Growing up in the 90’s and lived through the Y2K as a teenager, I remember malls as one of the staple hanging out spots. From food court to music store, bowling arena to cinema, gym to flower shop; it sure was a bustling community hub. It almost had everything.
Briefly as a background, I’ll start off from my personal experience. I lived in the city throughout my childhood and there were a few malls in the area. I vividly remember when I was in high school, me and my friends would head to the mall once school was over. When we are not at each others’ houses, we would hang out for a few hours at some fast food chain in the mall since that’s what we could afford anyway. I was never into fast food but I was happy just being there with them because we would talk about how we could save the world once we’re grown and rich.
We shared drinks, foods, books, clothes, dreams, and ambitions. We would walk around the mall just to window shop. Commenting on cute clothes, accessories, books, and stationery that we found. Sometimes even go as far as trying them on, or buy what we liked with the allowance money we’ve collected.
At times, the mall would have an event showcasing local products and talents. Embracing the community and supporting local businesses. We would find adorable handmade trinkets made by home industries and some personalised items you could make on the spot. It was impressionable to our young minds.
Additionally, I remember my parents were extremely busy and usually only available on the weekend. Often times for as long as I could recall, on Saturday evening we would head down to the mall and have family dinner or a little shopping. It would be our go-to weekend destination when we didn’t have anything else planned. It almost feels like our own little ‘tradition.’
Let’s be real here. Shopping malls are the focal points of capitalism and consumerism. Built and nurtured by the imperialistic system that doesn’t favour the wellbeing of people at all. It makes me wonder how much of myself are associated with those especially since I was used to normalising it in my younger years. I am way older now and I have been reconceptualising plenty of what I thought I knew. Capitalism does make you complicit and it’s almost impossible to escape its lethal embrace. I am referring to those days where I aimlessly bought items just because I thought it was cute, or when my mom said it would look good on me, or when my friend said it would be cool to just ‘have’ it. What was I thinking? You could tell how conflicted I am about these whole experience. I was in my own bubble of ignorance and I guess so were the people around me back then. But beating myself up about it won’t solve a thing - actions will.
For almost 8 years now, I have switched from conventional shopping to prioritising high-quality secondhand items. I plan every meals and groceries so I don’t waste produce. Although most of my personal skincare and toiletries are Certified B Corp, cruelty-free, and vegan, I still struggle with my usage of tissues, plastic, and glass waste. In addition, I cook and eat at home often and those wastes are mainly coming from cooking ingredients packaging. I try to reuse what I can for storage as best as I could then resell the leftovers in flea market. I still have guilty pleasures like leather boots and perfumes but I stick to what-is-needed basis and opt for secondhand & leather fabric for boots and natural ingredients for perfumes. Instead of what I want, I ask myself what I need before purchasing items. I read about the brands from which I will be purchasing and make sure I am a well-informed and conscious customer. Since warmer weather is approaching, I am going to try composting again on the balcony and try my luck growing my own food by using the 5L plastic water bottle as plant pot. I’m about to find out whether or not I have green thumb.
I am aware that my experience might not be all too relatable, privileged, and even outdated. I’d love to know about yours. How was it when you were in high school? Do you have a go-to hangout spots with your friends?
Perhaps for me, it was more about the companies than the place itself. Perhaps it’s the warm memories of nostalgia from a young girl who didn’t know better; when grades and school work seemed to be the only things she worry about. Although now as an adult, I looked back and can’t help but to nitpick on those memories. I started to analyse and realised how formative these memories were to me. Up to these days, I am still associating or expecting Saturday evening with ‘going out.’ Even when I am travelling somewhere, in my head I would be wondering if there’s any mall in the area and what’s available there; with no clear intention of buying anything. I wonder if shopping malls are designed in a way that forces you to spend.
Referring to this teenage memories of mine, I wonder if today’s teenagers and young adults have more or less the same perception of shopping malls. Are shopping malls still on their top destinations when it comes to hanging out? Or it’s no longer the norm to hangout there? As I’ve mentioned before when I was a young teenager then, it was the spot.
Theorising the replies to my own questions based from my personal observations and articles I’ve read, shopping malls are dead - or at least almost.
According to a study done by Wolfgang Fengler and Homi Kharas from Brookings in 2021, the global middle class - or also termed the consumer class, is expected to reach 4.8 billion people by 2030. It’s 1.3 billion more people with increased purchasing power than in 2020. The consumption rate is immense and in no way declining any time soon. So, shouldn’t shopping malls thrive instead of dying? Well, there are other factors at play such as:
The convenience of online shopping
The pandemic solidified the concept of not going out. Within a few clicks on your phone or computer, you can purchase groceries among many other things. It’ll arrive on your doorstep in a couple days or even a couple hours without having to talk to anyone. After the pandemic, the culture remains and strengthens. Now you can almost browse and buy anything from the internet on a whim. There’s no need for real human contact. Because why spent hours walking and browsing items in person when you can do it from the comfort of your couch just by scrolling through your phone?
Costly rent & maintenance price
Since online shopping went mainstream, less and less people are heading to the mall which means less customers for the stores. No customers mean no revenue. Without revenue, it becomes harder for stores and kiosks to pay for their rent and maintenance fare. When this lasts, stores have no option but to vacant their space and call it a day. This could mean retail store vacancies in the mall causing them to go out of business since nobody could afford renting and selling anything anymore; resulting in
Old-fashioned mall model
Co-working space, pop-up shops, and outlet villages are some of many modern retail spaces which can make mainstream shopping mall designs outdated. People are no longer just looking for products but also experiences that might come from a collective space. Instead of limiting themselves into a place to shop for products exclusively, plenty of modern shopping malls these days have turned themselves into activities centre. That doesn’t necessarily mean progress or a good thing. For the most part, if you want to participate in those activities you still have to go through a paywall. Let’s not forget that shopping malls are essentially still for consumption and the privileged.
The rise of fast fashion
The endless trends which seem to emerge every other week; supported and exacerbated by fast fashion and social media, are challenging for retail stores. It’s almost impossible to keep up with every single trends that transpire including for these traditional retail stores in shopping mall. Since these fast fashion brands are probably way cheaper, massively produced, and quick on their feet when it comes to trends, traditional stores will continue to struggle to match their sales. Which might resort in them going bankrupt or opt for a less sustainable practices in their business conduct.
Scarce foot traffic
You don’t need a physical store anymore to sell your products because of online shopping. After the pandemic - and for those who are privileged enough to stay home, people find it less convenient to head to the shopping mall just to buy a few items since these days most things can be delivered anyway. But this is actually ‘hurting’ those retail stores. With fewer people visiting their in-person, offline stores that only means less flow for their revenue. In addition, outdated and empty malls offer less activity or events which further reduced the foot-traffic and produced no leads for the retail stores.
These factors above constitute several challenges for shopping malls to remain relevant in today’s consumption climate. Even with the soaring consumption rate, I fail to see how it will warrant its revival. That’s fine by me if it means less waste being dumped irresponsibly to mother nature. However, that’s not the case. I fear with the escalation of consumption rate that would only mean more waste discarded; which leads to waste ending up in landfills. When it comes to number of waste - especially plastic, the chart is dishearteningly increasing every year. According to SAFE (Safe Food Advocacy for Europe), one-third of plastic waste - or 69.5 million tons, will be mismanaged and end up in the natural environment. In addition, currently 66% of the global population lives in areas where plastic waste exceeds local management capacity. Certainly not reassuring, isn’t it?
Around the area where I’m currently at, there are a few modern outdoor outlet villages more than the traditional shopping malls. It’s not a walking distance and one still needs a few bus rides to get there. So, visiting them is a rare occasion especially if it’s just for window shopping. In fact, I haven’t been to a traditional mall since forever now that I thought about it.
I’m not entirely displeased about shopping malls becoming obsolete. This article was written because I started to contemplate about my adolescence years and wondered if today’s teenagers experience similar independent shopping experience with their allowance money. It made me question if the traditional shopping malls are still the staple community hub and it might meant freedom for most teenagers. Perhaps not?
I’d like to think that in general people make better decision than their previous bad ones. Study speculates that consumer behaviours and shopping trends have and will remain shifted to a more sustainable consumption. It theorises that more people are becoming a responsible shopper and conscious about their choice of products. However, I can’t help but be skeptical about this forecast. In the Western world, the irony of sustainable and environmentally-friendly products are often accompanied by the exploitation of workers in the global South. Textile and fashion waste alone are being left untreated and deemed unsolvable. It also seems like these numbers aren’t declining anytime soon.
As much as I love to end my writings on a good note, I am afraid I might not know how to. Here I was - having a burst of ideas, pondering about my teenage years and the old-school shopping malls I went to with some friends, yet I ended up preaching about waste and landfills. Due to my political science background combined with my food waste management study, I feel like it’s an obligation of mine to inform anyone who would listen. The damage of overconsumption is real and can no longer be ignored. It’s taking over every inch of our lives. We literally have microplastics in our brains.
If the death of old-school symbolism of capitalism and consumerism means less waste, preservation of natural resources, and prosperity to the working class - then it might be something I can get down with. Nevertheless, so far that’s not the case. The symbols are merely replaced by phenomenon that is much more sinister - such as fast fashion and exploitation of workers & resources.
Perchance, not all traditions are worth preserving. With that, I rest my case.
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Love it! I think this resonates with so many ppl around the globe. This isn’t just a local thing. Most of us used to hang out in malls with our friends, talk and window shop, cause we didn’t have another care in the world. It was the place we wanted to be, and a very sacred way of hanging out
to answer your questions: when i was in middle school, i used to live in a small village, where the only things to do was wander through the grocery store or eat kebab by the park. our hang-out spots were our school, each other's house and the park. however, when i was in high-school, we started to hang out in the city, our hang-out were mostly about food and culture. we would eat at a fast-food, like you said, it was the only thing we could afford, and we would go to the cinema. i don't have memories of myself going to the mall with friends, though we probably went as well. yet i don't think we were big consumers.
anyways, i adored this essay! i keep believing that feeling guilty about consuming too much what is not needed, is the way to stop doing it. so this makes sense for me to hope that everyone start feeling a bit more guilty :p thank you for this!