Why Do We Watch TV Shows About Hoarding like Hoarders and Hoarding: Buried Alive?

Have you ever been to a friend's house that was more cluttered than yours and thought, "Well, I guess my house isn't that bad?" Multiply that feeling by about a million, and you'll understand the sense of comfort people derive from watching TV shows about extreme messies, such as "Hoarders" on A&E and "Hoarding: Buried Alive" on TLC.

TV reality shows like "Hoarders" and "Hoarding: Buried Alive" are like fun-house mirrors, magnified reflections of our neurotic foibles that make us feel better about our own dysfunctional behaviors. The morbidly obese man on "Oprah" who is literally stuck to his recliner, the bickering couple on "Dr. Phil" who make Jon and Kate Gosselin look like dewy-eyed honeymooners, the compulsive packrat who has accumulated so much stuff she can't walk from the living room into the kitchen without cutting a swath through the clutter-all of these super-sized versions of ourselves make us feel relationally superior because we have fractionally greater self-control than those people we see on TV.

Fear Factor

Aside from helping us feel quasi-normal, TV shows like "Hoarders" and "Hoarding: Buried Alive" serve as cautionary tales. If we continue to pile our stuff on our dresser or desk, those small piles could grow into bigger ones and start multiplying like rabbits, eventually mushrooming into Mount Everest sized piles that cover every available surface of our house. Before long we'll be no better off than those hoarders on TV who live in sub-human habitats that we dare ourselves to peek at with a mixture of dread and fascination.

On a recent episode of "Hoarding: Buried Alive," for instance, a shopaholic bachelor had to literally hop up his cluttered stairs like a billy goat. He had not cooked on his stove in years because it was covered with a pile of stuff he neither needed nor used. After watching an episode like this, some of us feel an overwhelming urge to attack one of our own islands of clutter-before it's too late for us, too.

People vs. Things

Another reason we may find "Hoarders" and "Hoarding: Buried Alive" compelling is the preference hoarders assign to things over people. A common problem for hoarders is their relatives, friends and romantic partners are driven away by their messiness, an abandonment that causes hoarders to feel lonelier and become even more attached to their things. As with any self-fulfilling prophecy, their possessions prove themselves to be more loyal than the people in their lives (although one suspects the coffee table might walk out, too, if its legs were operational).

Psychological Issues of Hoarding

For those of us who like to know what makes people tick, perhaps the most fascinating element of the hoarding TV shows is why people hoard. According to a University of California, San Diego website about hoarders, "Compulsive hoarding is not due to laziness or weakness of character, nor is it due simply to disorganization."

UCSD psychologists who specialize in hoarding issues suggest that hoarding could be hereditary or related to abnormal brain development or brain lesions. In some cases, hoarding may even result from brain damage after a stroke, accident or infection.

The old saying, "One man's junk is another man's treasure" may also help explain hoarding behavior. Where some people see an old bicycle helmet, hoarders may see a flower pot or seashell container. An article in Discover magazine quoted psychologist Randy O. Frost from Smith College who thinks hoarders could be more complex out-of-the box thinkers than the average Jane. "They may have more creative minds than the rest of us in that they can think of more uses for a possession than we can," said Frost.

To their credit, both "Hoarders" and "Hoarding: Buried Alive" feature psychologists and other experts to help the hoarders they profile resolve their issues, elevating these reality TV programs from merely voyeuristic freak shows to group therapy sessions from which all of us can potentially benefit. Even if we do not suffer from hoarding behavior to the degree of those who appear on "Hoarders" and "Hoarding: Buried Alive," we can replace our smug superiority with enlightened empathy and our harsh judgmentalism with compassion and introspection.

Sources:
http://discovermagazine.com/2004/oct/psychology-of-hoarding
http://psychiatry.ucsd.edu/OCD_hoarding.html
http://tlc.discovery.com/tv/hoarding-buried-alive/
http://www.aetv.com/hoarders/