Restocking videos have gained traction in India of late, two years after it became a legitimate content genre in the US. Since October 2020, the interest in restocking on YouTube in India went from negligible to the maximum score of 100 in the last week of December 2022, as per Google Trends. Creators from India, particularly in sectors such as food and lifestyle, frequently share restocking videos in regional languages on YouTube.
In these videos, they promote homeorganising products like labelled jars for kitchen and bathroom supplies, and other showy items to store household goods. Their cost ranges from Rs 500 to Rs 50,000. The pandemic-led push for work from home is believed to be a key reason for the spurt in interest for home-organising products. Home organisation forms a growing part of the $22 billion home-improvement and renovation market in India, as per a 2022 report from Mordor Intelligence, a global market research company
Most restocking videos are low on verbal input and rely heavily on arresting visuals and the atmospheric sounds of rustling packages and of items being poured into containers and gentle finger-tapping. This puts them in the category of ASMR content. For the uninitiated, ASMR is ‘autonomous sensory meridian response’, or a tingling feeling, triggered by certain audio-visual stimuli.
ORDER, ORDER
Vaishnavi Prasad discovered restocking Reels on Instagram while looking for ASMR content. “I like symmetry and organisation. When I go to stationery stores, I end up rearranging their pens by colour, brand and size,” says the hospitality marketing consultant from Chennai. Even though restocking videos often make her feel like a “disorganised slob”, she admits she finds some of them rather calming.
“The perfection and symmetry in these videos can be oddly satisfying to watch,” says Sana Dhamija, 28, a psychiatrist from Pune. She sampled these videos recently when they showed up as “Suggested” in her Instagram feed. “Watching these videos provides momentary relief and calmness, allowing a break from reality where we don’t want to confront our emotions,” says Dhamija. She feels the obsession with these videos could stem from the tendency to look for distractions while dealing with anxiety. She thinks it is similar to finding an escape in “doomscrolling”, where people endlessly browse negative news online. Except, this is more like soothscrolling.
How does this work, exactly? “During moments of anxiety, people often seek control,” says Divya Geryani, 28, a counselling psychologist from Jaipur. She notes that some people try to achieve control by organising things or by simply organising their thoughts in bullet points. “Restocking videos offer a similar satisfaction, allowing viewers to experience a sense of control vicariously,” adds Geryani.
While the consumption of restocking videos is on the rise in India, the trend has failed to produce prominent Indian creators in the genre, unlike in the US where creators such as Kaeli Mae (@kaelimaeee), Micah Enriquez (@makeitwithmicah), Kami Larae (@kami. larae) and Jackie Aina (@lavishlyjackie) are known for their restocking content.
Perhaps the aesthetically pleasing setups of restocking videos look aspirational but do not resonate with the reality of most Indian kitchens and homes, says Geryani. According to data from the National Family Health Survey 2019- 21 (NFHS-5), only 16% of Indian households own all three household appliances television, refrigerator and washing machine. This means the supporting characters in a restocking video are a luxury for most of the Indian population.
“We use old Bournvita containers to store lentils,” says Geryani. Indian households tend to store most packaged items, like snacks, tea, coffee, etc, in their packages and bottles instead of emptying them into fancy-looking jars, she adds. “I have been seeing ads of a dal dispenser online. It tempts initially, but you realise how unfeasible it is as it only stores 500 grams of lentil whereas we buy lentils in kilos because that is cost-effective. Where will I store the rest of the dal?” she asks.
Die-hard fans of the genre are also unable to overlook the excessive consumerism at play in most restocking videos. “Restocking is my current favourite content genre to consume,” says Zahra Khan, a content marketing professional, who posts as @ zahrakhan25 on Instagram.
“The precision stacking, the masterful organisation, the percussive sound”— it has her hooked. That said, “No one needs to stock/restock that many coffee pods or tomatoes unless one is hoarding up for Armageddon,” she adds. Khan discovered restocking content two years ago via The Home Edit, a Netflix reality show.
Prasad from Chennai highlights another problem with these videos: the items, bought in bulk, often spoil quickly. Plus, the storage items they endorse create a lot of plastic waste.
JARRING JARS
Even the West—which once considered these videos “soothing” and “satisfying”—has begun to question their excessive and wasteful nature. The primary driver of this shift in perception is Shabaz Ali (@shabazsays), a chemistry teacher from England.
Ali creates reaction videos where he mocks people whose social media content includes extravagant displays of wealth and an unattainable lifestyle. In many of these posts, he pretends to speak on their behalf and cheekily addresses the viewers as “povvo,” the Australian slang for an individual with limited financial means. In his reaction videos on the restocking trend, he says restocking creators don’t shop out of necessity. Instead, they base their choices on the shape and size of their restocking jars and storage items.
“Around 12% of my Instagram following [he has 1.6 million followers] is from India,” Ali tells ET over an Instagram DM chat. It includes celebrities like Anushka Sharma and Shweta Bachchan, he adds. India constitutes his fifth largest audience, following the US, the UK, Australia and Canada
Sai Adithya, a Bengaluru-based brand consultant, discovered the restocking genre through Ali’s satirical videos. “Had I discovered restocking videos independently, I would have just enjoyed them as oddly calming videos,” he says. “But Shabaz’s commentary gives you a nuanced understanding of the trend.”
The majority of his audience still views his videos as entertainment, says Ali. “But for some, it’s a way to be proud that they don’t come from much and also to understand that it’s okay to live within your means when the world tells you to ‘try and make more money,’” he says.
