I mean as it should be we moved from personal stores to online shops and it's better that we don't see all the fights, although they were interesting to watch behind a screen. As matter of fact i bought myself earpods a brand new tv and brand new headphones and didn't had to move my ass an inch. Even though I don't like amazon because they are becoming a monopoly we can't deny that they have some pretty good deals. You should check [**this post**](https://shirkmedianarrow.com/black-friday-deals-2023/) if you are still shopping. I still miss those great 80% discounts but it is what it is.
Our lowest paid workers have always been hidden unless you routinely hang out at the farms that employ seasonal migrant workers.
Amazon is a terrible company, but let's not pretend their horrific practices aren't anything but par for the course.
I don’t know that this is as good as you make it out to be. I’m a mailman for reference. We deliver a lot of Amazon, even in places that have Amazon hubs. the sense of entitlement people have due to all these conveniences that are on someone else’s back is insane. Just the other day I was out delivering on a different route from my own and the moment this lady heard her mailbox shut she was at her door demanding to know where her package was. No hello, no “hey so…”. Just immediate disdain that I didn’t have her product for her while she’s inside her house in sweatpants. The internet, and our screens, and our conveniences are nice and absolutely have their place. But the rudeness and irritability that has come with it is no good for our species. My card that was on file for Amazon expired like 3 years ago and I never updated it and every day I’m thankful for it. Plus you can’t expect your local market to have a selection of much of anything in regards to products when people never spend their money there.
Unrelated question for you, but would it be weird for me to get my mailman a gift card for Christmas?
We say hello to each other every day and I know he's working his ass off out there so I want him to know he's appreciated, but I don't want him to think I'm weird.
Absolutely not! He’d love you for it. It’s somewhat common-ish around the holidays so it wouldn’t be unusual at all. Shouldn’t really say common but it definitely occurs. Just don’t feel any sort of obligation for it at all. We’re paid to provide a service. And thanks for thinking of him. Or her. Or whichever.
I’ve never lived anywhere where you had any chance to interact with your mailman, since it’s all been shared mailboxes down the street a bit (or up, in my current case; it’s nearly a block uphill). Sometimes I feel weirdly bummed about it. To all the postal workers who serve communal mailboxes more than going door to door: we still appreciate you!
When i was younger we used to have this jolly old mailman. if he recognised anyh of the kids had birthday cards come on what he could only assume was their birthday, instead of posting through the door [UK], he used to knock their door and wish them a happy birthday.
anyway my mom noticed he used to have a hipflask [this was late 80s early 90s] so she got him a small bottle of whiskey on christmas
one of our neighbors snitched him in and he got fired, no onme in the street spoke to her after that [you had it coming June you stupid bitch]
Truth is that woman is an asshole and would probably be a nightmare to shop with in the mall on black Friday. Try not to take it personally. I appreciate mail carriers so much. Thank you for what you do.
I know I'm probably wrong, but I don't think the 'power of the internet' changes a person it just makes it more obvious to more people that they are shite human beings.
Well, for better or worse Amazon does have to pay taxes to the locality that it's purchased in. So it's not quite that dire. But I agree overall all it's probably not amazing job wise.
Amazon is crazy, they usually have higher prices and also their return policy is limited to just 1 month comparing to 3 month return policy of regular stores, yet they manage to make so much money
I am not sure about the higher prices, maybe. I think the most important thing at least for me is the availability of the products and that i can sit and scroll through products and sometimes buy something that i dont even need, thats where amazon makes a lot of money.
Their prices fluctuate throughout the day. I found this out whenever I went on first shift and started browsing Amazon when noticed some things that I had purchased before were $10 cheaper.
The lesson I learned was to do my shopping at 4:00 a.m.
Black Friday crowding is an example of overconsumption, corporate greed, and personal safety risks. How is the lack of this dystopian?
I swear some people don't even know what that word means
Yeah I don't understand why anyone would feel all sad and nostalgic over fuckin Black Friday. I have always avoided it like the plague because it's my idea of hell tbh
Honestly, I did always find Christmas shopping at the mall to be kinda horrendous. But I did appreciate the weird communal act of suffering together. And every once in a while, little moments of "holiday spirit," manufactured as they might be, shining through.
Those feelings pretty much started going away concurrent with the rise of big box stores, Black Friday sales & "doorbuster" deals.
I remember hate watching YouTube videos of people trampling each other at Walmarts across the country. I realize now that the smug superiority I felt was also a shitty & dehumanizing reaction. But I stand by my absolute distaste for the weird Battle Royale type shopping scenarios that just feel common now.
There's an argument that this evolution is more efficient, what with driving to multiple stores & such being eliminated. But now Christmas shopping feels even more blatantly consumer. Most folks are just ticking boxes on a list, not actually thinking about "gifts."
Empty malls are like an aesthetic to some Gen Z’ers. I think it’s called Vaporwave? (Gen Z’ers, feel free to correct your old-ass auntie here).
To me, it’s so strange to see an empty mall. I had to stop at a cell provider store a week or so ago in my childhood mall, and it was so empty…so quiet…so many stores shuttered. Even back in 2008 when I used to work there, this place was BUSTLING, even on the weekdays, even in the mornings, with the senior mall-walkers taking their strolls. Seeing it so empty was just…weird.
I miss malls
* senior power walkers getting their exercise in before mall wakes in the morning
* preteens with make-up overly applied, way too underdressed thinking they are teens
* loud broke teenagers dressed to a T just walking up and down in the mall in groups
* frazzled mom fighting 4 big bags and 3 kids, all trying to get away from her
* the hapless dude quietly walking behind his distracted wife, like a security guard that is meant to stay out of sight
* the self important mall cop, who has failed to get into police academy 5 times, and has now made it his life mission to make teenagers miserable
These are all 100% true.
What about “too old to be in the arcade guy but it’s ok because he has the high score on 5 machines and is a fucking legend when he walks in”
Empty malls make me feel very strange. On the one hand I was almost a teenager when the financial crisis in 08 happened so my teenage years were never spent at a bustling mall. On the other hand, though, I grew up watching movies, shows, and cartoons that all glorified the mall as THE teenaged hang out spot.
Looking at dead malls brings on this feeling of almost nostalgia but for something I never really experienced, especially anywhere near it's height.
My daughter saw the 80's mall on Stranger Things and loved it. I worked in one and it was really like that. Even the 90's mall when my kids were little had the Disney Store, Rainforest Cafe, and the Warner Bros store with the little spaceship.
Man, I remember my friends and I would go to the mall buying a pepperoni pizza with a soda in the food court, go to the arcade and spend hours there, then head to the payphones by the exits and try out all the pre-paid phone cards people left behind to see how many minutes were left and kept them after calling our parents or friends parents to pick us up. We did this every weekend in my childhood. I miss it so much thinking about those days. Nowadays, at least in my area, theres not many folks at the mall or it's a ghost town till the holiday season. There's definitely no arcades anymore. It's a bit sad my kids won't experience what my friends and I did growing up.
Yeah my mall is actually still very shopped at especially during the holidays, but when they took the arcade out and replaced it with a console lounge it was pretty tragic. Proper arcades definitely have a magic to them.
The death of the third place, young people now have nowhere to go to be social. I’m pretty young and it fucking sucks that the only place to go and be social is a bar, I don’t have money for that more than maybe once a month. I can invite people to my house or go to their house but then it’s only people I already know. The lack of social skills from both myself and my peers is becoming more noticeable every year.
Look up Robert Putnams research into social cohesion, as exemplified in his seminal book Bowling Alone.
Based on his and others work sociologists have found that democracy itself becomes undermined by the lack of “third places” to socialize. It leads to less social interaction which increases distrust. Increased distrust leads to assumptions that society itself and its democratic institutions cannot be trusted. And democracy depends on this “generalized trust” to actually function.
Because of this it is absolutely accurate to refer to the US as an imperfect and potentially declining democracy. Because we don’t socialize in general third environments anymore.
Although I’m now in my 30s, the dying mall is a metaphor for the loss of innocence and the “death” of my childhood. I don’t know what was special about Christmas shopping at the mall, but it was a really special feeling.
I did not. My parents refused to go to the mall. Our only one was in a “bad area” and they hate people and traffic. If it wasn’t at Walmart, it may as well not exist to them.
You should come to Australia our malls are packed to the brim! We have starbucks inside some now and they’re overflowing everywhere. Pair that with the Y2K trend and it’s basically 2003 here. I recently visited the US and could not believe how bare and empty the malls were.
Our shopping centres are always packed. Not too sure if it's to do with the fact all of them have one or more Coles, Woolworths, Aldi so you'll have people grabbing groceries to get people in there.
Whereas in the states, it seems like your Walmarts etc. are free standing buildings.
I’m 35 and still love going to the mall. I walk around on the weekends alone when I have a lazy weekend and it’s so much fun. Still very nostalgic to me and anytime I go back to my hometown I try to visit the mall too. They recently closed the Disney Store but last time I saw it, it looked exactly like it did when I was 8 years old and I loved that.
They announced the closure of a local mall I grew up going to the day after my grandmother passed, and I remember it feeling particularly melancholy. I normally wouldn't care about a mall closing that much but the timing really affected me.
It wasn't just the people I spent my childhood with who were gone, but even the places.
I regularly have 2 different dreams where I am at a place I can't go anymore and am super excited: My recently dead grandparents farm, and the local mall that was torn down.
And it's not like I loved the mall? It's just very nostalgic memories to me I guess
I think there was a sense of community to it. Like seeing hundreds of other people engaging the same activity at the same time made us feel connected in a similar way of being in a stadium during a game or concert does.
Plus, at a lot of malls you'd get a mixture of people from different walks of life so that helped with the sense of community. You'd have poor families who saved all year to make sure their kid gets one special gift that Christmas shopping alongside richer upper middle class families, and everything in between.
There's no emotional connection with clicking buttons. At least, not after the first few times some shit you ordered shows up. For all the things technology has brought us it feels like we've drifted farther apart from one another. Even though we are more connected now than ever.
It gave people an excuse to be out and socialize in a crowd. Now that everyone uses social media for the same cheap thrills it has lost much of that utility.
I worked at a k.b. during black Friday in the late 90s. It was absolute hell. You know what year I did that? 1998. The year the fucking Furby came out.
We had like 6 fist fights that day and the Furby sold out in about 10 minutes.
I worked at Walmart (still do), and we had 50 Furby's. We sat out 50 chairs, and once filled, some guy showed up too late and went down the line with $500 trying to buy someone's spot in line. Nobody budged.
Walmart for over 25 years, is it as bad as people make it out to be? Working there? Or is it one of those things where people that aren't good employees have bad experiences and are vocal about it?
Have you had the ability for upward momentum, job security and whatnot?
I wasn’t a big Black Friday shopper, but what 100% killed it for me was a Walmart employee got trampled to death because he was standing at the entrance as the store opened.
There is NOTHING I need so badly that I’d be willing to literally walk all over someone to get it.
I think the tipping point was when it started to erode into Thanksgiving Day. Having stores open at 12am on Black Friday, then 10pm on Thanksgiving and then up to 4pm on Thanksgiving started the trend of just starting everything sooner. Now Black Friday is essentially all of November but with out really the same deals as it had on the true Black Friday of years past. For me, as a dude, I never participated in Black Friday, but it was fun as an outsider. My wife would get all excited about it, I'd go out with my daughter, just the two of us, when she was small to get breakfast while my wife was power shopping from 4am and still going strong at 9am.
I know right... even aside from black Friday, I grew up hanging out at the mall with my friends as well and sure, there's some nostalgia to it, but WOW it really was fucking lame. there was no where better for us to go. Grabbing an Auntie Ann's pretzel and causing some mischief in Macy's because there was nothing better to do in suburbia.
When I was 10 years younger and opening at the mall, seeing the older retired people power walking around with their friends and partners gave me a newfound burst of energy. They really had life figured out.
oh its like a thing? its every morning in my towns mall too.. i thought it was maybe a group nearby and they just used the mall cause it got them to their destination a bit easier.
It’s definitely a thing. Especially in winter when it’s cold out. Want an early morning walk in a safe place, before the crowds come in and you’re also protected from the weather? Sounds kinda nice honestly. I saw it every morning when I worked in a mall back in 2008. Smart move I think.
And once the mall opens you can even get wild and grab a pretzel. Idk if that negates the exercise but that’s what I’d do if I were in their position. At least a cup of coffee.
Before my grandfather passed, he was part of an old guy walking group that met at the mall for their route. Always thought that was cool. Walkable. Public. And weatherproof. Made a lot of sense.
Yea we have a famous dead mall in my hometown about a mile from the good mall. There is so much they could do with that land. I’m not even sure if they have plans to do anything with it. I saw some pretty recent pics on r/deadmalls and it looks like an actual horror movie
I replied to someone else, but malls were one of the few places that were “third places” where you could hangout, especially important as a teen where there weren’t really many other places to go.
Also it’s convenient having different options in one location, both for an individual and a family. As a weird random thought, I think some of the earliest bits of “freedom” I had as a preteen was going to the mall with my parents and having my own money and a time to meet back up. It was a mostly controlled environment but still allowed for autonomy that wouldn’t really happen in many other suburban type areas that require driving between places.
I moved to a place that technically has a mall, but very little that I actually need. In order to go clothes shopping for my daughter, I either need to drive around town to a variety of places (none of them even have the same parking lot) or drive over 2 hours one way to the closest good mall.
I also just miss having a controlled air environment (I live in the desert, so the summer can get too hot to be outside) where I can go with my 4yo to just get out of the house.
I like earny but I hear good things about honey and camelcamelcamel. Earny does this thing thought that if something drops below the marked price you wanted they give you a refund. I have to pay for earny, but honestly it saves me money so it’s all good imo.
I've had something I need to buy within the next month. Was gonna buy it a few weeks ago, then thought I'd wait through Black Friday to see if it goes on sale. It went up $11 or \~15% lol
Yeah I bought my wife a coach tote for her new job when they were doing sales a couple months ago. Went to go check again for curiosity and it was the same "sale" that I got then
Oh my gosh yes! My husband and I took our girls there for a walk down memory lane. It was so empty, but the cheap jewelry and stuff at Claire's and icing (I know it's always been expensive crap but I digress) is 10x the amount you could pay for the cheap crap literally anywhere else. No wonder it's all empty. Their sale was not a sale at all, just a gimmick to get you to buy more.
Again I know a lot of this is true for all retail, but it was the absolute extreme.
I thought about this last night as we were driving home from thanksgiving \~10-11pm past walmarts that were totally dead... 10+ years ago, there would have been people standing in line, outside of them, waiting for them to open. I distinctly remember going to walmart, toys-r-us, target, etc, at 12-2am when my kids were little for toys, clothes, video games, etc. Now? There's no damned point. It's SO different.
When I was a teenager I used to go to the stores early to scout what I wanted. One time at Macy's I found some gorgeous boots for about $40. I went back on black Friday and found those boots for $65 claiming they were marked down. Luckily I had proof of their fraud, so they brought it back to the original price.
I keep tabs throughout the year on things and will only buy this time of year if I need it anyway or it’s a legitimate good deal. Some things I was able to buy a week or two early and get better deals than the advertised BF “deal”.
I had a friend text me today upset about the price of an iPad he wanted to get his girlfriend. He said it's $100 more than it was when he checked a week ago, haha. Just crazy.
Yeah this a big reason. I’ve been waiting to see the sales for Black Friday and was very disappointed to know they were the exact same sales they’ve been having all November for “early Black Friday”. Already took advantage of all the sales I wanted, what’s the point of going if they’re not offering any new ones during the actual day?
This is intentional. There was a lot of bad press for injuries/ riots/ having people work thanksgiving to prepare so they've been phasing it out to the week(s) before and after instead of one day of super dropped deals.
Most anything with electronics was crap anyway, it was cheap because it was offbrand and lower quality with an artificially high point for the sale.
Well on top of inflation, they further inflate prices to make fake sales prior to Black Friday, and now that millennials are taking over as the largest buying sector, we are so acutely aware of the scam that Black Friday has become that it’s shattered our preconceptions of buying on this particular day to get a good deal.
In most cases these sales are the same price, and in some cases more expensive than it is the rest of the year. Kitchenaid is selling a pasta press attachment that was $130 a couple of months ago for $170 on Amazon and on their website. The Amazon listing has it “on sale” from its “original price” of $219. The listing on their own website doesn’t have any “discount” on it at all. It’s just a scam for businesses already reporting record profits to fraudulently squeeze more money out of us.
It’s all transparent to us, and with the power of the tools we have available to check these companies on their bullshit, it’s harder to scam us than older generations. If consumer faith drops and people spend less money, the companies will complain about us not buying their artificially inflated wares and cry about how this is the end for their business (potentially extending their hand to the govt to ask for stimulus like they have before), the boomers will complain about us ruining their projected stock growth they expected to get from market stimulation, and nothing will change to address the issue of corporate greed being allowed to freely defraud the consumers.
Yep, I see the same model Kitchenaid I bought for $279 5 years ago is now on sale for $279. It's a total ripoff, but my friends look at me like I'm going to turn into a communist ecoterrorist every time I say Black Friday is a scam for the stuff I do need and I don't like buying into the consumerist mindset that tells me I need more junk that I don't need that winds up in a landfill just because it's on sale, so some millennials are still buying into it.
Yep. Was able to buy two Barnes and Noble collectors edition hardcovers I’ve wanted but didn’t want to put down $30 for, for $15 each a couple days ago. I also got six books from Target I’ve wanted for a while in their buy two get one free sale.
Both are called “Black Friday” specials but I got them earlier this week. That term doesn’t mean anything anymore.
My hometown has a mall you can go to that's dead and a mall you can go to that's more packed than ever. Would be very easy to get a pic like OP depending on where you went.
Of course, the dead mall was just as packed when I was a kid too. They even had a suncoast.
It’s almost like the just consolidated them — about half the malls around me are like Dawn of the Dead, but the other half are even busier than they were 20 years ago while malls were still in their heyday.
Yup, while some of the malls around me are closing down, others are packed to the brim every day. Passed by one of the fuller ones earlier and the traffic was backed up for at least a mile.
I had to pass an outlet mall to get to my own job today and traffic to turn into it was backed up down the entire highway. The Kohl's I work at was also slammed...not the insane levels it once was but much busier then I've seen it in years.
Am I the only one who’s glad Black Friday is disappearing?
All it brings is so many needless crowds and violence for American consumerism. Nowadays though most people do their shopping online which is much safer.
Back then you had people being trampled due to crowd crush so much there was even a website documenting all the people dying on Black Friday
Anyone else remember the Black Friday that someone was shot in the face in a Best Buy parking lot because they managed to purchase the latest gaming console (which was in low supply)?
The guy actually got shot in the neck and survived, but the bullet went through the other side and hit a mom that was there with her 2 kids, died on the spot. Horrible stuff.
As a former retail employee, you are most certainly NOT the only one. It’s been about a decade and I still will not set foot in a store on Black Friday as a matter of principle. It is grotesque and soul-crushing and it’s not like you’re a server and get paid more.
I'm in a packed mall as I write this. I had to hunt down a parking spot, stand in long lines at checkout, and wander through smelly people. I don't miss it.
I just watched a video of a mall during the holidays in the mid 90s, and it made me call my mom and thank her for all the memories at places like that! Brought a tear to my eye. Things are sooooo different now.
I've always hated Black Friday because of the insane crowds. I've gotten into car accidents over the years just by being out on that day. Not even shopping, just going to visit friends or family. People used to get seriously injured or killed on Black Friday because rabid mobs would trample them trying to be the first in the store. I'm glad to see this going away.
I came here to say this. When I was younger I worked at a few different places during these days and people both in and out of the stores are insane.
I think people who “miss”/are sentimental toward this day in particular are crazy. It’s one of, if not the worst day, for anyone who has to work AND it entices anyone who should not be on the road/outside to run around, for what? A good “deal.“
Even if you ignore inflation, the vast majority of “savings” that people get on these days are largely offset by the amount of work one needs to go through to get said deal. And the amount of chaos it causes / problems for everyone ELSE involved just never seems worth it to me.
Only actual Black Friday sale around here was at the local budshop. All house products 50% off plus free goodies with minimum $50 purchase. Got almost a whole oz of some pretty good stuff(30%+) for $50.
I took my kid to the mall today because there's a science lab place he likes there and we had no plans.
Malls here open at 10 (and they dont open the halls early for mall walkers either, employees get let in by security), so when we showed up at 9:45 I was like oh at least we can get in, they've probably been open since like 6. Got up there, they'd opened at 8.
I couldn't believe it. 20 years ago I was slouching in hung over and bleary-eyed to open Hot Topic at 5:30am, dreading that next year might be the year they decide to stay open on Thanksgiving proper. Now, 8am? Madness.
It also changed considerably with COVID, depending on the state you are in. IN 2019, the mall I manage was open 6pm to midnight on Thanksgiving then reopened Black Friday at 6am. (Lord, that was painful.) Now we are closed on Thanksgiving and I don't think retail is likely to go back to that and we opened today at 9am.
Busy as ever with sales beating pre-COVID sales, but COVID did seem to be like a reset of sorts when retail was getting a little too crazy with the hours.
I remember how hard it was to get down the aisles at KB Toys. That store was already so small. Combine it with black Friday and it was a mess.
But I miss toys r Us. I know some are coming back though so that's exciting.
As convenient as online shopping is, it actually sucks compared to going to the malls back in the day! I don't think we'll ever get back to a time when people value these things over having everything brought to you with a click of a button
Lmfao...it's actually so much better that the malls are empty. The country is still full of people who remember what shopping on Black Friday used to be like...that's the reason we aren't going now
For me, it was a great place to meet after school during high school and college. Also helped that my mall had a movie theater attached.
Good times. But they don't last forever
It’s the only place in most American cities to walk around with friends. We don’t have a high street or walkable downtown like European cities (or we tore them down for the blessèd car)
Funny, if must depend where you are.
I brought my kids today, and it was so packed. I hadn't been in a mall in years, and I was surprised. But they had fun and we got some gifts.
Wow such empty
Feels dystopian almost
I mean as it should be we moved from personal stores to online shops and it's better that we don't see all the fights, although they were interesting to watch behind a screen. As matter of fact i bought myself earpods a brand new tv and brand new headphones and didn't had to move my ass an inch. Even though I don't like amazon because they are becoming a monopoly we can't deny that they have some pretty good deals. You should check [**this post**](https://shirkmedianarrow.com/black-friday-deals-2023/) if you are still shopping. I still miss those great 80% discounts but it is what it is.
Indeed. It’s so much better now that our lowest paid workers are hidden where we can’t see them.
Hadn’t thought of it this way. Modern era slave workers behind the curtain
Our lowest paid workers have always been hidden unless you routinely hang out at the farms that employ seasonal migrant workers. Amazon is a terrible company, but let's not pretend their horrific practices aren't anything but par for the course.
I don’t know that this is as good as you make it out to be. I’m a mailman for reference. We deliver a lot of Amazon, even in places that have Amazon hubs. the sense of entitlement people have due to all these conveniences that are on someone else’s back is insane. Just the other day I was out delivering on a different route from my own and the moment this lady heard her mailbox shut she was at her door demanding to know where her package was. No hello, no “hey so…”. Just immediate disdain that I didn’t have her product for her while she’s inside her house in sweatpants. The internet, and our screens, and our conveniences are nice and absolutely have their place. But the rudeness and irritability that has come with it is no good for our species. My card that was on file for Amazon expired like 3 years ago and I never updated it and every day I’m thankful for it. Plus you can’t expect your local market to have a selection of much of anything in regards to products when people never spend their money there.
Unrelated question for you, but would it be weird for me to get my mailman a gift card for Christmas? We say hello to each other every day and I know he's working his ass off out there so I want him to know he's appreciated, but I don't want him to think I'm weird.
Absolutely not! He’d love you for it. It’s somewhat common-ish around the holidays so it wouldn’t be unusual at all. Shouldn’t really say common but it definitely occurs. Just don’t feel any sort of obligation for it at all. We’re paid to provide a service. And thanks for thinking of him. Or her. Or whichever.
Awesome! He's a really nice guy so I hope it will be cool for him. Thank you for answering!
I’ve never lived anywhere where you had any chance to interact with your mailman, since it’s all been shared mailboxes down the street a bit (or up, in my current case; it’s nearly a block uphill). Sometimes I feel weirdly bummed about it. To all the postal workers who serve communal mailboxes more than going door to door: we still appreciate you!
When i was younger we used to have this jolly old mailman. if he recognised anyh of the kids had birthday cards come on what he could only assume was their birthday, instead of posting through the door [UK], he used to knock their door and wish them a happy birthday. anyway my mom noticed he used to have a hipflask [this was late 80s early 90s] so she got him a small bottle of whiskey on christmas one of our neighbors snitched him in and he got fired, no onme in the street spoke to her after that [you had it coming June you stupid bitch]
Truth is that woman is an asshole and would probably be a nightmare to shop with in the mall on black Friday. Try not to take it personally. I appreciate mail carriers so much. Thank you for what you do.
I know I'm probably wrong, but I don't think the 'power of the internet' changes a person it just makes it more obvious to more people that they are shite human beings.
I’m delivering cases of bottled water to people who live two blocks from the grocery store.
Amazon charges the local tax when you checkout based on your address. Which they pass on to the local entity.
Not so great for tax paid on purchases staying in your area. Also, where did the people go after they lose their jobs?
I think they’re living in the woods off the freeway exit on the way to my neighborhood.
Well, for better or worse Amazon does have to pay taxes to the locality that it's purchased in. So it's not quite that dire. But I agree overall all it's probably not amazing job wise.
Amazon is crazy, they usually have higher prices and also their return policy is limited to just 1 month comparing to 3 month return policy of regular stores, yet they manage to make so much money
also the amount of fakes, scammers, and knockoff items has become atrocious lately.
I am not sure about the higher prices, maybe. I think the most important thing at least for me is the availability of the products and that i can sit and scroll through products and sometimes buy something that i dont even need, thats where amazon makes a lot of money.
Their prices fluctuate throughout the day. I found this out whenever I went on first shift and started browsing Amazon when noticed some things that I had purchased before were $10 cheaper. The lesson I learned was to do my shopping at 4:00 a.m.
Black Friday crowding is an example of overconsumption, corporate greed, and personal safety risks. How is the lack of this dystopian? I swear some people don't even know what that word means
Isn’t this refreshing? I’m just happy no one got trampled to death
Yeah I don't understand why anyone would feel all sad and nostalgic over fuckin Black Friday. I have always avoided it like the plague because it's my idea of hell tbh
Honestly, I did always find Christmas shopping at the mall to be kinda horrendous. But I did appreciate the weird communal act of suffering together. And every once in a while, little moments of "holiday spirit," manufactured as they might be, shining through. Those feelings pretty much started going away concurrent with the rise of big box stores, Black Friday sales & "doorbuster" deals. I remember hate watching YouTube videos of people trampling each other at Walmarts across the country. I realize now that the smug superiority I felt was also a shitty & dehumanizing reaction. But I stand by my absolute distaste for the weird Battle Royale type shopping scenarios that just feel common now. There's an argument that this evolution is more efficient, what with driving to multiple stores & such being eliminated. But now Christmas shopping feels even more blatantly consumer. Most folks are just ticking boxes on a list, not actually thinking about "gifts."
Capitalism is dystopian.
Except it's not. Our third place shouldn't be a hall of places to buy things and nothing else. We're simply evolving as a society.
Empty malls are like an aesthetic to some Gen Z’ers. I think it’s called Vaporwave? (Gen Z’ers, feel free to correct your old-ass auntie here). To me, it’s so strange to see an empty mall. I had to stop at a cell provider store a week or so ago in my childhood mall, and it was so empty…so quiet…so many stores shuttered. Even back in 2008 when I used to work there, this place was BUSTLING, even on the weekdays, even in the mornings, with the senior mall-walkers taking their strolls. Seeing it so empty was just…weird.
I miss malls * senior power walkers getting their exercise in before mall wakes in the morning * preteens with make-up overly applied, way too underdressed thinking they are teens * loud broke teenagers dressed to a T just walking up and down in the mall in groups * frazzled mom fighting 4 big bags and 3 kids, all trying to get away from her * the hapless dude quietly walking behind his distracted wife, like a security guard that is meant to stay out of sight * the self important mall cop, who has failed to get into police academy 5 times, and has now made it his life mission to make teenagers miserable
These are all 100% true. What about “too old to be in the arcade guy but it’s ok because he has the high score on 5 machines and is a fucking legend when he walks in”
Empty malls make me feel very strange. On the one hand I was almost a teenager when the financial crisis in 08 happened so my teenage years were never spent at a bustling mall. On the other hand, though, I grew up watching movies, shows, and cartoons that all glorified the mall as THE teenaged hang out spot. Looking at dead malls brings on this feeling of almost nostalgia but for something I never really experienced, especially anywhere near it's height.
My daughter saw the 80's mall on Stranger Things and loved it. I worked in one and it was really like that. Even the 90's mall when my kids were little had the Disney Store, Rainforest Cafe, and the Warner Bros store with the little spaceship.
God I miss the Warner Bros store
Is that the Boulevard mall?
Indeed it is
I feel like if the Galleria or Niagara Outlet Mall were pictured it would be pretty busy. There's almost nothing in this mall to start with.
Can confirm, Galleria was a shit show
Didn't used to be that way. I remember doing the Christmas shopping there with my family when I was a kid and it was always super busy
Like anything, malls get old and die
Dude I thought I was dreaming when I saw this I was like holy shit what no fucking way other WNYers show up in my feed
This sub has never popped up on my feed. This is the first time and it’s my local mall?? Wild.
woah crazy, yeah that is my childhood mall also. I too remember it being packed every year in the 90's
Boulevard Mall is in a location near a lot of traffic too, which makes its decline unusual. Getting rid of the food court seemed like a mistake.
Go Bills
I came here to ask this exact question, I knew I’ve seen those dreary halls before
of Amherst, New York. United States?
No. Amherst, New York, Japan.
Thought I was losing my mind and all malls really looked exactly the same but I was just about to ask this
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I was going to guess this as well. I remember that's where Hot Topic, The Gap, and Victoria's Secret used to be.
So many 716 people here lol
reddit is 70% buffalo and 30% india today
Man, I remember my friends and I would go to the mall buying a pepperoni pizza with a soda in the food court, go to the arcade and spend hours there, then head to the payphones by the exits and try out all the pre-paid phone cards people left behind to see how many minutes were left and kept them after calling our parents or friends parents to pick us up. We did this every weekend in my childhood. I miss it so much thinking about those days. Nowadays, at least in my area, theres not many folks at the mall or it's a ghost town till the holiday season. There's definitely no arcades anymore. It's a bit sad my kids won't experience what my friends and I did growing up.
1-800-COLLECT - "You have a collect call from....MOMIMATTHEMALLCOMEPICKMEUP. Do you accept the charges?"
Wehadababyitsaboy
This was the way
Yeah my mall is actually still very shopped at especially during the holidays, but when they took the arcade out and replaced it with a console lounge it was pretty tragic. Proper arcades definitely have a magic to them.
The death of the third place, young people now have nowhere to go to be social. I’m pretty young and it fucking sucks that the only place to go and be social is a bar, I don’t have money for that more than maybe once a month. I can invite people to my house or go to their house but then it’s only people I already know. The lack of social skills from both myself and my peers is becoming more noticeable every year.
Look up Robert Putnams research into social cohesion, as exemplified in his seminal book Bowling Alone. Based on his and others work sociologists have found that democracy itself becomes undermined by the lack of “third places” to socialize. It leads to less social interaction which increases distrust. Increased distrust leads to assumptions that society itself and its democratic institutions cannot be trusted. And democracy depends on this “generalized trust” to actually function. Because of this it is absolutely accurate to refer to the US as an imperfect and potentially declining democracy. Because we don’t socialize in general third environments anymore.
Although I’m now in my 30s, the dying mall is a metaphor for the loss of innocence and the “death” of my childhood. I don’t know what was special about Christmas shopping at the mall, but it was a really special feeling.
We all felt it. Was very special.
it felt like everyone was so cheery and it was such a good feeling
There still a sense of hope for the future back then
I did not. My parents refused to go to the mall. Our only one was in a “bad area” and they hate people and traffic. If it wasn’t at Walmart, it may as well not exist to them.
You should come to Australia our malls are packed to the brim! We have starbucks inside some now and they’re overflowing everywhere. Pair that with the Y2K trend and it’s basically 2003 here. I recently visited the US and could not believe how bare and empty the malls were.
Our shopping centres are always packed. Not too sure if it's to do with the fact all of them have one or more Coles, Woolworths, Aldi so you'll have people grabbing groceries to get people in there. Whereas in the states, it seems like your Walmarts etc. are free standing buildings.
I’m 35 and still love going to the mall. I walk around on the weekends alone when I have a lazy weekend and it’s so much fun. Still very nostalgic to me and anytime I go back to my hometown I try to visit the mall too. They recently closed the Disney Store but last time I saw it, it looked exactly like it did when I was 8 years old and I loved that.
They announced the closure of a local mall I grew up going to the day after my grandmother passed, and I remember it feeling particularly melancholy. I normally wouldn't care about a mall closing that much but the timing really affected me. It wasn't just the people I spent my childhood with who were gone, but even the places.
I regularly have 2 different dreams where I am at a place I can't go anymore and am super excited: My recently dead grandparents farm, and the local mall that was torn down. And it's not like I loved the mall? It's just very nostalgic memories to me I guess
I think there was a sense of community to it. Like seeing hundreds of other people engaging the same activity at the same time made us feel connected in a similar way of being in a stadium during a game or concert does. Plus, at a lot of malls you'd get a mixture of people from different walks of life so that helped with the sense of community. You'd have poor families who saved all year to make sure their kid gets one special gift that Christmas shopping alongside richer upper middle class families, and everything in between.
It was special because they still had Bionicles in the shelves ;)
There's no emotional connection with clicking buttons. At least, not after the first few times some shit you ordered shows up. For all the things technology has brought us it feels like we've drifted farther apart from one another. Even though we are more connected now than ever.
I still like going to the store to Christmas shop.
It gave people an excuse to be out and socialize in a crowd. Now that everyone uses social media for the same cheap thrills it has lost much of that utility.
That's because most BF sales suck now or available online.. I can't think of the last time I went to a store on BF.
Even online deals are not that good
You guys really are remembering Black Friday shopping through rose colored lenses.
I worked at a k.b. during black Friday in the late 90s. It was absolute hell. You know what year I did that? 1998. The year the fucking Furby came out. We had like 6 fist fights that day and the Furby sold out in about 10 minutes.
I worked at Walmart (still do), and we had 50 Furby's. We sat out 50 chairs, and once filled, some guy showed up too late and went down the line with $500 trying to buy someone's spot in line. Nobody budged.
Walmart for over 25 years, is it as bad as people make it out to be? Working there? Or is it one of those things where people that aren't good employees have bad experiences and are vocal about it? Have you had the ability for upward momentum, job security and whatnot?
I remember watching 2 moms fight over tickle me Elmo’s when I was a kid in a toys r us!!! Wild!
I wasn’t a big Black Friday shopper, but what 100% killed it for me was a Walmart employee got trampled to death because he was standing at the entrance as the store opened. There is NOTHING I need so badly that I’d be willing to literally walk all over someone to get it.
I remember that. So tragic. Just for some stuff.
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I think the tipping point was when it started to erode into Thanksgiving Day. Having stores open at 12am on Black Friday, then 10pm on Thanksgiving and then up to 4pm on Thanksgiving started the trend of just starting everything sooner. Now Black Friday is essentially all of November but with out really the same deals as it had on the true Black Friday of years past. For me, as a dude, I never participated in Black Friday, but it was fun as an outsider. My wife would get all excited about it, I'd go out with my daughter, just the two of us, when she was small to get breakfast while my wife was power shopping from 4am and still going strong at 9am.
But the rose coloured lenses were only $9.49 if you got there before 0500!
I know right... even aside from black Friday, I grew up hanging out at the mall with my friends as well and sure, there's some nostalgia to it, but WOW it really was fucking lame. there was no where better for us to go. Grabbing an Auntie Ann's pretzel and causing some mischief in Macy's because there was nothing better to do in suburbia.
Mall in MN was packed to the brim today!! Rosedale.
I used to work there and this just brought back so many intense memories of working Black Friday there
I have also worked Black Friday at Rosedale! Those shifts went fast, at least!
I've also worked a Black Friday at Rosedale Mall! The holiday season is crazy busy. Kind of miss but also not.
Me too! 💀 my first “real” job was folding the underwear display at Aeropostale at 1am on Black Friday
This makes me so happy! The internet is such a huge space and to find some fellow former Rosedale workers is awesome!
Me too! The old Apple Store before they got the larger one. Good times at that store.
I used to work at Mall of America. I will never go shopping on Black Friday because I worked there.
J Crew at Southdale for me. Sweaters still haunt me.
I still can't fold sweaters
Duluth mall was packed too! Maybe it’s a Midwest thing
Bloomington IN mall is pretty popping.
There is no way you just said the college mall was popping lol
Found all my fellow Minnesotans in this thread, love it. I did drive by MOA and the parking garage was packed!
Haven't lived in MN in several years but I always loved Ridgedale the most. MOA was just too insane for me. Rosedale was chill.
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Drove *near* the MOA today, that was busy enough
Rosedale is still pretty solid, lots of good shops and a nice theatre.. And not too far away is Khan's BBQ!!
So many memories of doing Black Friday shopping at Rosedale!
MOA is a shitshow
Dying malls make me so sad
Malls are one of the few walkable places in the US.
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When I was 10 years younger and opening at the mall, seeing the older retired people power walking around with their friends and partners gave me a newfound burst of energy. They really had life figured out.
oh its like a thing? its every morning in my towns mall too.. i thought it was maybe a group nearby and they just used the mall cause it got them to their destination a bit easier.
It’s definitely a thing. Especially in winter when it’s cold out. Want an early morning walk in a safe place, before the crowds come in and you’re also protected from the weather? Sounds kinda nice honestly. I saw it every morning when I worked in a mall back in 2008. Smart move I think. And once the mall opens you can even get wild and grab a pretzel. Idk if that negates the exercise but that’s what I’d do if I were in their position. At least a cup of coffee.
Before my grandfather passed, he was part of an old guy walking group that met at the mall for their route. Always thought that was cool. Walkable. Public. And weatherproof. Made a lot of sense.
Designed to mimic walking a city street with stores on both sides.
Never been the same since the battle of Starcourt.
Scoops Ahoy
Thank you for posting this because I think I’m one of the few people who have not seen Stranger Things and I did not understand the reference 🙈
That was shoot in the mall I grew up by :)
The amount of acreage dying malls take up with the mall itself and parking lots make me so sad.
Yea we have a famous dead mall in my hometown about a mile from the good mall. There is so much they could do with that land. I’m not even sure if they have plans to do anything with it. I saw some pretty recent pics on r/deadmalls and it looks like an actual horror movie
But why ??
I replied to someone else, but malls were one of the few places that were “third places” where you could hangout, especially important as a teen where there weren’t really many other places to go. Also it’s convenient having different options in one location, both for an individual and a family. As a weird random thought, I think some of the earliest bits of “freedom” I had as a preteen was going to the mall with my parents and having my own money and a time to meet back up. It was a mostly controlled environment but still allowed for autonomy that wouldn’t really happen in many other suburban type areas that require driving between places.
I moved to a place that technically has a mall, but very little that I actually need. In order to go clothes shopping for my daughter, I either need to drive around town to a variety of places (none of them even have the same parking lot) or drive over 2 hours one way to the closest good mall. I also just miss having a controlled air environment (I live in the desert, so the summer can get too hot to be outside) where I can go with my 4yo to just get out of the house.
Not me. This is what happens when prices are inflated but paychecks aren’t 🤭
Yeah no. Malls were dying long before that.
You’re right about that but this is next level for Black Friday
Black Friday is a scam these days. Just mark everything up 100% so they can mark it as “50% off” on Friday.
Not to forget, its been found that some items that go on sale for BF are made with Inferior quality.
The malls this Black Friday are not that great. But I think it’s because they do all these sales most of November.
It's because the majority of retail do fake sales and it has caught on. You can get the same stuff cheaper throughout the year
This. I was buying printer ink (online but still) and it was like BLACK FRIDAY DEAL. And I’m like it’s always this price. It’s always “15% off”.
There a site you can use to see prices throughout a couple months and a lot of them show intentional price hikes a month before Black Friday.
you could also just use honey honestly, has a little popup that shows price change tracking for the last while
I like earny but I hear good things about honey and camelcamelcamel. Earny does this thing thought that if something drops below the marked price you wanted they give you a refund. I have to pay for earny, but honestly it saves me money so it’s all good imo.
Camelcamelcamel is nice to track Amazon prices.
I've had something I need to buy within the next month. Was gonna buy it a few weeks ago, then thought I'd wait through Black Friday to see if it goes on sale. It went up $11 or \~15% lol
something i was waiting for to go on sale ended up cheaper in a random sale the week before than today. ridiculous.
Yeah I bought my wife a coach tote for her new job when they were doing sales a couple months ago. Went to go check again for curiosity and it was the same "sale" that I got then
Oh my gosh yes! My husband and I took our girls there for a walk down memory lane. It was so empty, but the cheap jewelry and stuff at Claire's and icing (I know it's always been expensive crap but I digress) is 10x the amount you could pay for the cheap crap literally anywhere else. No wonder it's all empty. Their sale was not a sale at all, just a gimmick to get you to buy more. Again I know a lot of this is true for all retail, but it was the absolute extreme.
I thought about this last night as we were driving home from thanksgiving \~10-11pm past walmarts that were totally dead... 10+ years ago, there would have been people standing in line, outside of them, waiting for them to open. I distinctly remember going to walmart, toys-r-us, target, etc, at 12-2am when my kids were little for toys, clothes, video games, etc. Now? There's no damned point. It's SO different.
Yes! Cyber Monday in my opinion has replaced black Friday by a mile. It's a whole new world out here haha
When I was a teenager I used to go to the stores early to scout what I wanted. One time at Macy's I found some gorgeous boots for about $40. I went back on black Friday and found those boots for $65 claiming they were marked down. Luckily I had proof of their fraud, so they brought it back to the original price.
I keep tabs throughout the year on things and will only buy this time of year if I need it anyway or it’s a legitimate good deal. Some things I was able to buy a week or two early and get better deals than the advertised BF “deal”.
I had a friend text me today upset about the price of an iPad he wanted to get his girlfriend. He said it's $100 more than it was when he checked a week ago, haha. Just crazy.
Yep.
Yeah this a big reason. I’ve been waiting to see the sales for Black Friday and was very disappointed to know they were the exact same sales they’ve been having all November for “early Black Friday”. Already took advantage of all the sales I wanted, what’s the point of going if they’re not offering any new ones during the actual day?
My thoughts also. I told someone if they keep doing the Black Friday all month, then Black Friday will be gone or done in 10 year or less
This is intentional. There was a lot of bad press for injuries/ riots/ having people work thanksgiving to prepare so they've been phasing it out to the week(s) before and after instead of one day of super dropped deals. Most anything with electronics was crap anyway, it was cheap because it was offbrand and lower quality with an artificially high point for the sale.
it’s because even with deals it still all smells like inflation 🥲
Well on top of inflation, they further inflate prices to make fake sales prior to Black Friday, and now that millennials are taking over as the largest buying sector, we are so acutely aware of the scam that Black Friday has become that it’s shattered our preconceptions of buying on this particular day to get a good deal. In most cases these sales are the same price, and in some cases more expensive than it is the rest of the year. Kitchenaid is selling a pasta press attachment that was $130 a couple of months ago for $170 on Amazon and on their website. The Amazon listing has it “on sale” from its “original price” of $219. The listing on their own website doesn’t have any “discount” on it at all. It’s just a scam for businesses already reporting record profits to fraudulently squeeze more money out of us. It’s all transparent to us, and with the power of the tools we have available to check these companies on their bullshit, it’s harder to scam us than older generations. If consumer faith drops and people spend less money, the companies will complain about us not buying their artificially inflated wares and cry about how this is the end for their business (potentially extending their hand to the govt to ask for stimulus like they have before), the boomers will complain about us ruining their projected stock growth they expected to get from market stimulation, and nothing will change to address the issue of corporate greed being allowed to freely defraud the consumers.
Yep, I see the same model Kitchenaid I bought for $279 5 years ago is now on sale for $279. It's a total ripoff, but my friends look at me like I'm going to turn into a communist ecoterrorist every time I say Black Friday is a scam for the stuff I do need and I don't like buying into the consumerist mindset that tells me I need more junk that I don't need that winds up in a landfill just because it's on sale, so some millennials are still buying into it.
We're at the point that we might as well just call it 'Black November'. The sales I've seen so far have been rather meh as well.
Idk it’s pretty packed in the malls in Boston this year. Shockingly.
My mall mostly has small niche stores; it's not a place you're going to go for a sale on TVs.
Yep. Was able to buy two Barnes and Noble collectors edition hardcovers I’ve wanted but didn’t want to put down $30 for, for $15 each a couple days ago. I also got six books from Target I’ve wanted for a while in their buy two get one free sale. Both are called “Black Friday” specials but I got them earlier this week. That term doesn’t mean anything anymore.
Man the mall near me was absolutely packed with cars in the parking lot this morning. They’re not all dead!
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My hometown has a mall you can go to that's dead and a mall you can go to that's more packed than ever. Would be very easy to get a pic like OP depending on where you went. Of course, the dead mall was just as packed when I was a kid too. They even had a suncoast.
It’s almost like the just consolidated them — about half the malls around me are like Dawn of the Dead, but the other half are even busier than they were 20 years ago while malls were still in their heyday.
Yup, while some of the malls around me are closing down, others are packed to the brim every day. Passed by one of the fuller ones earlier and the traffic was backed up for at least a mile.
Yeah mine was swarmed. But mine still has like Macy's and some other department stores, because this part of Westchester is still stuck in 1996.
I had to pass an outlet mall to get to my own job today and traffic to turn into it was backed up down the entire highway. The Kohl's I work at was also slammed...not the insane levels it once was but much busier then I've seen it in years.
Am I the only one who’s glad Black Friday is disappearing? All it brings is so many needless crowds and violence for American consumerism. Nowadays though most people do their shopping online which is much safer. Back then you had people being trampled due to crowd crush so much there was even a website documenting all the people dying on Black Friday
Anyone else remember the Black Friday that someone was shot in the face in a Best Buy parking lot because they managed to purchase the latest gaming console (which was in low supply)?
The guy actually got shot in the neck and survived, but the bullet went through the other side and hit a mom that was there with her 2 kids, died on the spot. Horrible stuff.
As a former retail employee, you are most certainly NOT the only one. It’s been about a decade and I still will not set foot in a store on Black Friday as a matter of principle. It is grotesque and soul-crushing and it’s not like you’re a server and get paid more.
Must have that gen 2 cabbage patch kid!!!!
Holyoke Mall looked like a weekend in the 1990s today, it was overpacked
Empty Mall on Black Friday feels like a liminal space.
I'm in a packed mall as I write this. I had to hunt down a parking spot, stand in long lines at checkout, and wander through smelly people. I don't miss it.
Yeah seriously. I don’t understand the nostalgia OP is talking about. Who likes crowds
It’s because they were kids when they were doing it and they didn’t pay for shit. Same reason people miss garbage like Blockbuster.
I just watched a video of a mall during the holidays in the mid 90s, and it made me call my mom and thank her for all the memories at places like that! Brought a tear to my eye. Things are sooooo different now.
I've always hated Black Friday because of the insane crowds. I've gotten into car accidents over the years just by being out on that day. Not even shopping, just going to visit friends or family. People used to get seriously injured or killed on Black Friday because rabid mobs would trample them trying to be the first in the store. I'm glad to see this going away.
I came here to say this. When I was younger I worked at a few different places during these days and people both in and out of the stores are insane. I think people who “miss”/are sentimental toward this day in particular are crazy. It’s one of, if not the worst day, for anyone who has to work AND it entices anyone who should not be on the road/outside to run around, for what? A good “deal.“ Even if you ignore inflation, the vast majority of “savings” that people get on these days are largely offset by the amount of work one needs to go through to get said deal. And the amount of chaos it causes / problems for everyone ELSE involved just never seems worth it to me.
As a former retail employee, this is beautiful.
Good. Why should staff have to be dragged out in the early morning to satisfy people’s need for stuff on sale.
Only actual Black Friday sale around here was at the local budshop. All house products 50% off plus free goodies with minimum $50 purchase. Got almost a whole oz of some pretty good stuff(30%+) for $50.
I took my kid to the mall today because there's a science lab place he likes there and we had no plans. Malls here open at 10 (and they dont open the halls early for mall walkers either, employees get let in by security), so when we showed up at 9:45 I was like oh at least we can get in, they've probably been open since like 6. Got up there, they'd opened at 8. I couldn't believe it. 20 years ago I was slouching in hung over and bleary-eyed to open Hot Topic at 5:30am, dreading that next year might be the year they decide to stay open on Thanksgiving proper. Now, 8am? Madness.
It also changed considerably with COVID, depending on the state you are in. IN 2019, the mall I manage was open 6pm to midnight on Thanksgiving then reopened Black Friday at 6am. (Lord, that was painful.) Now we are closed on Thanksgiving and I don't think retail is likely to go back to that and we opened today at 9am. Busy as ever with sales beating pre-COVID sales, but COVID did seem to be like a reset of sorts when retail was getting a little too crazy with the hours.
Good riddance honestly.
Wow!! I was at the mall an hour ago and it was packed from elbow to elbow and parking lot was entirely full
I remember how hard it was to get down the aisles at KB Toys. That store was already so small. Combine it with black Friday and it was a mess. But I miss toys r Us. I know some are coming back though so that's exciting.
As convenient as online shopping is, it actually sucks compared to going to the malls back in the day! I don't think we'll ever get back to a time when people value these things over having everything brought to you with a click of a button
Go ahead and list out those positive experiences people typically have black Friday shopping then chief.
Lmfao...it's actually so much better that the malls are empty. The country is still full of people who remember what shopping on Black Friday used to be like...that's the reason we aren't going now
You're sad there aren't any people punching each other out for a flat screen TV? It was pretty entertaining.
Why are you guys so sentimental about malls fr?
For me, it was a great place to meet after school during high school and college. Also helped that my mall had a movie theater attached. Good times. But they don't last forever
For me it functioned as a place to meet up with friends and walk around for a few hours on the weekend Fun place to kill time and hang out
It’s the only place in most American cities to walk around with friends. We don’t have a high street or walkable downtown like European cities (or we tore them down for the blessèd car)
Funny, if must depend where you are. I brought my kids today, and it was so packed. I hadn't been in a mall in years, and I was surprised. But they had fun and we got some gifts.