Why does the mall feel so bad?

Normally when a post has a question in the title, you might expect there will be an answer inside, so let me just manage your expectation right here in this first run on sentence (I think this is a run on sentence): there will be no answer. Or, if there is an answer, it will only happen by accident, thanks to the mercy of the muse.

Last week, in addition to visiting stunning sites of exotic New England beauty where they have the classic four seasons climate you may know from popular literature, I also visited my old hometown mall^[1]. The mall was newly built in the 90s, when I was a teen, and it was kind of a fancy place to go, thought I didn't like it very much then, either. I thought it was kind of fake and cheesy, and also the only interactions you could have were to buy stuff and I tended not to have spending money of my own. Also you could only get there by driving, which is still the case, so until I got my driver's license, while I could get dropped off at the mall if I could talk a parent into it, I was then effectively stuck there for the duration.

But now, the mall is even worse. Teenagers, as far as I could see, no longer get dropped off to loiter and possibly go make out behind the water tower^[2]. According to film, some teenagers had fun at the mall, even if I wasn't one of them. Certainly, teenagers at the mall gave the place some liveliness. Now, the old hometown mall is sort of sparse. I was there late on a Friday afternoon, which I think would be a time people who hang out at the mall would be hanging out at the mall. No one hangs out at the mall anymore.

The fonts on the main mall signs are outdated. Yes, I know, that's petty, but they are. Not retro. Just crap. And the stuff in the stores seems cheap. Kind of expensive but also kind of cheap. Like all these suits that you just know are going to give you neck gaps. All these things that are trying to be kind of, uh, nice, but they're just shitty imitations of something else. Which, really, describes a lot of New England built environment, too. It's trying to signal that it's something else, like maybe actual England, or old New England before it was trying so hard, only it kind of half-asses these attempts to copy^[3]. It's no travels in hyperreality. It's a knockoff. I recognized a lot of the brands, chain stuff, mediocre crap that costs more than it should for what it is. You know, teenage me was right. It is all fake and kind of cheesy, and I can't believe anyone was ever fooled. It's less real than real. It's hyporeality.

I deliberately went into a mostly-empty department store, one of the anchor stores of the mall, and wandered around looking at boring clothes and shoes, trying to intensify the feeling so I could figure it out. Was it ennui? Was it depression? I tried to imagine for whom these goods and these shopping experience were meant to be aspirational. Who might come to these racks of boring-ass clothes and say, oh yes, this. And it's not even that cheap! Is this a class thing? Am I feeling the unease of being the wrong class? When I was a teen, everything at the mall was too expensive for me, and generally for my family (and also I didn't like it anyway) so I couldn't buy it. Now, everything at the mall is in poor taste, so I wouldn't buy it. Am I a snob? I'm probably a snob. But also, if you live in Connecticut you could take a bus to New York City on a day trip and buy a lot of much nicer clothes somewhere in Queens or Brooklyn for less money. So who comes here? In truth, not that many people any more. Whatever it was that the mall used to be good for, dubious as it was, it sure doesn't seem like it anymore.

Mostly, the mall, just like the suburbs, make me want to leave. And I do.