Current Events > 1993 mall video

(+) Yeah! (+)

https://youtu.be/c_jiYCvV5Ik?t=70

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I was 12 when this was filmed. such a different time. even before covid, malls have been slowly dying for years

That made me sad

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It's crazy how malls went from essential to obsolete/inferior altogether apart from like the food courts. You couldn't really shop as strategically as you do now so what you saw was seemingly the best you could find most of the time. It's become a lost part of lifestyle. You couldn't count on surely knowing, but just believing and making the best judgement you could in the moment. May not be the smartest purchases, yet they were more exciting that way. I'd be nagging my mom to take me to EB or whatever to get the game, etc I wanted.

But now if you're a smart person, you can do all the research in the world and much of the time the answer is shopping online. I guess it's great though because now I can pursue the things I wanted as a kid. Finding things is much more possible.

Then there was arcades, doing dumb shit like playing tag and getting kicked out.

I sometimes look back at my local malls to see if old footage was captured. I guess this is what it feels like to get old. Get all nostalgic. A little sad that I kinda can't remember every last detail perfectly anymore.


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Outside of literally everyone being white, this was the same exact experience of a mall here in NJ.

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This is like retro porn for Duncan.
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I still like going to malls, there's so many things I would rather see in person before buying. Online shopping is great for hard to find stuff but nothing is worse than reading reviews for a pair of shoes and half the people saying "buy a size up" and the other half saying "buy half a size up" and not being able to just try it on.

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KaZooo posted...

It's crazy how malls went from essential to obsolete/inferior altogether apart from like the food courts. You couldn't really shop as strategically as you do now so what you saw was seemingly the best you could find most of the time. It's become a lost part of lifestyle. You couldn't count on surely knowing, but just believing and making the best judgement you could in the moment. May not be the smartest purchases, yet they were more exciting that way. I'd be nagging my mom to take me to EB or whatever to get the game, etc I wanted.

But now if you're a smart person, you can do all the research in the world and much of the time the answer is shopping online. I guess it's great though because now I can pursue the things I wanted as a kid. Finding things is much more possible.

Then there was arcades, doing dumb shit like playing tag and getting kicked out.

I sometimes look back at my local malls to see if old footage was captured. I guess this is what it feels like to get old. Get all nostalgic. A little sad that I kinda can't remember every last detail perfectly anymore.

Would you happen to be aware of vaporwave?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HM22jCRQ1is

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Evening_Dragon posted...

Would you happen to be aware of vaporwave?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HM22jCRQ1is

eh, heard of it, but not into it or really know much of it.

Speaking of which, I do remember KMart. I vividly remember not liking it. Our location wasn't well lit, Aisles always had stuff on the floor instead of shelves. Why my dad went there, I'll never understand.

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KaZooo posted...

It's crazy how malls went from essential to obsolete/inferior altogether apart from like the food courts. You couldn't really shop as strategically as you do now so what you saw was seemingly the best you could find most of the time. It's become a lost part of lifestyle. You couldn't count on surely knowing, but just believing and making the best judgement you could in the moment. May not be the smartest purchases, yet they were more exciting that way. I'd be nagging my mom to take me to EB or whatever to get the game, etc I wanted.

But now if you're a smart person, you can do all the research in the world and much of the time the answer is shopping online. I guess it's great though because now I can pursue the things I wanted as a kid. Finding things is much more possible.

Then there was arcades, doing dumb shit like playing tag and getting kicked out.

I sometimes look back at my local malls to see if old footage was captured. I guess this is what it feels like to get old. Get all nostalgic. A little sad that I kinda can't remember every last detail perfectly anymore.

Yeah this is something I think about quite a bit. I mean obviously you had some game magazines and you could eventually poke around online and read some reviews. But the game you wanted might not be there when you got to the store, and without a phone you just kind of had to adjust on the fly. That plus generally higher prices and being a child and you were just sort of forced to get the enjoyment you could out of what was there. It's a totally different feel than browsing the eshop for fire sales

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Malls were in decline long before Amazon appeared, and served no useful purpose after.

Questionmarktarius posted...

Malls were in decline long before Amazon appeared, and served no useful purpose after.

Wat I don't think that's true. Long before Amazon? I feel like that's an exaggeration

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Jeff Bezos has taken everything from us

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Balrog0 posted...

Long before Amazon?

Remember that awesome "mall chase" near the end of Blues Brothers? That mall was already defunct.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dixie_Square_Mall

I was 50

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Questionmarktarius posted...

Malls were in decline long before Amazon appeared, and served no useful purpose after.

Nah. Malls were fine when Amazon was just book trading, and even when Amazon introduced Prime in 2005, Malls were still chugging along. It was the early aughts when the decline was really noticeable.

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The big tragedy here, and a huge contributor to malls dying off, is Sears.
They were already doing Amazon's gimmick nearly a century earlier, but could not or would not adapt to the internet for some reason.

Questionmarktarius posted...

Remember that awesome "mall chase" near the end of Blues Brothers? That mall was already defunct.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dixie_Square_Mall

Look I found this article specifically to agree with my position. I can't be wrong.

https://www.businessinsider.com/the-rise-and-fall-of-the-american-mall-2020-7


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Anyway, I personally only noticed the decline in malls later 00s, like 2007-2008 I think. I'm sure they were struggling before then but I just remember the recession doing some work

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KaZooo posted...

eh, heard of it, but not into it or really know much of it.

Speaking of which, I do remember KMart. I vividly remember not liking it. Our location wasn't well lit, Aisles always had stuff on the floor instead of shelves. Why my dad went there, I'll never understand.

That's like every KMart nowadays, real shame. Back in the day, it was one of the few places to have the real weeb shit, Gundam TCGs and Zoids models.

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Balrog0 posted...

https://www.businessinsider.com/the-rise-and-fall-of-the-american-mall-2020-7

That third bullet-point in the summary, tho.

A rough summary of what happened, from anecdotes:

1. Too many many malls were built too close together
2. Walmart killed off Wards
3. Consoles killed off arcades
4. Amazon killed off Sears
5. Penney's is actively killing itself.

The sudden collapse of Wards began the death-spiral. The rest just sorta happened as an inevitability.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Montgomery_Ward

bump

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1993 was a good year

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Wow, my local mall sucks compared to this. lol

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Man, look at those bulky TVs and that book store without a hint of harry potter in it was kind of a rare find lol

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Wow, I've never seen Wal-Mart as a mall anchor store before. Weird.


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Look how huge that arcade was. Remember those?

Boombam99 posted...

Look how huge that arcade was. Remember those?

They still exist, you just gotta hit up the right places. It's not about how huge the arcade is these days though, it's about how empty they are.

The one in the video was flooded with people. Today's arcades are ghost towns

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There is one big indoor mall left in Omaha that is still busy like that. Westroads Mall. Even after a mass shooting happened there like 12 years ago it remained the busiest mall.

Or at least it was pre-Covid, I haven't been there since.


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I was thinking parts of this look modern to me, since that's still largely how my two local malls look on the inside. Weird.
And man that movie store, (Suncoast?) looked fun and appealing, like I wanna go in there and look around at their 80s/90s movies.

JuanCarlos1 posted...

Jeff Bezos has taken everything from us

Hehehe

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Evening_Dragon posted...

Outside of literally everyone being white, this was the same exact experience of a mall here in NJ.

Now when I go to a mall in NJ Im the only white person in there. No problem with that though. Just pointing it out. And Im not even exaggerating.

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=41jCCyT5wuA

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weekoldhotdog posted...

Today's arcades are ghost towns

the price of each game is off putting.
lot of arcade games feel hollow. no collectibles, character leveling etc just high scores. this was fine back then since home games weren't much different but doesn't fly anymore.

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The same year Jurassic Park hit theaters.

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Public smoking, definitely the 90s. I can distinctly here the 80s soft rock bands playing in my head.

Some kids from the local arcade used to take cigarette butts from those ashtrays and smoke em out back lol

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Evening_Dragon posted...

Outside of literally everyone being white, this was the same exact experience of a mall here in NJ.

Yeah malls haven't changed here at all

Aside from the doomsday virus the Crabtree Mall in Raleigh always stays fairly busy depending on time of day.

Some stores move in and out though.

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The arcade back home was called The Goldmine.

But they were dark with carpet and wall decorations made for black lights.

Only lights were from the monitors and cigarettes.

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KaZooo posted...

eh, heard of it, but not into it or really know much of it.

Speaking of which, I do remember KMart. I vividly remember not liking it. Our location wasn't well lit, Aisles always had stuff on the floor instead of shelves. Why my dad went there, I'll never understand.

sounds about right

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idk why but I really miss the early 90s mall atmosphere. I guess consumerism is so engrained in me Im nostalgic for it.

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Funny how here in Canada malls are still a pretty big deal. We don't have access to a lot of online shopping like Americans do, so malls keep on trucking, albeit with a high store turnover rate.

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damn those vibes
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Aside from Kmart we had a Hill's and Magic Mart.

Hill's was bought out by Ames and I was surprised to see that some Magic Marts were still around by 2018.

Ours closed in the late 80s.


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Ames oh shit I remember them

and Jamesway

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:(

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i remember kmarts and targets used to have a candy bar where you can fill up a cup with whatever you want for a set price.

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