism is something only the truly rich can actually afford to do:
[https://priceonomics.com/post/45447777955/is-minimalism-
just...](https://priceonomics.com/post/45447777955/is-minimalism-just-for-
rich-people)

Money is the ultimate backup for missing things or for things that are needed
infrequently. Regular people can't afford to keep minimal, once you have paid
for the item, it needs to be kept for future uses, even if those are very
infrequent.

~~~
coldtea
> _Minimalism is something only the truly rich can actually afford to do_

Hardly. I know lots of minimalist people that barely make ends meet (and could
have loaded their credit cards to get a house full of junk like other people I
know, but they didn't) -- you just have to get out of the rat race.

A writer that lives in a bare apartment, doesn't even have a TV set, doesn't
need a designer espresso machine, or to stuff the house full of IKEA, is not a
"truly rich" person.

Some such people I know make like 20-40K/year (US equivalent, they are in
Europe, but I'm pretty certain tons of people like that exist in the US too.
E.g., does this person look "truly rich":
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rfmfz_8b5fA](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rfmfz_8b5fA)
).

And yes, this includes people with kids.

It's also not about having few but hella expensive "quality" things. E.g. you
don't need a Macbook to be a minimalist, you can do it with a knackered PC
laptop you use for 10 years.

~~~
ip26
Maintenance is a big catch. You can either pay other people to maintain your
things, or you can maintain them yourself. The former is expensive, the latter
involves keeping an array of tools & materials. Cooking is another, and
similar.

There's always the option of simply not doing maintenance and eating
unhealthy, of course. But I wouldn't' consider that successful minimalism.

~~~
coldtea
> _Maintenance is a big catch. You can either pay other people to maintain
> your things, or you can maintain them yourself. The former is expensive, the
> latter involves keeping an array of tools & materials. Cooking is another,
> and similar._

But how is minimalism related to maintenance? I mean, minimalist just
have/feel the need for less stuff. They still take their cars for service (if
they have a car), wash their clothes, call the plumber, etc.

In that sense, minimalist is the opposite of consumerism. It's not about
fixing your fridge yourself or making your own furniture. It's more about
buying less furniture.

Same for eating. A minimalism and a non-minimalism can eat exactly the same,
there's nothing much about minimalism as commonly understood that dictates how
to eat.

Minimalist just says you don't need 50+ kitchen gadgets, fancy coffee makers,
etc. A simple kitchen (with an oven, fridge, pans, microwave, etc) will do.
And you can always cook (if you have the time regarding work) or eat out.
Minimalism doesn't say anything about not eating out. Just says "don't amass
stuff / consume less clothes/furniture/gadgets/shoes/etc / simplify your
surroundings".

~~~
myself248
> They still take their cars for service

But not every car owner takes their car for service! That's the point.

Some car owners service their own cars, for a variety of reasons, not least of
which is that it can be quite a bit cheaper.

I think this goes back to the point about needing money to afford having less
stuff.

I have a set of ramps, an oil drain pan, a jug for returning the old oil, a
specialized filter wrench, and a ratchet. That's about $200 in stuff, and then
I pay $20 for oil and $4 for a filter each time. As opposed to $65 at the oil-
change place or $80 at the dealer, because they both charge a mindboggling
markup for using full-synthetic oil. (And I'm not confident the place on the
corner actually puts in what they claim to anyway.)

Since I count this as something of a hobby, I don't count a dollar value for
the time I spend doing it. Which means I'm saving roughly $50 each time, and
the tools are paid for after 4 oil changes. After that it's pure savings. If I
wanted to have less stuff, I'd pay quite a bit more for the privilege.

I assert that minimalism is directly at odds with self-sufficiency.

~~~
coldtea
> _But not every car owner takes their car for service! That 's the point._

That's ~a~ point, but it's not tied to minimalism. That's more about the
savings.

And in this day and age, with modern cars being quite unserviceable, I don't
know many (whether poor or not) that fix their own cars, except for very basic
things (changing oils, and so on. Not many tools needed for those).

> _Since I count this as something of a hobby, I don 't count a dollar value
> for the time I spend doing it. Which means I'm saving roughly $50 each time,
> and the tools are paid for after 4 oil changes. After that it's pure
> savings. If I wanted to have less stuff, I'd pay quite a bit more for the
> privilege._

Well, that's still like a small set of stuff, at best fitting in a small box
and forgetting about it. So it's not really outside minimalism.

A person who is a minimalist but also a carpenter could have 10x the devices
and still be a minimalist.

It's all about not getting more than you need to get the job done, which many
people, whether in their regular decoration/life/job/etc, or in their hobbies,
do (e.g. related to "gear acquisition syndrome").

In other words, it's like the idea of "minimum viable product", but applied to
buying stuff. Orthogonal to how much that product must cost.

Sure, if someone is rich enough to oursource all of their life (e.g. have
chefs deliver them food) then they don't need a kitchen at all, and can have a
more minimal house this way.

But that's in no way a requirement for being a minimalist, or applying
minimalism to one's house.

And in most cases it's the inverse: people with more money get a bloated
kitchen with all kinds of crap they don't need ("juice squishier" anyone?)
compared to people with less. But people with less are hardly minimalists
either. You can overbuy stuff and fill your house even on a very basic wage
(30-40K say).

> _I assert that minimalism is directly at odds with self-sufficiency._

It's really orthogonal. What you describe as self-sufficiency example consists
of buying all kind of tools to save $200 a year or less (and that's if one
doesn't count their own time's value).

But even a person making $40K could still pay those $200 -- and they mostly
do, minimalists or not.

So it's not like "changing oil self-sufficiency" or the need to save money on
oil changes prevents one from being a minimalist. Or proves that you need to
be "ultra rich" (the claim at the start of this thread) to be one.

~~~
myself248
> And in this day and age, with modern cars being quite unserviceable, I don't
> know many (whether poor or not) that fix their own cars, except for very
> basic things (changing oils, and so on. Not many tools needed for those).

Well, you just met one. Aside from pulling the engine, which would need a
hoist I don't own, or body work (I've never been much good with sheet metal),
there isn't a job I can't do on my car, which is a 2012 hybrid. Diagnostics
are a USB dongle instead of a stethoscope now, and tweaks are likewise
software-based, but here on HN of all places, this should not be surprising.
Bearings are still bearings, tires are still tires, and the whole thing is
held together with clips and screws and glue just like every other car in the
history of cars. It's hardly rocket science.

------
vslira
To be fair, I think her shtick is throwing useless stuff away, not avoiding
acquiring it in the first place (because if you didn't have, you wouldn't need
to discard it). With this new store, she profits from both ends of the junk
lifecycle.

------
danharaj
Marie Kondo's main criterion for keeping stuff is whether it makes you happy
to have it. "Does this spark joy?" It has nothing to do with the utility of
the items in question.

~~~
Blackstone4
Does it spark joy?!? I don't have a toliet brush because I find it
joyful...it's a utility...

~~~
rs23296008n1
Because I own a toilet brush I feel a tiny amount of joy each time I _don 't_
have to use my bare hands to clean the toilet.

Your preference may be different and that's ok.

~~~
drak0n1c
Interesting digression: In Japan there was a recent fad of cleaning toilets
with bare hands. A sort of hyper-stoic discipline exercise. It's not as big as
western media makes it out to be, the story mainly revolved around a volunteer
group that cleans public toilets with their hands.

[https://japantoday.com/category/features/lifestyle/the-
tao-o...](https://japantoday.com/category/features/lifestyle/the-tao-of-
toilet-cleaning)

------
AAM2RF
I honestly don't get the problem. If they had read the book, it should be
obvious that throwing away "useless"(as in utility) stuff isn't the point of
it. Sure, Marie presses hard, but she doesn't compel you to throw away things
you like, just the stuff you think you like or you liked or may like in the
future. In general, things that have no purpose being in the house.

Calling her store a site full of junk shows just how much some people got out
of the book. I mean, she is just selling some novelties and if something on
there sparks joy for someone, that's their business.

This utility only, multitool, male fantasy kind of minimalism that people want
to believe Marie is all about is honestly very annoying.

~~~
noneeeed
It's the same simplistic interpretation of financial frugality, or just plain
old sound money management. People like to present is as hair-shirts and
gruel, and depriving yourself for no reason other than the accumulation of
wealth for its own sake. But the whole point of good money management is so
that you have the money to spend on the stuff you really care about, rather
than wasting it on that which you don't.

------
nabdab
She’s pragmatic and has to somehow capitalize on her success. And the very
reason everyone owns so much crap is because this is the way you can easily do
that. Selling cheap shit to the masses. She was never preaching an end to
consumerism or actual social change. She just had a cute pitch for a role that
could provide her fame so she could get a payday.

No doubt tons of fans of hers will fill their houses with her crap-ware and
the irony will be lost on them. But what does it matter? They’ll buy it
because they want to express their alignment with her image through their
spending. Just like they bought an exercise bike because they wanted to seem
fit. And then they threw it out because she told them it was what they should
do and they listened and now she’s saying buy tuning forks and they’ll listen.

------
octokatt
Went through the e-commerce site they reference. Besides spiritualist tools
like tuning forks (useless to some, some people dig it, I try not to hate on
fandoms of any flavor), I wouldn't call anything in there completely useless.

Maybe overpriced, but overpriced, high quality, purposefully minimalistically
designed items are a staple now. Given the number of questions you can find on
/r/minimalism of "what is the most minimalistic toothbrush", this is mostly
harmless in the way capitalism tends to be.

The store is for people trying to deal with their anxiety by adjusting their
environment to be more like a luxury spa/hygge cottage in the Alps. At the
point where buying things from her website sounds awesome, I'm guessing you've
already read the books and gotten something out of them.

------
newnewpdro
George Carlin on Stuff:

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MvgN5gCuLac](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MvgN5gCuLac)

------
adolph
Included in the collection is a Lego container--now thats something to spark
joy and be tidy about it.

[https://shop.konmari.com/collections/tidying-
organization/pr...](https://shop.konmari.com/collections/tidying-
organization/products/konmari-tidying-room-copenhagen-lego-storage-brick)

------
yellowapple
To play Devil's Advocate:

Maybe the reason why this junk is so expensive is specifically to discourage
people from cluttering their lives with it? Some of the more-obviously-useful
stuff is more reasonably priced (organizers, soap bottles, etc.; there's a
markup, sure, but it ain't extreme for a "premium" brand like Marie Kondo
might be trying to establish). Meanwhile, the useless-looking junk is almost
universally priced high.

Marie Kondo's playing a joy-sparking 4D chess game while we're here playing
checkers.

------
sorenhansen
It's certainly stuff that I would never purchase, but if they spark joy for
her, it seems perfecty aligned with her philosophy. Tastes differ. Meh.

------
tim333
The Guardian covers the story entertainingly
[https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/shortcuts/2019/nov/...](https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/shortcuts/2019/nov/19/therapeutic-
tuning-fork-unnecessary-item-marie-kondo-queen-of-tidying-online-shop)

------
tom-thistime
She's not buying junk. She's _selling_. If that's not walking the walk, I
don't know what is.

------
jameslk
Throw away crap so you can make room to buy NEW crap? Genius. That sounds like
an idea straight from SV

------
JoeAltmaier
TO rehash an old line: I put her book in my hand, and it did not bring me joy.
So I binned it.

------
riskneutral
Why is the author picking on the tuning fork? The author even quotes Kondo
explaining why the tuning fork has importance for her. Is it just that the
author does not agree with the explanation?

~~~
yellowapple
Probably because it and the accompanying crystal are 1) marked up 100%
relative to the comparable equivalents on e.g. Amazon and 2) seem to be aimed
squarely at homeopathic "alternative" "medicine", within which 4096Hz tuning
forks and quartz crystals and essential oils are all the rage.

In Kondo's defense, though, at least the product descriptions stick with vague
weasel words like "believed to help restore a sense of balance" instead of
actually making borderline-FDA-enforceable medical claims like
snake^Wessential oil peddlers do.

------
mrperson112
She never claimed to be a minimalist. She only claimed to be tidy.

------
krick
I'm not judging, but I'm honestly surprised we care what Marie Kondo does and
how she betrays her whole premise. Sure, I heard about her, but is she
considered to be a respectable lifestyle guru in USA now, or what? I thought,
she is just some media-entertaiment celebrity for housewives, and it's not
like it is unusual for a celebrity (or anybody else, for that matter) to
betray his whole premise about 500 times a day...

------
spark28
Maybe she should have a nicer 'minimalist' trash can available to buy on her
site ...

------
rchaud
This is to be expected, it's part and parcel of capitalism. If you have an
audience, you will eventually feel the pressure to sell something to them
while the iron is hot, as maintaining an audience is work after all.

It's the same as Youtubers pitching phone skins and makeup brands. Or bloggers
pitching their books or filling their posts with affiliate links?

------
ruxx
You would have nothing that gives you no joy otherwise

------
makz
One person’s junk is another person’s treasure

------
huxflux
.... But earned 150$ from me just now

------
coldtea
She betrayed her whole premise when she did a 10 paragraph idea into a whole
TV series, books, and so on...

------
ouid
>Sure, nobody should fault Kondo for being a capitalist, and props to her for
introducing some Eastern spirituality staples to Western sensibilities.

Why on earth not?

