Dirty Laundry

It was only a matter of time.

According to a piece in the New York Times by Ronda Kaysen, there’s a thriving market for Internet videos with titles like “Clean with Me” or “Extreme Cleaning,” which allow people to watch other people cleaning their homes. Really. As soothing music plays in the background, the videos feature youngish, stay-at-home mothers who over the course of a half-hour or so deep-clean a messy but well-appointed home.

Some of these videos attract more than three million views, in which a young, energetic mom “washes floors, scours sinks, dusts fixtures, and folds laundry. Occasionally, one of her three young children passes through the shot. But mostly, she’s alone, scrubbing drain holes with a toothbrush or unloading the dishwasher as she offers tips and endorses cleaning products in a soothing voice-over.”

What’s the appeal of these productions? Ms. Kaysen writes that some viewers tell her that, as the “Clean with Me” name indicates, they watch them as they go about cleaning their own homes, using them as “a sort of inspirational soundtrack so they feel less alone.” But others, she says, “watch them while sitting on the sofa with a cup of coffee, hoping that the video might spur them to action, or at least make them feel less guilty about their own mess.”

Apparently, “I love work. I can watch it all day,” isn’t just a laugh line.