The Absurdity of the Organized Pantry

We have an aesthetically organized stuff problem, and it’s making our homes/parties/spending/class consciousness/self image weird.

Last fall, I went to a friend’s Halloween party. 

It’s Halloween specifically— not fall, Halloween — reigning supreme as this friend’s favorite time of year. Sweatered in cooling temperatures and sepia-leafed lawns, they throw an annual Halloween bash with the excitement and verve most folks reserve for weddings. Invitations get sent weeks in advance. The official party playlist curated and pruned. Costumes discussed, compared, prepped, re-prepped. 

This party is always BYOB. Most of us also come clutching a shareable snack. The perfunctory chips and guac and Doritos to the homemade pumpkin spice chocolate chip banana bread, passed down from grandma’s recipe. Pre-sliced, perfectly portioned, optional dollop of Cool Whip.

Age-wise, most attendees splatter across their late twenties and thirties, so the drinks and the grub are loose, open format. It’s both appreciated and expected to come with shared goodies in tow, but there isn’t any formal assignment corralling the feast. You arrive, you comment on one other’s costumes, you plop your shareables on the dining room table, you swirl tonic with gin, you get shwizzy. Life is good.

Only last year, something interesting happened. 

During party’s peak, my friend shushed the crowd, gathering attention. The obligatory thank-you-for-coming rang, reminders to vote for your favorite costume before tallying began to name the winner. Finally, their hand waved toward a piece of paper posted on the wall. Written in sharpie were my friend’s and their partner’s Venmo handles.

They were requesting Venmo donations, the purpose of which, as they explained, would go toward helping pay for the party’s decorations. 

---

Now I don’t know about you, but I’ve never before been invited to a party someone willingly, recurringly hosts — talks joyfully year after year about hosting — only to be asked unexpectedly to help foot the bill of said party. Especially one formatted as BYOB. 

There’s an AITA discussion to be had in there. We’re going to set that aside for now because hindsight is a strong tailwind. I’m less interested in publicly nailing my friend to an etiquette cross — though for the record, I don’t agree with their choice to ask for this money, and got in some hot water for saying so.¹

These days, I’m more interested in the pressure cooker my friend internalized to such an extent they allegedly dropped a few hundred dollars alone on party decorations. Decorations, people.

Let’s zoom out that camera. I’m interested in how we got to the place in certain circles where “good” hosting risks financial imprudence, to the point someone must request a friends-and-family bailout.   

Like many of today’s cultural strep throat strains, tracing patient zero leads one down an online rabbit hole. There’s a peculiar content trend I get pixel spoon fed across my socials, Instagram and Pinterest especially. These big bad algorithms well know I’m a childless white lady silly American human adult, so naturally that must mean I have all the Discretionary Spending Monies.™️ My feeds therefore receive a steady flow of what I’ll dub Aesthetic “I’m Adulting” Junk.

This is important for the rest of the piece folks so listen up

Stripped down to its studs, Aesthetic “I’m Adulting” Junk was born and bred around the same format: Someone, usually a woman, organizes something: Her kitchen pantry. Her linen closet. Her actual closet. Her crafting room.

I’ve even seen a reel where a mom takes us through restocking her kids’ fridge, complete with color-coded food labels on every bin, basket, jar. Because apparently Goldfish crackers are not inherently self-identifying. (Thank god, I’ve always confused them with lawn fertilizer!) ((Also, what child has their own fridge?))

In thirty seconds or less, you’re wheeled down the lobotomizing hallway that is watching someone unload their entire Costco haul — individually unboxing granola bars, grab-and-go protein shakes, fruit snacks, fun-sized candies, pre-portioned trail mix. You see four types of crackers taken from their bright grocery packaging to be sealed straight into matching sets of airtight snack containers. Then there’s the cans of soup, the jars of tomato sauce, the buffet of unopened salad dressings, pickles, sauces, stocks, spreads, sparkling bottled waters, K-cups, each lining the insides of pantries with linear, military rank-and-file precision. Nothing is safe. Bulk oatmeal, brown rice, box after box of breakfast cereals, every possible shape of basterdized “authentic” Italian noodles, plus a trove of dad’s absolute favorite dry roasted and perfectly salted snacking peanuts. It’s all poured straight from its store packaging into stylish, countertop-ready glassware sets.

haleyscornerr

A post shared by @haleyscornerr

It’s a plastic-sheened side of the internet I don’t lerve. But because I hate watch many a-video, not a week goes by where one of these life force paracenteses doesn’t puncture my screen. Marie Kondo is out there cackling.

I understand the appeal. Organization curates tidy spaces, and tidy spaces in self-reflective doses can do good, from helping with ADHD to lowering anxiety and depression. But it comes with a price tag — literally — and like most viral trends warped into shooting star orbit, I think we’ve lost the plot.         

Aesthetic “I’m Adulting” Junk as class virtue signal

This genre of cupboard management is only possible once someone’s assembled a small horde of dedicated household storage pieces: Bins, cubes, neat stackable drawers, organizers, hooks, racks. Often plastic, perfectly matching. Often handpicked from a haul at the The Container Store.²

In other words, it requires disposable income. A good chunk of it, plus time. It also requires a specific concoction of core values expressed and maintained through neatness, cleanliness, consumption, and suburbanized order. Once perfectly curated, one can reasonably imagine their fully organized home awarding them insulation within a particular aspirational lifestyle vest.

I think it needs more wicker.

All of this because we have too much stuff.

That’s always my immediate reaction. I watch these videos and I can’t help but think, over and over again, holy shite, they have so. much. crap. Do you genuinely need five types of tomato sauce ready and waiting at any time in your cupboard? Twelve tins of tuna? Three separate brands of boxed mac n’ cheese? Or the twin closet version — do you need twelve pairs of sunglasses? Thirty plus shoes? Endless piles of color-coded jeans?

Alas, if only we could stop there. Because it’s a certain class of people possessing the right combo of time + energy + money that individually opening, emptying, repackaging, and re-organizing an already organized space doesn’t somehow trigger pharmaceutical intervention. Only a certain class of people has enough disposable income to easily afford absurdly marked-up container sets. And only a certain class of people today clutches tightly to a values system defined by homogeny and respectability above all.

The average American does not have time to meticulously restock their pantries. You could argue the average American doesn’t even come close to having the necessary grocery budget to amass a video-worthy stockpiling of food nor these brimming picture-worthy closets.

📷 Cred

More importantly, I would argue the majority of folks who do not sit comfortably within this class echelon will cling to their Type A personalities to assert home organization as comfort, fuel, even proof they’re on the right path toward achieving that aspirational American Dream mythos. A lot of folks will prioritize spatial signals to the point of exhausting resources — precious free time, precious leftover income — on Aesthetic “I’m Adulting” Junk. They should stop it. Right now.

We haven’t even covered the absurd waste involved in this kind of organization porn. “Storage solutions” only become necessary in a society riddled with overconsumption. You already have the closets, the drawers, the cabinets, babe. These exist to contain your shit. Yes, they sometimes get cluttered. When that happens, it’s worth investigating if the solution to said clutter is introducing an army of mostly plastic products disguising that clutter on its surface. Or, maybe, it’s asking yourself where and when you got the message to prioritize shiny, neat, ultra aesthetically organized spaces in the first place, and why it makes you feel so dang good.

Aesthetic “I’m Adulting” Junk as the vibe check

Back to that Halloween party. Sort of.

There’s a sister genre of video I’ll admit, self-consciously, to bookmarking. One where a different kind of spatial attention still meets overconsumption in order to still communicate something important yet intangible about yourself.

Organization porn 🤝 meet hostess porn. 

thejessicajournals

A post shared by @thejessicajournals

Hostess porn is your one stop pixelated shop to perfecting all things aesthetic when gathering people in your home.

It’s the candle-lit backyard dinner party, the picture-perfect themed brunch. It’s the vintage cocktail soiree with take-home glasses and printed recipe cards. It’s the ultra-curated craft day with the girlfriends, the all-materials-provided wine and paint night. The fully in-character murder mystery, the elaborate tarot reading party, the book club turned full afternoon of on-theme food and drinks and games. It’s the immersive yet at-home movie theater experience with all your besties even though deep down you’re just hoping to rewatch Joe Wright’s 2005 Pride and Prejudice for the twelve thousandth time while eating Cheetos but you can’t admit that because you’re all in your thirties now and somehow hanging out has to be more adult coded than this?  

It’s the lush table spreads lined with eclectic yet complementary tableware, funky antique candelabras, table linens and matching runners, polished wine glasses, mood lighting. It’s the bespoke themed batch cocktail pre-made, ready to pour as soon as your guests arrive. It’s the kitsch funky dress code of footie pajamas, or pastels, or springtime in Paris, or wear-your-favorite-dress-you-never-get-to-wear, or dress like your partner. It’s the obligatory bring a bottle of wine. It’s your friend beaming because you offhand complimented her cool stoneware bowls, and you meant that compliment, but now she’s assuring you it’s all thrifted, in fact she got lucky, she just seems to stumble into the cutest places, and oh no, please don’t check her recent Amazon Prime order history.³

It’s stuff. It’s buying a whole lot of stuff. Stuff you probably don’t need, or could way more affordably hodge podge together through borrowing. But even that comes with costs — the cost of time, the mental labor of coordination, even the guilt many of us feel asking for favors. (It’s just not very Adulting of us.)

Aesthetic “I’m Adulting” Junk as the prized feminine

There’s a reason so many of these videos trend to female audiences, produced (overwhelmingly) by female creators. On the internets, the line between suburban mommy vlogger content meets middle class millennial white woman content is doily thin. Their lace patterns overlap in messages subtle and explicit supporting orderliness, organization, cleanliness, and charm, all bowtied with the hostess’ easy breezy CoverGirl smile. 

For all the progress made these past decades to broaden women’s worlds, many of us are still roped into presenting a perfect hearth, a perfect home. Progressive circles cave to this pressure just as much as their suburban and conservative counterparts. The appeal and aesthetics of a woman’s space becomes synonymous with her appeal, her aesthetics, her worthiness. It’s twisty tangled, but at least its not an eyesore. The clean girl aesthetic that went viral 2+ years ago still trends because it captures a presentation many middle class white women wish to be meet, have been rewarded for meeting — but ope, often do so via cherry picking, then quiet-luxury commodifying, long held Black and Latinx trends. Sah cool! (Like honestly it shouldn’t be politicized to think, for a moment, that groups who’ve been shunned and shamed to the sidelines of virtued aesthetics actually end up creating the freshest microcosms of aesthetics, only to have those aesthetics cycled into the mainstream. But that’s a conversation bracket for another time, ya hear?!?)

Checking the feminine mystique boxes of good hostess + good homemaker means knowing how to capture, purchase, and ultra arrange the spirit of an idealized environment into one’s actual, present material environment. The plot twist of it all is you’ll be rewarded. You really will. Your parties will be remembered. Your photos will look immaculate. You’ll feel good. Really good. And your friends will have a great time. Yet it’s no exaggeration to say you likely dropped hundreds of dollars doing so, mostly on single-use, one-off party fair and specialty decor items. Maybe a fun costume. Plus you’ve worked yourself into a planning tizzy, and now have nowhere to store all those bespoke candlesticks.

📷 Cred

There will always be pushback. But the pendulum sure likes to swing back to center. Right now, brat summer may be all about dribbling boxed wine on your miniskirt after a quick pull from your flask in the backseat of your 3 A.M. Uber. But she’s just for summer, babe. The transience is in the name. Grow up, put on an ironed blouse, and learn how to sip your martini demurely. Better yet, invite all your friends over for a demure-themed dinner party.     

---

It’s perfectly normal to occasionally scratch the itch of an indulgent celebration. Just be wary of who you’re trying to impress and what you seek to emulate. And for the love of all that is holy, tell your friends ahead of time if you plan to charge them for your party, mmkay?

If this reads a bit silly, that’s because it is. Most of this piece was inspired by the fact I just dislike The Container Store. Plain and simple. That was the OG thought seed. That place gives me the ick. Always has. I drove past one to and from my twiggly teen job at Cinnabon at my local mall, where indeed that absurd framework for an entire retail chain never ceased to put me in a weird mood and has conceptually haunted my psyche ever since.

When did it become not enough to simply have your friends over? No themes, no decor, no hoopla. You don’t need a lot of stuff to throw a good party. You aren’t a better woman because you can teleport your backyard to the south of France. Just keep the cereal in its box. 🎱  

Are you a fan of storage bins? Your color-coded pantry? Do you throw outsized themed bashes and want to bash me for my stupidity? Let me know!

Per usual, I sat down to write this and quickly felt the central idea sprawl wider than anticipated. The perks of which at least means a lot of potential discussion!

1. Which, honestly, fair. I should have kept my trap shut.

2. For bamboozled international readers, and for woodland fairies, The Container Store is a U.S.-based retailer dedicated to selling all things organization and storage. It’s fitting it was founded in Dallas, Texas, at the dawn of the 80s, a time and a place where markers of white suburban materialism still reign with as much outsized status as organized religion. Abroad, it has stores in a splattering of northern European countries, mostly Nordic ones, which honestly I would be all ears on theories as to why Nordic regions are culturally hospitable to this kind of commercialized cookie-cutter asylum.    

3. Odds are, her plates and bowls have not been meticulously thrifted. Odds are, she ordered this branded eclectic set online, in one swoop. Probably after seeing the charcuterie serving set her friend had at last month’s book club and feeling like a big fat poor loser.