Mall Crawl: The Uninspiring Facades of Middle America

I haven’t enjoyed the mall since I was 12 years old. That was the year we stopped feeding quarters into TILT, the mall arcade, and started playing video games on the NES at home. I do have a few fond memories like picking up the Nirvana Nevermind cd at Sam Goody and eating $0.29 tacos at Taco Bell, but again, I was pre-pubescent. Every few months I end up back at a mall, hoping to understand what it is that draws people in and once again I left disappointed and full of fast food. The thing that really stood out to me this time around was the facades of the stores. I hadn’t planned on doing a blog post about it, but I did snap two photos of the worst offenders, Hot Topic and Spencer’s Gifts. Look at these places. Am I supposed to believe that this mall was built around the original Spencer’s Gifts, a brick and mortar mom and pop from 1947? Even the graffiti was a joke…it was kind of transparent, and I know that if you caught a tag on that wall, you would be arrested and people would call it brandalism. Next year they will probably have their employees dress up as homeless people and the cash register will look like a barrel with fire coming out.

And while I’m at it. What the hell happened to Hot Topic? Not that it was ever cool, but this place at least used to hire the one freak in every small town who had dyed hair and a prince Albert. I remember when Hot Topic & Marilyn Manson had the Baptists so up in arms they would stand outside the shop praying. Now they are pushing Foster the People shirts and the facade looks more like a Gadzooks than the devil’s vagina. Glad to see Hot Topic is showing its true colors, another mall store ready to jump on ANY trend to make a quick buck.

My buddy Ben Bocko has the exact same feelings towards the mall and is a much better photographer than I am. He takes a photographic journey to Hollister and points out a number of ironies…

Check out the rest of his photos here...