Restocking season is getting out of hand.
Now that the frenzy of the holidays has spat you out into the harsh light of the new year, you might be tempted to look around your disheveled home and decide that it’s time to get your life together. Maybe your fridge is empty, or your pantry is full of the stuff you bought for Christmas baking projects you never quite got around to, or the laundry from your family’s trip to visit Grandma and Grandpa still isn’t done. The internet is full of suggestions on exactly how you might rectify this domestic chaos, but if you go looking for organizational inspiration, the tips and tricks you find will center disproportionately on a single object: the humble clear acrylic storage container.
If you’re unsure what to do with one, an entire video genre has sprung up on social media over the past few years to provide some inspiration. Watch a couple, and the tropes become clear. A pair of disembodied, feminine hands—wrinkle free, well manicured, adorned with trendy jewelry—unpacks consumer goods from their original containers and arranges them neatly inside their new acrylic homes, sometimes adorning the exterior with a customized label that identifies the contents. The videos are sped up so that the hands move with maximum efficiency and purpose; some include the same set of hands cleaning the containers and storage area to spotless perfection before the main event. There’s little to no narration or background music to be found—just the amplified sounds of objects plunking and crunching against hard plastic.
Restocking videos, as the genre is called, can make a subject out of anything in your home that could plausibly be stored in a clear bin of some kind, and often in enormous quantities: Snack-size pouches of Oreos or Doritos or applesauce are lined up alongside one another in transparent boxes in immaculate pantries. Laundry pods and beads and powders are transferred into matching containers with their own little scoops. Pens and highlighters and colorful paper clips are arranged in desk drawers lined with tiny clear receptacles. On pristine bathroom vanities, little jars fill with cotton rounds and bobby pins and hair elastics. No liquid soap, shampoo, or body lotion goes undecanted. Disinfecting towelettes are removed from their own tubs and tucked into new tubs specially designed to receive your rehomed wet wipes.
