Normal Person Hoarding: Article Analysis

Hoarding is the behavior in accumulating items and the unwillingness to let go of them, which results in occupied living areas and altitude in emotions. According to Rob Walker, the author of the article “Stuffed,” hoarding has “more to do with a person’s psyche than their taste in decorating” (Walker, “Stuffed”). It is becoming a growing trend as Americans tend to accumulate things in their own home or external environment over time. It becomes hard to get rid of their objects because they become emotionally attached to them over a period of time. Rob Walker, including Diane Cole, the author of the article “Bookmarks, Possessed by Our Possession” and Carina Chocano, the author of the article "‘Underneath Every Hoarder Is a Normal Person
Since Americans are always chasing that “rush” of buying new things and accumulating them, they refuse to let go of the old stuff because they put sentimental value into them. However, hoarding depends on who is enabling the person to hoarder and the discipline. If the person has someone in their life that tells them that they must get rid of their junk, they will be able to detach the emotional value, compared to someone who grows up without someone that tells them what is important and what is not important, hence, the formation of hoarding develops. In Cole’s article, she mentions how “hoarders have different preferred styles for amassing their trove, from nonstop shopping to dumpster-diving to never letting absolutely any object that enters the house leave it” (Cole, “Bookmarks, Possessed by Our Possessions). Hoarding is a built-in evolutionary trait because it had always been an urgency or a repulsive behavior to continue buying and stacking. Americans expand on it as a culture in a way it helps fuel the economy. Cole also mentions, in the same article, that “‘the quantity of our stuff’ we should imagine a world based on the ‘quality of our stuff’” (Cole, “Bookmarks, Possessed by Our Possessions). There is such an abundance of inexpensive things because the company selling the product wants customers to buy more for less, which generates more money for the company. This is why America is a consumer society because it gives
Hoarders take their stuff more seriously, sometimes even more than their family. It is hard to detach the old stuff and to stop buying new stuff because it is a mental illness, which affects them and the people around. In Chocano’s article, “Underneath Every Hoarder Is a Normal Person Waiting to Be Dug Out,” she says that “the idea that our relationship to our stuff has the potential to distort and derail us” (Chocano, “Underneath Every Hoarder Is a Normal Person Waiting to Be Dug Out”). The living power junk is the living physical manifestation of physical clutter. Hoarding encounters that idea because instead of getting rid of old things, hoarders accumulate things to the extent where it takes over their life. But do we delegate emotions to a certain object? Does emotion attach to inexplicitly? Hoarders think that they are not attached to the item until it gets to the point where they are being counseled by a psychologist to remove things from the house, which makes them sad or defensive. They also go through emotional anguish over items they may not remember where they get it from or why they got it. They cannot just give it up. Chocano also mentions the problem hoarders have in detaching their old stuff: “Things become externalized parts of themselves—their memory, their plans, their feelings. To discard objects intended to future use…feels like dashing hopes,