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What's a craving or longing you have that would sound oddly specific to anyone else? (lemm.ee)

submitted 4 days ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

29 comments fedilink hide all child comments

I miss malls. I miss the dynamic nature of them. I miss exploring them. I miss seeing all the things that people could buy. I miss the atmosphere. I miss the fountain you throw your pennies in. I miss meeting so many different people. I miss the escalators. I miss the joy of going into the mall pet shop and seeing the animals warm up to you. I miss sitting at the food courts, eating my weirdly quality pizza and taking in the ambiance. Hell, I miss getting lost in malls.

One of the things that feels like a stab in the heart as an aspiring parent is I will never be able to take my kids to the mall and have them experience the same experience. I look at malls now and want to cry. Look at me, a commie crying over a pillar of capitalism. That's how much of a friend malls were to me, yet nobody I know will say they relate.

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[–] [email protected] 7 points 4 days ago (1 children)

Can't speak for OP's situation, but I live near one of the largest malls in the country, and there's maybe about a half dozen smaller malls scattered around within about an hour or so.

The big mall is still doing pretty alright, but if you were around maybe about 10-20 years ago, it's pretty obvious that the crowds are way smaller than they used to be.

The mall used to pretty much be the place to go meet up with friends, spend time walking around hanging out, a lot of times there would be different events going on at the malls, they were always packed Friday nights and weekends, etc.

Now except for maybe a few key days during the holiday season, they're just not busy.

The smaller malls are almost deserted, lots of empty stores, and some of the spaces are being rented out for kind of weird purposes (I think one of our local politicians- a state representative something, has their office space in a mall) a few of them have closed down entirely.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 4 days ago (1 children)

Right. I'm intrigued now. I can't say my situation relates to yours and I didn't know that was the trend in many places

[–] [email protected] 1 points 4 days ago

Yeah, malls in the US at least are really dying in a lot of places.

I stopped into one of the smaller ones near me a few months back, I had maybe an hour to kill before I had to meet someone for dinner and it was close by so I figured I'd walk around for a bit, and it was downright eerie.

There were probably as many vacant spaces as actual stores, and half of the occupied stores were closed at like 5:00 on a weekday. Parts of the mall actually seemed like they only had some of the lights on, half of the escalators were turned off or out of service and there were maybe a couple dozen other people walking around the mall.

There was one part of the mall with no open stores, dim lights, and I didn't see anyone else around and for a minute it almost felt like I had noclipped into the backrooms.