scarlson 

I had two actual hoarders in the family on my father's side. What they did was a bona fide mental illness, and bears little resemblance to what we do.

The casual talk of "hoarding" that gets bandied about these days, often relating to Marie Kondo and other capitalist shills, diminishes the experiences of those with the disease and their families. I have been called a hoarder because I have a few bikes, or a few tabs open, or a few emails in my inbox, and it is disrespectful to actual hoarders. Unfortunately, contemporary culture doesn't agree.

Exactly. It does boil down to marketing: People who sell the idea of "tidying up" are selling the dream that the chaos inherent in life can be dismissed easily by purchasing content, services, and products - it's only natural that they take on relevance in these chaotic times. But it's a paradox: minimalism by way of consumerism. You pay to get rid of your stuff. Then you pay for more stuff (even better, for subscription-based digital content) to fill the void left by the old stuff you got rid of. As long as the stuff has no meaning (or disappears when you stop paying the subscription), you are "free" to jettison it and consume more. It's throwaway culture, rebranded and marketed as freedom from clutter. I refuse to join in on that treadmill, so I'll keep riding antique bikes and driving antique SAABs (and keeping the requisite junkpile and weathering the dirty looks), because they have meaning to me, and you can't buy that meaning with money.