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“At Extreme Pedantry, there was a discussion about the proper way to load a dishwasher and I said, ‘Well, I need to create a similar group called Extreme Dishwasher Loading.’ I just went and created the group, and a lot of people joined it at that time in 2016,” Hegedus, who lives in Essex, UK, tells WIRED.
Hegedus, known in the group as Dear Loader, says that in the early years there were only a few thousand members. Then, like many of these Facebook groups, the COVID-19 In the 2020 pandemic, the number of people coming together and sharing images of their skills (or lack of skills) at loading the dishwasher skyrocketed. The group added tens of thousands of new members.
While dishwasher loading techniques are taken very seriously, the tone of the group is overwhelmingly welcoming rather than mocking, and new members are encouraged to share photos of their dishwashers as soon as they join.
The group’s dozen or so administrators ensure that discussions never escalate, never become personal, and that anyone who becomes aggressive or abusive is instantly blocked. The result is a corner of the Internet that is both friendly and gently mocking at the same time.
Most members are based in the UK, but there is also a large American contingent, although Hegedus says there are no regional quirks when it comes to dishwasher loading.
Hegedus adds that the reasons people join are very different, but one member who spoke to WIRED says it was the sense of community that drove her to join the group.
“I joined because I was delighted to find other people as excited as I was about the dishwasher,” Laura Marsh from Somerset, UK, tells WIRED. “I hate, I really hate, hand washing and my other half never stacks it right. How much can fit in a dishwasher and still come out clean? “There’s definitely an art to it.”
Despite finding his people, Marsh also violated rules set by administrators when he posted a photo in response to a question about the strangest thing he put in his dishwasher. “My answer was ‘a toilet seat.’ It’s not what I usually put there, it just seemed like a good idea at the time. That was a big no-no. Not to mention the toilet seats in the wet box. “I thought I had been slapped on the wrists.”
But the key to the group’s success, Hegedus says, is not that it provides a safe way to load the dishwasher correctly: it’s the double meaning.
“It ended up being a great place for innuendos,” Hegedus says.
These days, group members seem less interested in posting the picture of the perfect cutlery tray or properly tiled plates, but rather in seeing who can include as much pun as possible in their comments.
Posts and comments in the group are filled with terms like “wet box” (a reference to the dishwasher), “dirty load” (a reference to the contents of the dishwasher), and “handwork” (a reference to hand washing). ).
Take, for example, this recent comment to a question about disputes within the group: “We fill the salty hole until it overflows with His abundant love,” the poster wrote. “We praise the flourishing shelves and open flaps that The Dear Loader has generously bestowed upon us. With ecstatic fervor we immerse the largest, dirtiest loads we can into our hot, humid boxes.”
In the end, the Extreme Dishwasher Loading group has achieved a huge level of popularity not because of the advice it offers, but because it never takes itself too seriously.
“It’s a place to get away from everything else, because at the end of the day it’s so silly and unimportant,” says Dear Loader.
