Why Is Fridgescaping So Divisive? One Ice-Cold Take

When a Hawaii-based Joan Didion introduced herself to Life readers with that immortal line about being “in the middle of the Pacific in lieu of filing for divorce,” she added a caveat. “I tell you this not as aimless revelation but because I want you to know, during the time that I will be writing for this page, precisely who I am and where I am and what is on my mind… You are getting a woman who for some time now has felt radically separated from most of the ideas that seem to interest other people. You are getting a woman who somewhere along the line misplaced what slight faith she ever had in the social contract, in the meliorative principle, in the whole grand pattern of human endeavor.”

I achieved a similarly dissociative state this month when I learned, via a wrinkle in the algorithm, about something called: fridgescaping. I’m late to this portmanteau (although better never than late, where the likes of #Fridgerton are concerned), but if you’re even later, allow me to explain. Fridgescaping, tablescaping’s eldest-daughter, Virgo-rising cousin, involves “decorating” your imitation Smeg with items including, but not limited to: scented candles that you cannot light; frilly doilies with an air of Hyacinth Bucket to them; actual hyacinths; assorted framed photographs (presumably of the family members you’re only lukewarm on); and, it being autumn, all manner of pumpkins that say “What a gourd-geous fall we’re having!” It’s also been described as “romancing” your refrigerator, which, yes, does sound like the sort of rumor the JD Vance camp would have to deny.

It’s TikTok, of course, that’s popularised this—but, like the lion’s share of trends unleashed by the Discover page (girl dinner, a googolplex of -cores), fridgescaping actually predates Nyquil chicken. Conventional wisdom (or at least Architectural Digest) has it that interior designer Kathy Sue Perdue first deployed the term on her Blogspot in a fetching Verdana font back in 2011. (Kathy Sue, like Didion, was once a resident of Brentwood, but one imagines the similarities end there.) Purdue’s attempts at fridgescaping, however, cleaved much more closely to “basic kitchen organization” (put things… in containers) than the equivalent of a Sand Mandala made of deli meats. By that standard, Martha Stewart was espousing the merits of fridgescaping before she’d even seen the inside of Alderson Federal Prison Camp.

So why, exactly, is fridgescaping—truly the most grating neologism since “phygital”—trending now? Especially since the likes of über-scaper Lynzi Judish—who never met a woodland tchotchke she didn’t like—have already been doing it for months (a geological age in TikTok terms). That would be down to Reddit user Icy-Shelter9897, who posted in the platform’s Am I the A**hole thread explaining that his wife is a recent convert to the SubZero cult, and it’s put his sex life on ice: “She started decorating our fridge and it was really getting on my nerves, for example she put flowers in the fridge, in vases, in front of food so you have to move things just to get to the food. She put all our food in fancy baskets, jars, and similar things. I know it sounds absurd [editor’s note: it does] but if you just search up ‘fridgescaping’ you’ll see what I’m talking about.” Eventually, he hangrily explained that he found “the hobby stupid”, and since then, his partner’s “been acting very distant towards me and just hasn’t been herself, and has been weird intimacy-wise.”

Reddit is predictably divided about whether or not Icy-Shelter is, in fact, the a**hole. To be fair to the fridgescapers of this world, humanity has always had the impulse to decorate the functional (think of the Lascaux caves, or the vajazzling phenomenon). What’s grating about fridgescaping isn’t so much the act itself (although a little self-reflection while placing an honest-to-God bell jar next to your Babybels wouldn’t go amiss): it’s the fact that the conspicuous posting of conspicuous consumption now extends to our very salad crispers (which, in the name of #aesthetics, contain lace gloves rather than lettuce, Ton paraphernalia rather than tomatoes). I’m no marriage counselor, Icy-Shelter, but I, for one, don’t think you have anything to apologize for. And if this all leads you to the brink of divorce? There’s always Hawaii.