Marie Kondo’s latest business venture hasn’t exactly been sparking much joy.
Instead, Twitter has been calling out the decluttering guru for encouraging people to fill their homes with items from her new online store.
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If you don’t know who Marie Kondo is, allow the words “spark joy” to “spark” your memory.
She’s the Japanese decluttering guru who’s been inspiring people the world over to declutter their lives using her KonMari Method.
The method, which was first introduced in her best-selling book, “The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up,” encourages people to only keep items that “spark joy.”
She even got to put these methods into action on her widely-successful Netflix show, Tidying Up With Marie Kondo .
From there, Marie Kondo was cemented as a mega-sensation.
The fact that everyone and their cousin was starting to declutter their lives (and proudly post about it on social media) soon led to a whole slew of hilariously relatable tweets.
Like this one, which proves that sometimes, you gotta face facts:
While they were at it, some took Marie’s approach to help them declutter additional “garbage” from their lives.
The highly-anticipated revival of “Gilmore Girls” even featured the cleaning method!
It was everything for fans to see Emily Gilmore wearing jeans and using the modern approach to decluttering.
As of recently, though, the world’s love for Marie has been put into question following the news of her latest business venture.
That’s because Marie has just launched an online store .
You can find the products on her KonMari.com website.
They’re listed as items that “spark joy for Marie and enhance your everyday routine.”
There are several sections, such as Aromatherapy, Bath Essentials, Books, and Decor & Living.
Given that she is still all about tidying up, there, of course, is a section called Tidying and Organization, which features things like storage containers.
While Marie is certainly excited about the new store, the move hasn’t exactly sparked joy for those on Twitter.
Instead, it’s sparked outrage from users who can’t help but see the irony in Marie encouraging her fans to fill their homes with her products.
It’s even led to some fans feeling “tricked.”
“So now #mariekondo wants you to buy as much of her stuff as possible? #ironic,” another wrote on Twitter.
Another major issue people have with Marie’s products is how expensive they are.
With a large cheese knife costing $180, it better spark joy and cause a shirtless private chef to appear in our kitchen.
Additionally, with things like a tea scoop costing $52, things are getting dangerously close to Goop-levels of ridiculous.
If you didn’t know, Goop is the lifestyle website belonging to actress Gwyneth Paltrow.
There, they both sell and encourage readers to spend a lot of money on crazy stuff, like a $15,000 vibrator and vagina steams.
Other expensive items listed on Marie’s shop include a Linen Work Cross Apron for $68 and Leather “Room Shoes” for $206.
And we can’t forget about the Queen’s Guard Candle for $86 and a Large Serving Bowl for $220.
BTW, in case you’re wondering, Marie is aware of how her store seems like a major contradiction to her decluttering principles.
She told The Wall Street Journal :
“I’m not trying to encourage over-purchasing anything. What’s most important to me is that you surround yourself with items that spark joy,” she said.
“If the bowl that you’re using currently sparks joy for you, I don’t encourage replacing it at all.”
But if you did want to replace it, she has one for $145!
What a steal!
There has been a lot of defense for Marie, though.
These people defended Marie by pointing out that her strategy for tidiness wasn’t really “just get rid of everything” but to keep the things that you like.
They think the criticisms are in bad faith.
Marie doesn’t want you to own nothing except her things, according to her fans. She just wants to make sure the things you own are useful to you.
Some even quoted the web page for her store.
The page includes the sentence “I can think of no greater happiness in life than being surrounded only by the things I love.”
Someone pointed out that the comparison to Goop might be unfair.
Goop has received a lot of criticism for selling ‘Eastern spiritualism’ related items especially because nobody involved in the company has any ties to the culture. Marie Kondo does have ties to the culture.
“The willful misinterpretation of her work just to drive overdone outrage is gross.”
“Marie Kondo never said to throw out all your stuff. It was always ALWAYS about getting rid of things that don’t make you happy and organizing the things you love or need or want to keep. That’s it,” A twitter user wrote .
