Nerd Processor

Why You Need to ‘KonMari’ Your Nerd Life

Pare down your Star Wars and Batman collections — and free yourself from obsession

Rob Bricken
OneZero
Published in
5 min readJun 21, 2019

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Photo: Don Emmert/Getty Images

EEven if your news feeds are limited to Marvel superhero news and Star Wars movies, chances are you’ve heard the name Marie Kondo. She’s the famous organization expert whose “KonMari” philosophy is simple but profound: Get rid of everything you own that doesn’t bring you joy. This is a lesson many nerds need to learn, because few people have more stuff — or need more help learning how to get rid of it.

This is where I come in.

Being a fan of something can mean obsession, and that obsession frequently takes the form of collecting. It certainly has for me. It’s a way to physically demonstrate our fandom of something, and it can take many forms. You may want every comic that stars a favorite character, every action figure from a certain toy line, every piece of ancillary media tied into a major motion picture franchise. And the more things you love (and the more you love these things) the more space it all takes up — not just in your home, but in your life, too.

Yes, there’s a genuine high when you finally get your hands on an item you’ve long been searching for, whether it’s a hard-to-find action figure, a…

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Rob Bricken
OneZero

The former editor of io9.com, Rob Bricken has been a professional nerd since 2001. He also often cries at children's cartoons.