Recently, some viewers of Marie Kondo’s Netflix show, Tidying Up, have responded with befuddlement, discomfiture, and even antagonism to the home makeover maven. Luckily, Plan A’s Japanese-speaking women have compiled this step-by-step guide to the KonMariMethod, which includes the rich subtext embedded in Ms. Kondo’s work largely left out by most other translators, that may help explain the reaction.
THE KONMARI METHOD DECIPHERED
1. VISUALIZE your destination
Translation: “Bougie white women of America, I am coming for your bitchasses and all your bitchass “classpirational” shit. I’m not even going to lift a finger for you lazy fuckers. One searing side-eye and my “woo woo nonsense” will have you wiping that smug sense of entitlement off your own damn faces, then thanking me, then begging for more.”
2. Focus on ONE CATEGORY, not one room, at a time
Translation: “See these half-read Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie hardcovers? TRASHED. Or your Bluetooth sous vide precision cooker you can’t figure out how to use? TITTY-SLAPPED TO NEXT TUESDAY. How about that fair-trade organic cotton turtleneck you purposely bought two sizes too small? Fed to badgers in an alternate timeline where YOU STILL SUCK ASS.”
3. GET EVERYTHING OUT so you can examine it all
Translation: “I know your kind, Susan. You don’t know how to pronounce Ngozi. You don’t know what the fuck sous vide or Bluetooth even means. And you will never reach your goal weight.
“You say your favorite movie is Amélie when it’s actually Twilight. You only wash your hands after you use the bathroom when someone else is watching. And every time you look at yourself in the mirror you see that gaping void at the core of your being. It’s almost as big as those cavernous nose pores you’re so ashamed of.”
4. Start with DISCARDING
Translation: “Outraged? I DON’T GIVE A FUCK! Book Girl Twitter shaded me. Now she’s dead. Gwyneth Paltrow pays me $14 million dollars to EAT MY ASS. $2 million extra to fart directly into that lipless starched napkin she calls a face. Bitch, if I snap my fingers twice, Sheryl Sandberg, Lena Dunham and Taylor Swift will drown themselves in a vat of sake FOR MY VIEWING PLEASURE.”
5. Keep only that which SPARKS JOY
Translation: “The truth is, you’ve never sparked joy in another human being. That’s why you have all this shit. But really, the only thing separating you from your Juggalo cousins is your internalized self-loathing. And deep down you can’t wait for me to cuntpunt your smug ass off that liberal elite high horse because you’re so fucking exhausted by your own façade.”
6. Save mementos FOR LAST
Translation: “Yeah, now you get it. Fall to your precious parquet wood flooring and crumple up like the swamp trash you know you are. Abandon all hope that an oil spill fire like you could buy your way to self-actualization.
“Now cry for me, bitch. SERVE YOUR PURPOSE. Let those tears flow like the bottomless sangria that you call ‘self-care.’ You know what I call self-care, Susan? DRINKING WHITE WOMEN’S TEARS! BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!”
7. Make tidying A SPECIAL EVENT, not a daily chore
Translation: “That’s right, snooty fuckwads. I have pissed on the altars of your consumerist false idols. I have smited your white feminist “sheroes” and feasted upon their still-beating hearts. NOW BOW DOWN BEFORE YOUR PETITE ASIAN MESSIAH.
“I AM MARIE MOTHERFUCKING KONDO, BITCHES. I AM YOUR GOD.”
