Is “Fridgescaping” Another Symptom of Our Increasingly Polarizing Times?

Photo: Lynzi Judish

“Surprisingly, I never thought anybody would care about my refrigerator,” says Lynzi Judish, a TikTok creator who posts content about “decorating, organizing, and romanticizing” her home. Judish is one of many millennials and Gen Z’ers deliberately arranging the contents of her refrigerator all for the sake of “fridgescaping.”

The new fridge decor trend has been taking over TikTok, inspiring thousands of people to intentionally curate the inside of their fridge and post content of their creations online. Over the last few weeks, the hashtag has racked up 34.3 million posts. But you might be surprised to hear that fridgescaping has actually been around for a minute—blogger Kathy Perdue first coined the term 13 years ago. The recent spark can be traced back to a post on Reddit’s “Am I the Asshole?” on August 15.

The user, Icy-Shelter9897, wrote, “Recently my wife has taken to ‘fridgescaping,’ I guess it’s a recent trend because I’d never heard about it before this.” From there, he explains how his wife started decorating their fridge with flowers and that it’s getting on his nerves because the items block the food. “She keeps taking it as a personal slight and acts like I’ve done something deliberately to hurt her, when I haven’t,” he continues before dismissing the hobby as “stupid.” Since then, his wife has allegedly been very distant, not like herself, and avoiding intimacy.

As expected, the post sparked a lot of debate, resulting in 11,000 upvotes and 3,800 comments. Some users argued in favor of the OP calling the activity “dumb” while others called him out for killing someone’s joy, which brings us back to the present.

So why exactly are people doing this?

“For some participants of this trend, it’s about organizing the fridge with decorative containers,” explains Kristen Moonjian, director, home and lifestyle at Fashion Snoops. “For others, it goes beyond that with the incorporation of flowers, vases, twinkle lights, LED candles, framed artwork and more.” Judish is one of the biggest—and most recent—arbiters of the trend now. With a background in photography, the creator makes viral content about her home decor aesthetic, but it’s her fridgesaping videos that have gone the most viral. She only started making this type of content in June after seeing @rosemaryfairy and @jenefertaylor do their own fridgescaping videos on Instagram. “It’s tablescaping for your fridge,” Judish says. “It’s taking something that’s maybe a bit mundane or even overwhelming, like it was for me, and making it beautiful.” With this, the goal is to make your fridge more aesthetically pleasing and to bright up the space.

Judish’s content often takes on elaborate themes with props meant to emulate pieces of pop culture. For instance, her Bridgerton-themed fridgescape came out around the same time as the Netflix show while another celebrated the millennial woman’s favorite film, Practical Magic. Similar to romanticizing your life, which has become something of a collective mantra right now, “romanticizing your refrigerator” can be enticing for a lot of reasons according to Judish. First, it makes things look more enticing. Next, it helps waste less food because you can see everything in your fridge and keep better stock. “More than anything, it’s just a way to jazz up something that’s usually kind of boring in your life,” she adds.

According to Judish, another cool factor about fridgescaping is that everyone has a different reaction to it. As someone who has struggled with disordered eating issues in the past, she claims that fridgescaping can be a helpful coping mechanism on the road to recovery. Although some people might view the trend as a response to diet culture, Judish insists that it has improved her own relationship with food. “I have a very long and complicated relationship with food,” she explains. “I think that this process has helped me eat healthier and have a better relationship with food.” [Editor’s note: If you or someone you know has an eating disorder, please seek help from resources like NEDA.]

Welcome to the aestheticization of the rest of our lives

Trend forecaster Emily Carmeli argues that fridgescaping speaks to our obsession with aesthetics or the “aestheticization” of every aspect of our lives. “Because social media encourages documentation, which, in theory, is an opportunity for ‘influencing’ with the hope of monetizing, it’s created a society obsessed with vanity,” she explains. “In a lot of cases, the fixation on aesthetics comes at the cost of functionality.” In the instance of u/Icy-Shelter9897, some believe the fridge should be purely functional.

Beyond this, Moonjian thinks that, with fridgescaping, functionality takes the back burner to aesthetics. But also the trend might cause some people to gloss over the fact that not every item is meant as a proper or safe container for food, which can actually reduce the lifecycle of your produce and also expose you to harmful chemicals.

At the same time, Moonjian recognizes how the practice can help someone take inventory of their fridge. “With this process, you are constantly in the know of what you have, and the contents of your fridge are proudly on display,” she adds. This can even act as inspiration to prepare more meals and utilize the food that they have on hand, which does offer a way to tackle food waste. Amidst a period of inflation and rising food costs, this trend definitely feels timely.

“I’m sure we have all opened our refrigerators at some point and stared endlessly until we closed the door to declare we have nothing to eat,” she says. “ Perhaps fridgescaping could help to combat that issue for some.”

The rise of the “girl fridge”

In the context of gender—yes, we’re taking it there—there’s still a bit more at play here. Recently, @rosemaryfairy made a video saying “I love my girl fridge” to show off the contents of her neatly arranged refrigerator. “Everything stays right where I put it,” she writes. “I wish for this level of peace for the world.” Commenters chimed in chanting “girl fridge” and have since been using the hashtag on TikTok. Does this mean girl fridges are the next “girls-only” space?

Judish prefers to call it “a refrigerator just for the ladies.” Beyond merely being the latest girl decor trend since big bows and the coquette aesthetic, the fridge has some latent meaning. Historically, households have been understood as gendered spaces where women are expected to care for the food and family and men are expected to be the earners and breadwinners. “Fridgescaping speaks to the tradition of homemaking, cooking, keeping a tidy home, and, poignantly, a tidy fridge, harkening back to the highly problematic yet romanticized period of the 1950s during which women’s sole role was in the home—specifically, the kitchen,” adds Carmeli.

If the larger trend behind fridgescaping is to romanticize your life, and the kitchen is historically a woman’s domain, maybe the point here is for women to reclaim traditional spaces meant for themselves. Considering how women’s rights in the United States are currently being revoked and “tradwives” are at the top of everyone’s For You Page, it’s certainly food for thought.

Build your own fridgescaping starter pack:

Anthropologie Floral Berry Basket

$16.00, Anthropologie

Anthropologie Cottage Egg Crate

$14.00, Anthropologie

Verel Food Storage Containers (Set of 4)

$39.00, Amazon

Vintage Bud Vases

$50.00, Etsy

Emerald Green Sunflower Vintage Canister

$30.00, Etsy

Glass Bowl by Ashland

$5.00, Michael's

Magnolia Pressed Floral Ceramic Pitcher

$30.00, Magnolia

Cindy Pumpkin Baking Dish by Anthropologie

$38.00, Anthropologie

Potter's Studio Hedgehog Butter Dish

$30.00, Amazon

Swans in Love Snack Clips (Set of 3)

$13.00, Etsy

HITOMEN Rattan Basket

$22.00, Amazon

Cocoa Rattan Bread Basket by Gaby Dalkin

$40.00, Crate & Barrel

Originally Appeared on Architectural Digest