There’s this AI video making the rounds this week on X, aka Twitter. It shows an '80s-era holiday-bedazzled mall, with schmaltzy Christmas music playing, and families strolling about, holding hands, presumably talking about who they love more - Santa Claus or Ronald Reagan.
The VHS timestamp evokes a supposedly simpler time, in an analog shopping world, filled with now dead or near-dead retail concepts like B. Dalton Books, Orange Julius, Sears, and JCPenney. The caption laments the decline of mall culture: “Amazon and private equity killed so much of American life.”
Reading this, I could’ve sworn I heard a record scratch and a voiceover ask, “Wait, what did she say?”
I’m not familiar with the person (or bot) behind the account, but with almost 10 million views and 98,000 likes, her idea has traction. It echoes a line of populist thinking I hear or read about constantly: Big, evil money murdered something good - in this case, the cultural touchstones of your childhood.
This assignment of blame might feel comforting, but it’s completely wrong. You killed the mall. I killed the mall. We all killed the mall, and I’d do it again, because when you clear your mind of all the nostalgic bullshit, you can see that the mall had issues.
I’m as sentimental for the ‘80s as anyone. By my calculations, I peaked physically around June of 1986, and I stopped caring about pop culture shortly after Tears for Fears released Songs From the Big Chair in 1985.
That same year, I served ice cream at Atlanta’s Perimeter Mall Häagen-Dazs, where we thought it hysterical to pretend the scoopers were microphones, and sing “Raspberry Sorbet” along to Prince’s “Raspberry Beret.” We were young and beautiful, with heads full of dreams and full heads of hair.
So, I’m no mall hater. But the first part of her comment, “It’s actually criminal how many of these are gone,” implies that we should yearn for gentler days when behemoth retailers like Sears anchored the town squares of the time.
Sears was a great concept 100 years ago when 98% of Americans lived on farms, and 46% of female babies were named either Martha or Gertrude. The retailer’s mail-order business served this widely-dispersed, agrarian population with a broad offering of corn seed, hammers, and frilly Sunday dresses.
So yeah, if your era’s best technology meant getting your fashion from the same place you acquired your farm implements and toilet brushes, Sears was the best.
Decades later, in the ‘70s and ‘80s, suburban Sears stores retained this general store vibe. I remember going there with my mom to buy Toughskin jeans (KidsXL, Husky), which were less denim and more industrial-grade canvas that only became pliable after 400 washings. While perusing clothes at Sears, you were treated to the aroma of fresh tires and sounds of carburetor repairs wafting over from the Automotive section, 100 yards away.
So no, private equity didn’t force anyone to abandon these stores. We quit going to Sears because it wasn’t cool. We opted for the Gap, nicer department stores, or —if you lived in New Jersey—Chess King.
Specialty retail, then e-commerce, created more satisfying ways to get better versions of the things we wanted. Oh sure, the Sears catalog was still an efficient way for a young fella to peruse women’s bras and panties in the privacy of his family’s basement, but eventually technological innovations also replaced that part of the company’s value proposition.
Today we might remember malls as some Edenic paradise, but they were not. Lines were long. Parking was limited. And, over time, malls became dangerous.
From 2019-2024, there were ten shootings at the two malls closest to where I lived in Atlanta. Ten! Is that private equity’s fault?
These complexes are in the wealthiest zip code in the Southeast, yet none of the gunmen were wearing fleece vests emblazoned with “KKR,” “Blackstone,” or “Amazon Corporate Development.”
Collectively, we let the mall die because, as a society, we accept this bullshit. Instead of fighting to keep public spaces safe or mustering the will to look for parking, we just say “fuck it,” open the Amazon app, and shop from the security of our couch.
Bezos didn’t put a gun to anyone’s head and make them buy razors or Shetland wool sweaters from him. He just created a hassle-free way to get the things we need while not getting shot and still having time to go for a run.
Over a couple decades, tens of billions of your and my voluntary, micro choices added up to macro societal changes, including the closing of many malls. But it feels good to blame our discomfort with a shifting world on faceless, presumably evil actors who stole our culture and our youth.
For anyone out there lamenting the demise of Sears, I have good news - it’s still around. It’s called Costco. You should check it out - they have great hot dogs.
Not sure if they carry Toughskins.
THE END
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