everyone's got a mall story
last night i did a reading with a bunch of smart writers about malls; there was a lot of reminiscing about Hot Topic, and a lot of smuggled-in whiskey. everyone was much cooler and more attractive than they were in high school—funny how that works. anyway, here's what i read.
There is, I’ve found, a list of every shopping mall in the U.S., and, presumably around the world—it has entries from Azerbaijan (24 shopping centers) to Zimbabwe (4). The largest five malls aren’t even in America! I learned. (They are in China, China, the Philippines, the Philippines, and Malaysia respectively. Taken together, they occupy an area roughly equal in size to the principality of Monaco.) Think of all that’s probably happened: How many first paychecks have been spent on the latest trend? How many people have puked in mall bathrooms, from nerves or from positive test results? How many human lifetimes are spent at food courts every year?
Malls depress me profoundly, even as I find them weirdly fascinating. I’m drawn to them not because they track so closely with America’s national sensibilities and proclivities, which are also fascinating and largely depressing, but because experience is modulated so carefully and because they’re all so large. The mall, the mall’s size implies, is supposed to be at the center of your life.
Which is to say: Going to the mall is an event, and as a Texan I have always treated it that way. I dress up for Jamba Juice and Cinnabon. In Dallas, two hours from home, I chose what I wore based on where I planned to go. For NorthPark—first mall ever featured in Vogue, annual sales of more than $1 billion, 26 times larger than a FIFA-sanctioned international match soccer field—I was preppy as hell in a polo and boat shoes; at Grapevine Mills—the first mall in Texas to feature an aquarium, 21 times larger than a FIFA-sanctioned international match soccer field—I wore something more casual, more Hollister than Abercrombie & Fitch. We looked good.
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I found the mall I grew up with on the list after a minute of searching: Broadway Square Mall, in Tyler, TX, which is a little larger than the base of the Great Pyramid of Giza. Nothing special to look at, but boy howdy did it scream potential—there were all those cute girls, and a Chik-Fil-A too. It was near what would become the Starbucks I frequented after class, and across the street from the Barnes and Noble where I bought the books that taught me how to dream.
Picture this: It’s 2007 or 2008, around the beginning of what we now call the Great Recession (a time when no new malls were built in America for the first time in 50 years); I’m wearing what we today refer to as “#normcore”—hoodie, baggy jeans, graphic tee, sneakers—and I’m with my bros (Eric, Jerry, Tarango, Jamie), ready to rock out.
What I’ll remember later is cruising around in Jamie’s car at night after we leave. I couldn’t tell you anything I bought on those trips, or why they seemed necessary. I think it might have something to do with all that space—the five largest malls in America take up 2.5 times the area of the Pentagon—and the reality appearance conceals: It’s amazing what you can hide beneath fluorescent lights and an alt-rock soundtrack. I have spent countless hours in malls in the U.S. and abroad, and I remember almost none of them. What I can recall is washed out. But it doesn’t matter because every hour—say, 1/24th of my life and counting—was largely the same.