Another day, and I'm still here. I like to think I'm wiser after my spring break, but maybe it's a case of doors opening and closing in front of my eyes. Like for the first time in years I actually cracked a book open and just read with the window open. Very comfy with a cup of coffee and whatever the book is trying to give. Go read Understanding Comics by Scott McCloud, it's a great breakdown of how comics as a medium works, and how we percieve art in a more wider view. Yeah, yeah, that 'Simple Style' origin thing, but if you're curious by why one would draw in simple, that book answers that.
Going to the mall on a weekday is like going to a bar for lunch. Yeah you don't have any much traffic, but there's not much to enjoy besides being there. That's what I did today, just getting my daily walk in and thinking various thoughts. Things like "Why is clothing so plain and monochrome", "How come I can't find a simple 9.5 in popsicle deck", and "Why isn't there any actual interesting stores in this mall"?
The answers to those are "It's easy to mix and match", "Those decks are special in an area where a skate shop has to be generic and get branded", and "We live in an age where it's easy to do online shopping than to gamble on shipping products to random brick and mortar shops to get profit". My actual best thought while in that mall is "Damn this whole Auntie Anne's pretzel bangs HARD." because it does, finished it without a drink too because it wasn't oversalted for voyages.
Now I didn't comb through nostalgic mall videos like I usually do, well, barr a couple of .3gp vids from 2006, but it appears that there wasn't much to do in the mall either. Just be emblematic in Teens hanging around doing nothing, and maybe buy something if you forgot your monthly credit card statement is coming up. I know, back in the age where Hot Topic sold music, Gamestop sold games, and there was kiosks that were actually selling good products instead of trying to gouge your money on skincare snake oil or sneaker polish. Lemme tell you on a secret, I probably would've done neither of those because a cheap scrooge like me wouldn't fork over any dough. New CDs, Games at retail price, and buying a microsoft product at a kiosk? those were birthday pipe dreams at the most.
I would've been busy staring at food court music videos, and munch on like a pizza slice.
The peoplewatching is worth, especially when you go on a weekend as you're supposed to. Not to be a judge of character, but there's many people who are the target audience of Zumiez... and that's really it. I don't blame them, their clothes are like the only interesting stuff at a mall. Spencers is where people giggle and not buy any of their immature gifts, hot topic is for scenesters (but the Gir Hoodie does look comfy tho), and the forever 21 store closed. There's people from many different paths of life that take the mall because it's an event in of itself. Consumerism? Depends on how you engage with it, I see it like a public park with the market street as the art installation.
I dunno about the life of malls as it stands today, lots I see don't really put on this fancy center and put it more as like a flea market indoors. Seeing some estate space being occupied with short term money pulls because that's how some people can get a profit and afford to pay rent is something that I can disagree with, but not necessarily out of personal preference. The mall owner may think they have a crapton of demand, but in reality they're shooting themselves in the foot in both supply and in demand. No supply means that it won't garner demand, and no demand means there's less of a chance to sell existing supply and to entice any people that may be on the fence with what's on sale. I'm no business man, but the only way to be a mall staple is if you juice the crap out of the weekends and holidays and then kinda cruise on the weekday and monthlong droughts in between.
Whatever, more malls that I see are kinda converting into apartment markets now, in what I theorize in an attempt to drum up more business by saying 'I mean, the store is next to my complex, why not'. Emphasis is on local though, so maybe they'll have more homegrown stores as soon as the mall figures out how to deal with chronic traffic disorder from their soon-to-be-residents.
Also, I made this blog because I really thought that Auntie Anne's pretzel was good as hell. A mall without a pretzel shop is missing the point, you gotta get the shoppers to eat, and the pretzel pays for the drink. I also have that New Radicals Music Video permanantly grafted into my brain. I dunno. I need to add something to my site.