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How you stack and load your dishwasher is extremely important. Journalists, YouTubers, and dishwasher experts have all written guides on how to do it properly. One PhD student even wrote a 300-page thesis on the science behind dishwasher loading. Failing to load a dishwasher properly—or not at all—has led to at least one divorce.
But for the past eight years, one corner of the internet has devoted every single day to determining the ideal method, debating the pros and cons of prerinsing, cutlery trays, dishwasher tablet brands, and whether hand washing is a crime.
Meet the Extreme Dishwasher Loading Facebook group, which currently boasts 29,000-plus members and has somewhat accidentally found itself at the center of the zeitgeist.
Unlike Fight Club, the Extreme Dishwasher Loading club doesn’t mind you talking about the Extreme Dishwasher Loading club, but it does have some very specific rules.
The first rule of the Extreme Dishwasher Loading club is “Think quality, not quantity” when inviting people to join the group. Rule two warns that any photos of objects like toilet seats, guns, cat litter trays, or sex toys in your dishwashing machine are strictly prohibited. Rule three is a mysterious “secret rule,” while rule six warns that talk of washing machines or any other white goods will be dealt with in the harshest possible terms. “Clothes folding discussion is verboten,” the rules point out. (Rules four and five are similar to other groups' prohibitions on bullying and hate speech.)
It has been a banner month for the group, which describes itself as a place to “discuss the finer points and details of efficient, correct, and ingenious dishwasher loading and stacking, interesting techniques and useful tips are encouraged.” Not only did British prime minister Rishi Sunak reveal that loading the dishwasher was his favorite household chore, the group also received a boost from a post by the popular Fesshole account on X.
“I make sure I am the only person in the house who loads the dishwasher,” the anonymous confessor wrote in a post that’s been viewed almost a million times. “No one else does it right. I treat it like a game of Tetris. I'm on a Facebook dishwasher group and post photos of my work for others to enjoy.”
As a result, hundreds of new people have joined in the last week.
Over the years the group has tackled every conceivable point of contention, including whether a cutlery tray or cutlery basket is best, whether knives should be put in pointy side up or down, and what’s the best dishwasher tablet to use. Then there’s the most contentious topic of all: whether to prerinse or not to prerinse (the vast majority concludes that pre-rinsing is pointless).
One thing virtually everyone agrees on? Hand-washing your dishes is akin to treason.
The group was created in 2016 by Anthony Hegedus, after an argument on another Facebook group called Extreme Pedantry, which is described as a place for those “fed up with the mediocre, inadequate, imprecise, and sloppy.”
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“On Extreme Pedantry, there was some discussion about the proper way to load a dishwasher, and I said, ‘Right, I need to create a similar group called Extreme Dishwasher Loading.’ I just went and created the group, and a load of people joined it at that point in 2016,” Hegedus, who lives in Essex, UK, tells WIRED.
Hegedus, known to the group as Dear Loader, says that in the first years there were just a few thousand members. Then, like many such Facebook groups, the Covid-19 pandemic in 2020 saw the number of people joining and sharing images of their dishwasher loading skills—or lack of skills—explode. The group added tens of thousands of new members.
While dishwasher loading techniques are taken extremely seriously, the group’s tone is overwhelmingly welcoming rather than mocking, and new members are encouraged to share pictures of their dishwashers as soon as they join.
The group’s dozen or so administrators make sure that arguments never escalate, they never get personal, and anyone who becomes aggressive or abusive is instantly blocked. The result is a corner of the internet which is simultaneously friendly and gently mocking at the same time.
The majority of members are based in the UK, but there is also a large US contingent, though 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 pushed her to become part of the group.
“I joined because I was thrilled to find other people as enthusiastic as me with the dishwasher,” Laura Marsh from Somerset, UK, tells WIRED. “I hate—really hate—washing by hand, and my other half never stacks it right. How much can you fit in a dishwasher and still have everything come out clean? There's definitely an art to it.”
Despite finding her people, Marsh also ran afoul of the rules set out by the admins when she posted a picture in response to a question about the strangest thing she’s put in her dishwasher. “My answer was ‘a toilet seat.’ Not my usual thing to put in there, just seemed like a good idea at the time. That was a big no-no. You're not to mention toilet seats in the moist box. I considered my wrists slapped.”
But the key to the group’s success, Hegedus says, is not that it provides a sure-fire way to load your dishwasher properly—it’s the double entendres.
“It ended up being a great place for innuendo,” Hegedus says.
Group members these days appear to be less interested in posting the picture of the perfect cutlery tray or the properly tessellated dishes, but seeing who can cram as much word play into their comments as possible.
Posts and comments in the group are filled with terms like “moist box” (a reference to the dishwasher), “filthy load” (a reference to the contents of the dishwasher), and “hand job” (a reference to washing by hand).
Take for example this recent comment to a question about feuds within the group: “We filleth the salty hole until it overflows with His abundant love,” the poster wrote. “We praise the burgeoning racks and the open flaps that The Dear Loader has generously bestowed upon us. With ecstatic fervor we plunge the largest and filthiest loads that we possibly can into our hot, moist boxes.”
In the end, the Extreme Dishwasher Loading group has achieved a huge level of popularity not because of the advice it dishes out, 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 is so inane and unimportant,” Dear Loader says.
