Lazy is a coward's term

July 19, 2024 2:56 PM

Jim Smith of the YouTube channel Midwest Magic Cleaning talks about the words "lazy" and "motivation" [SLYT 20 min], while also dealing with the burnout of producing internet content and moderating comments: In that video I explained what depression was how it can lead to a house looking like this, and explained that the occupants of the house had gone through extensive periods of depression. There were two overwhelming comments on that that I have deleted by the literal thousands: "You can be poor but still be clean" even though they're literally watching a cleaning channel that's called Midwest Magic Cleaning. [...] The other one was [...] saying things like "Yeah they're poor but they still have a fancy PC, two video game consoles, a big flat screen TV, a name brand fancy couch." They're literally making up stories because I bought 100% of that as gifts for Christmas [or] handed down when I upgraded my own...
posted by AlSweigart (24 comments total)

People will stretch to astonishing lengths to justify why a suffering person deserves it somehow.
posted by The demon that lives in the air at 3:11 PM on July 19 [51 favorites]

I've never understood what the big deal was. After completely ignoring the problem for literally four years I fixed my guest room. (before and after)

All it took was multiple weekends in a row of sweaty, hard work, throwing my back out (1.5 weekends lost), purchasing multiple items of furniture, texting friends about it throughout to keep myself accountable, two car trips to take items to donate, an impending external deadline, and a complete lack of mental health issues! Ha ha easy!
posted by phunniemee at 3:25 PM on July 19 [59 favorites]

Also thank you for the link to add a channel to my list. Because of my let's say personal baggage around housework, this is some of my favorite type of content. Everyone needs help with something, some people need help with cleaning. When people who are good at understanding housework care for the people who aren't in this way it hits me in a real good spot. It's such a quality of life thing.

I've been a fan of the Hoarders TV show for YEARS and still it's only very recently (did it coincide with me finally fixing my guest room? therapists assemble) clicked for me that I didn't just grow up in a cluttered home, but I grew up in a house with a parent who was in open addiction to STUFF. Just because we didn't have poop on the floor doesn't mean that getting screamed at for throwing away a cracked 12 year old empty cool whip container is normal. Doesn't mean I didn't come away from that with some damage. I'm good at almost everything I try, but I still can't figure out how not to pile 2 feet of random shit on any horizontal surface???

Anyway it's been a weird summer. I'm maintaining.

Time to go watch this guy be a part of the solution.
posted by phunniemee at 3:37 PM on July 19 [25 favorites]

And sure why not just go ahead and dominate the thread at this point.

IF YOU are someone who is VERY GOOD at understanding normal housework schedules and expectations but you are VERY BAD at personal budgeting/debt/saving strategies, memail me and we can get in on some kind of accountability share. I got lucky to get the real good at money brain.
posted by phunniemee at 3:45 PM on July 19 [17 favorites]

Glad to see this guy getting due attention here, because his channel really is amazing.

I couldn’t get into the old Hoarders reality franchise way back when, for fear of the point-and-laugh element that seemed to be so essential to the reality TV formula.

This channel, and several of its cohort, are the opposite of point-and-laugh. There’s so much compassion woven into the work they do, so much acknowledgment that any of us could find ourselves in a similar situation.

As someone with lifelong ADHD, I’ve also learned a lot of strategies for maintaining my own space better.

This dude gets it.
posted by armeowda at 3:46 PM on July 19 [6 favorites]

(Oh, and if you’re looking for the coastal/urban counterpart, check out Clean With Barbie. She’s also excellent, and yup - they’re friends!)
posted by armeowda at 3:49 PM on July 19 [2 favorites]

I follow this channel! I came for the house cleanups and stayed for the insight into mental health issues that lead to the kinds of situations that are cleaned up on the channel. I think that most of the indie cleaning channels are pretty good about this, and most of the commenters are nice -- but of course there's always someone who is so attached to their uninformed opinions that nothing gets through to them.

I don't think that I'm at risk of developing this level of problem right now, but I certainly have a tendency to 1) hold onto certain things, because of course I'm going to use them, and 2) not tidy up messy areas for extended periods of time. Who knows what might happen in future to derail my ability to keep my space habitable? Whenever I watch stuff like this I go to throw something away or tidy something up.
posted by confluency at 3:51 PM on July 19 [4 favorites]

What the heck is dust and where does it come from?
posted by Czjewel at 3:54 PM on July 19 [1 favorite]

You, baby.
posted by phunniemee at 3:58 PM on July 19 [18 favorites]

One of the comments on this video was genius:

"They say, when you lose one sense your other senses are enhanced. That’s why those with no sense of humor have a heightened sense of self importance."
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 4:00 PM on July 19 [67 favorites]

I should get a rumba. If nothing else, I can watch the cat ride around on it.
posted by Czjewel at 4:12 PM on July 19 [3 favorites]

Thanks for posting, this was heart wrenching but ultimately really good to listen, it makes it helpfully clear to me internally which voices to listen to and which to wave away.
phunniemee, congratulations--that is hard work and it looks good! I'm fixing up a guest room too, and the amount of associated tasks just ripple out from "move the guest bed" to become exactly what you describe.
posted by winesong at 4:21 PM on July 19 [1 favorite]

One thing I love in particular about Midwest magic cleaning is that he doesn't include the people. It's just the house, just the mess, with the people's identities kept private, their dignity preserved.

Another thing I love about this channel are all the spin-kicking of errant moose.
posted by meese at 4:55 PM on July 19 [8 favorites]

I watched a few of his videos recently when The Algorithm happened to decide I should see them and I very much appreciated how he tells people to fuck off with their judgement and even has noted in the past how some people just weren't taught how to clean or organize. Like sure, the overall mechanic of the thing is pretty obvious, but the details aren't necessarily obvious and if you do it "wrong" you're either making more work for yourself, just pushing dirt around pointlessly, or both.

It just seems way less gross than shows like Hoarders or many of the other YouTube channels where people clean stuff.
posted by wierdo at 6:23 PM on July 19 [4 favorites]

I have been that guy who had to call a cleaning service.

Twice.

It. Is. Humiliating.

Both times, they came in, they did the job, they left. No commentary.

I was supposed to be a relatively well-paid programmer, but instead I was a mental train wreck sitting in my trashed out apartment, day after day after day after day ...

I used to see people with trash-filled cars and think "Wow, that person needs help." Then I became the person who needed help and I feel so much worse for them, because I know exactly what it's like.

And there's nothing I can say to them because there's nothing anyone could have said to me. I just had to bottom out and then, and only then, could I accept help healing my mental illness.

And I did get better. But I was a horrible mess for a while.
posted by JustSayNoDawg at 7:12 PM on July 19 [29 favorites]

Thank you for this. I've been thinking about my reaction to the Get Tough contingent in another discussion. They spook me because I don't know how to talk to them and this view from the outside helps me.
posted by Nancy Lebovitz at 7:43 PM on July 19

N-thing the thanks for sharing this. I feel a helluva lot less alone in some of the stuff I've dealt with in trying to help people.
posted by JoeXIII007 at 8:21 PM on July 19

I love his channel! It came on my feed and I clicked out of curiosity because the houses look - normal, not interior decorated or for the ‘gram, just regular houses. And he is so thoughtful about the impact of mental health.
posted by dorothyisunderwood at 11:37 PM on July 19 [2 favorites]

People will use the word "lazy" for the most ridiculous reasons.

I need a power wheelchair to get around, because while I can walk/stand up, I can't walk very far or stand up for very long (often, standing up for long enough to brush my teeth or wash my hands is a struggle.)

One time, back before COVID, I stood up out of my power wheelchair in public to get a jacket out of the bag on the back of my powerwheelchair and put the jacket on,

and a man loudly pointed to me and scoffed to his wife "Just fucking LAZY"
posted by chariot pulled by cassowaries at 12:14 AM on July 20 [15 favorites]

Laziness is underrated. I aspire to the kind that saves work for everybody.
posted by flabdablet at 11:24 AM on July 20 [2 favorites]

Another thing I love about this channel are all the spin-kicking of errant moose.
posted by meese at 4:55 PM on July 19

Eponysterical?
posted by obliterati at 11:43 AM on July 20

A sincere question: I started this video and immediately felt put off by the Turkish/American joke at the beginning. Is that sort of thing common for these videos? Is there similar "humour" in the rest of the video?
posted by Pitachu at 4:58 PM on July 20

Pitachu, I also did a double-take about that joke. I've now watched a few of these, he always "introduces" himself in some way that involves not giving his real name. (The channel's page has auto-playing audio with a whole string of these.) In what I've watched, the jokes tended towards the absurd (i.e., errant moose), and not ethnic humor.
posted by mersen at 5:24 PM on July 20

I watched this and a few of his other videos, and really appreciate the recommendation! I don't have the same ratio of stuff-to-space as a 'hoarder' home, but have some of the same types of stuff issues. The unfinished projects, the things that should have been processed or used or thrown out long ago... And overall, slightly too much to keep up with.

The speed-clean style video is nice for putting on in the background while working on a project. And my cat thinks it is Cat TV.
posted by mersen at 5:43 PM on July 20