For years, the mall has been a symbol of consumerism, criticized by many for being a hub of company greed and a tell of the downfall of America. Shops crowded with pushy customers, food courts swarmed with mouths full of greasy meals and tacky, out-dated music played way too loud in your ear every time you entered a Forever 21. To top it all off, once you finally got out, your car was nowhere to be seen in the parking space you could’ve sworn you left it in and thirty minutes would pass by before you eventually found it.
It’s a hellscape filled with lingering teenagers and rows of stores, designed to make people spend money they don’t need to spend. But as malls continue to disappear and people continue turning to online shopping to avoid the inconvenience of it all, it’s becoming clear that through all the negatives, malls offer something else too.
People have overlooked what malls functioned as socially. Although economically they represented a sour side of American culture, they were a third space for young people, families, old mall-walkers, and babies babbling in the child care units. At the heart of it, malls were a free space to go, and a suggestion to your middle school friend group on a Saturday afternoon. You weren’t required to purchase anything upon entering and they were safe, accessible, and air conditioned.
The downfall of mall culture is especially transparent in teenagers. This used to be a place for teens to hang out for hours. It used to be a harbinger of independence, their first time without a chaperone, their first job, their first piercing in a Claire’s.
It allowed a space for teens to come into their own and develop social skills. You could have casual interactions, ones that weren’t digital or scheduled. People-watching, loitering, just existing; all were okay in the mall because it was a low pressure way to just be around other humans. You didn’t have to pay for a ticket or sign up for a time slot weeks in advance, you could walk in and just be.
Now, in the modern shift to online shopping, companies have begun to prioritize e-commerce. Convenience is what champions and physical presence loses its value more and more everyday. The pandemic simply accelerated what capitalistic culture was already calling for.
Because of this, shopping has moved online, stores are shrinking and closing and the foot traffic of the mall is declining. But when nothing has moved in to replace it as a third space, that’s when the ramifications happen.
Social life has moved online too. Hanging out has become more planned and more expensive. These days it’s hard to find something to do that doesn’t require money, whether that be coffee shops, fast food, or movie theaters and their ever-rising ticket prices. The issue isn’t the mall fading out of style, it’s that nothing is replacing it.
Yes, malls were commercial but so is everything else in America. Despite its imperfections, it gave people a place to gather without expectation. As it fades, capitalistic retail won’t go with it, it’s the community that will.
At the end of the day, we did it to ourselves. Our American values begged for convenience and ease and shouted out for the type of polarization that makes you side eye a pushy stranger for reasons other than just a nudge on the shoulder. Hopefully we’ll see the rekindling of third spaces in the next few years when their absence will make society realize their importance.