Traumas of a Laundry Detergent

I Guess I’m Only Tough On Stains Because My Dad Was So Tough On Me

Psychology has taught us that our behaviors stem from early childhood treatment. No matter how we act today we somehow always find a way to connect it back to our parents, our past, and our (valid or overdramatized) trauma. The Onion satirizes this through the article above. By personifying a laundry detergent, it mocks predictable human behavior. “About a year ago, I caught myself completely flipping out over a drop of marinara on an old sweatshirt and thought, ‘Oh God, what am I doing? This is exactly what Dad did to me.’” It exemplifies humanlike qualities of a guilty and apologetic tone. By taking an object as plain as laundry detergent and creating its own traumas, its reactions seem completely ridiculous and overdramatized.

It also exaggerates our traumas though the analogy of a "wash cycle of abuse", unveiling how absurd our accusations that we often consider valid and don’t question may be. We overanalyze our childhoods as a way to reason our behavior no matter how understandable it is. The article parodies a typical abusive parent story of leaving them in the dust, or in this case the washer without anything to help them or alleviate the pain. It ridicules a human story, mocking it as an overstated drama. “It wasn’t unusual for Dad to come home in a bad mood, shoot a furious look in my direction, and then throw me in the washer—and believe me, he didn’t bother with the fabric softener, either.” We're able to relate to these stories, but instead of feeling sympathetic, we find it amusing.

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