Shopping Malls Have a Severe Case of the Sucks
Several nights ago, I received another in a long line of marketing research phone calls. Way back when, I worked in the research department of a marketing group, so chirpy voices reading the scripted questions of a telephone survey are nothing new, but I have to admit that, depending on my mood at the moment, sometimes I respond to the questions simply in an effort to mess with their heads. One person out of however many they sample with the chutzpah to tell them their questions could have been developed by five year olds who then gives them off the wall answers that don’t fit their profile. It all meshes with my perverted sense of fun at the expense of commerce.
This survey was local, however, and concerned one of the many things on my list of ‘despicable’ things – shopping malls. Now, let there be no doubt, I absolute loathe and despise mall shopping. It comes in second only to walking barefoot on crushed glass. As Ronald Reagan once said about redwood trees, thus losing any hope he had for my vote, “If you’ve seen one, you’ve seen them all.” In my life and my sojourn across the land, of either necessity or momentary stupidity, I’ve been in many malls – and they all look the same, smell the same, contain the same mindless people, host the same tired stores, and have the same demolition derby constantly running in their parking lots.
To every question asking a ranking for enjoyable, good stores, pleasant atmosphere or whatever on a scale where ten is highest and one is lowest, I ranked every item in the negative category and suggested the guy simply imprint the legend “Malls Suck” in wide red letters across the questionnaire. When he asked which mall I preferred in my area, I couldn’t even remember the names of local malls, but I could name one on Long Island, another in New Jersey and a third in Puerto Rico which were all duplicates of each other excepting for the quantity of Spanish spoken in the Caribbean.
Only one local mall deserved mention and got a ranking of four because I visit one store there more than once a month - it contains a Barnes & Noble. The question wasn’t included, but the other thing reasonably pleasant about ‘The Summit’ is that the parking lot is in the center, with three or four side by side stores per section surrounding that lot. It means you actually walk outside to go from store to store!! The arrangement is far superior to the usual fully enclosed, stale air and all, shopping area.
See, I got spoiled. In my formative years, malls were still an idea on the drawing board, so the primary shopping foray was a visit downtown to go from store to store, depending on what one was looking for. There were about five really big department stores in the same centralized area with smaller specialty shops interspersed along the street. I remember how wonderful it was to shop the area especially at Christmas time – to come out into the cold air, and package laden, walk to the next spot on the list, often with soft snow coming down as you listened to carols and bell ringers.
Then, there were all those years I lived in New York City. There is nothing like shopping in Manhattan, be it uptown in the 60’s and 50’s or midtown with the original Macy’s, or downtown in Greenwich Village with all the artsy and esoteric shops with special appeal. No one in their right mind can equate mall shopping with shopping along Fifth Avenue, or at Bloomies, on downtown at Barney’s. Who could be satisfied with the stilted atmosphere of a mall after that?
Too bad when people decry obsesty in today’s world they don’t mention malls, those centers for kids hanging out amid fast food shops and cookie factories. Some folks can spend a half day or more wandering a Mall, and for the life of me, I can’t figure out why. Even the ‘walking clubs’ and their metered pathways are a joke, excepting for those days when the monsoon hits or you have a blizzard. The internal air clogs your nose and lungs, the sameness rots your brain, the snack food increases your butt, and the shopping wastes your money.
May as well indulge a computer addiction and buy everything on line than to waste the gas driving to a shopping mall, cruising the parking to find a slot near a door, and try force feeding yourself a phony concept fun while buying the same thing that everyone else buys because originality is a thing of the past.
This survey was local, however, and concerned one of the many things on my list of ‘despicable’ things – shopping malls. Now, let there be no doubt, I absolute loathe and despise mall shopping. It comes in second only to walking barefoot on crushed glass. As Ronald Reagan once said about redwood trees, thus losing any hope he had for my vote, “If you’ve seen one, you’ve seen them all.” In my life and my sojourn across the land, of either necessity or momentary stupidity, I’ve been in many malls – and they all look the same, smell the same, contain the same mindless people, host the same tired stores, and have the same demolition derby constantly running in their parking lots.
To every question asking a ranking for enjoyable, good stores, pleasant atmosphere or whatever on a scale where ten is highest and one is lowest, I ranked every item in the negative category and suggested the guy simply imprint the legend “Malls Suck” in wide red letters across the questionnaire. When he asked which mall I preferred in my area, I couldn’t even remember the names of local malls, but I could name one on Long Island, another in New Jersey and a third in Puerto Rico which were all duplicates of each other excepting for the quantity of Spanish spoken in the Caribbean.
Only one local mall deserved mention and got a ranking of four because I visit one store there more than once a month - it contains a Barnes & Noble. The question wasn’t included, but the other thing reasonably pleasant about ‘The Summit’ is that the parking lot is in the center, with three or four side by side stores per section surrounding that lot. It means you actually walk outside to go from store to store!! The arrangement is far superior to the usual fully enclosed, stale air and all, shopping area.
See, I got spoiled. In my formative years, malls were still an idea on the drawing board, so the primary shopping foray was a visit downtown to go from store to store, depending on what one was looking for. There were about five really big department stores in the same centralized area with smaller specialty shops interspersed along the street. I remember how wonderful it was to shop the area especially at Christmas time – to come out into the cold air, and package laden, walk to the next spot on the list, often with soft snow coming down as you listened to carols and bell ringers.
Then, there were all those years I lived in New York City. There is nothing like shopping in Manhattan, be it uptown in the 60’s and 50’s or midtown with the original Macy’s, or downtown in Greenwich Village with all the artsy and esoteric shops with special appeal. No one in their right mind can equate mall shopping with shopping along Fifth Avenue, or at Bloomies, on downtown at Barney’s. Who could be satisfied with the stilted atmosphere of a mall after that?
Too bad when people decry obsesty in today’s world they don’t mention malls, those centers for kids hanging out amid fast food shops and cookie factories. Some folks can spend a half day or more wandering a Mall, and for the life of me, I can’t figure out why. Even the ‘walking clubs’ and their metered pathways are a joke, excepting for those days when the monsoon hits or you have a blizzard. The internal air clogs your nose and lungs, the sameness rots your brain, the snack food increases your butt, and the shopping wastes your money.
May as well indulge a computer addiction and buy everything on line than to waste the gas driving to a shopping mall, cruising the parking to find a slot near a door, and try force feeding yourself a phony concept fun while buying the same thing that everyone else buys because originality is a thing of the past.
posted by kaz at 8:46 PM
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