Bob the Hoarder

So I really like to watch the shows on TLC and A&E about hoarding. I'm not precisely sure what draws me to these shows, especially because I can totally see what people are complaining about when they talk about the negative aspects of exploiting these people's serious mental illness for television purposes. I rationalize it to myself that they are getting help it's raising awareness and so it's not that exploitative but at the same time I'm sure there are times as in all reality tv that things get manipulated in the name of entertainment, but I can't look away.

I'm pretty sure one of my grandmothers was a hoarder. She had newspapers stacked shoulder high in her house, and had scores of glass of coke bottles everywhere. I'm very aware how much this disease can affect someone's life and how even physically dangerous a disease it can be to have. With that in mind, hearing a popular children's television character say over and over again, "Hardly anything's ever really garbage." while dreaming up sometimes completely improbably and complicated uses for the smallest of things is super creepy to me.

I'm all for the reduce, reuse, recycle aspect of the show but I don't know, constantly throwing in that one line almost every show just doesn't sit well with me.