23 things about shopping centers Today's children will never appreciate

Photos with the Santa Shopping Center could become a thing of the past.


Shopping centers are not yet extinct, but they are close. In May 2017,Swiss credit predicted that 25% of US shopping centers will close within five years. And as the latest research shown, the so-called "retail Apocalypse" might even be worse than experts originally thought. An April 2019 analysis by the investment companyUBS predicted that 75 000 retail sites get 2026, of which 21 000 clothing stores, electronics stores 10 000 and 8 000 furniture stores. At this rate, it will not be long before the shopping centers are just a distant memory.

If you are nostalgic about the abandoned shopping centers andstores obturalisésYou were part of a world that young people today could not even begin to understand. Here are 23 things about the culture of the city that many of us will never forget and children today will never understand.

1
Understanding the map

little girl looking at a mall directory with her mother
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Better the mall, the more likely that you get lost, just trying to find you. We became experts in mapping just by studying large maps to each input and finding the shortest distance between the fashion bug and the carousel.

2
Make a wish with a penny in the fountain

wishing fountain
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There was something sadly meditative sit next to the bubbling fountain in a mall and listen to the water flowing. Sometimes we eventhrew in a penny for good luck. It was like a little oasis in the middle of the madness.

3
The thrill rides Kiddie

kiddie ride
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We begged our parents to change so that we can climb a miniature horse or train, then be nice for 30 seconds. It was never as fun as we expected, but every time we came back to the mall, we just had to do it again.

4
Shopping for clothes with ice cinnabon on your fingers

cinnabon
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The malls have everything, and this included stores that had no existing one next to the other. After a midday snack at Cinnabon, the next stop could be shopping for jeans away next door, which meant spending clothes that you had not bought with fingers covered with frosting.

5
Waiting in line to meet Santa Claus

Mall Santa and kid, Pick-Up Lines So Bad They Might Just Work
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There are still places for children to sit on the lap of Santa anddemand giftsBut there was something about the Santa indélébré mall. Maybe it was the lines that seemed to go forever. Maybe it was the smell of commerce in the air and the knowledge that what we ask the Father Christmas was just soldfew meters away. The mall Santa always felt always like the only real Santa Claus.

6
And these extravagant Christmas decorations

mall christmas decorations
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The way mallsDecorated for ChristmasIt always felt like they were trying to emulate Las Vegas. They did not just set up an old Christmas tree and call it a day - they have set up the biggest Christmas tree they could find. They had larger hazelnuts that the Greek statues, Christmas ornaments the size of demolition balls, and so tunsel and garland it was almost blinding. And we loved every last bit of it.

7
Going to the earliest possible commercial center for live performance

concert at a mall
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It may seem inconceivable to the public today, but manyhottest pop acts the last century not just played in halls and auditoriums together - they reached the local malls. It was a different world whenTiffany Performing in front of the Orange Julius did not seem to be the weirdest thing that ever happened.

8
Crawling into the hole instead of children

children's place
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Our greatest memory of the children instead had nothing to do with the actual clothes they were selling. Nope, it was thehole as entrance the children could climb enter the store. There was something incredibly satisfying to crawl this hole, as you wereTim Robbins' figure inThe Redemption of Shawshank, Breaking the prison and finally taste the fresh air of freedom consumers.

9
Try gadgets on a stronger image

massage chairs
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Has anyone already bought something in the more precise picture? All we recall is taking its massage chairs for a turn or put their remote-controlled cars through the scenes. You wander you walk and pretend that you were dirty rich for 10 minutes,andPlace with very cool gadgets. It was the dream.

10
Have your first closed meeting place

Two black girls shopping at mall
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Most American shopping centers were filled with itinerant herds of adolescents and pre-teens, who had received their first taste for freedom (with one side of Panda Express). Their parents would put them down and give a pickup time, or they promised to call a pay phone when they were made at Gadzooks.

11
Pick up free samples in hickory farms

free samples
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The food was available in abundance in shopping centers and you did not have to pay for all this. Hickory Farms, with its red barn facade always serving free samples of something. As long as you liked sausage and cheese, you were lucky. We can close your eyes and always feel the aroma charmed of hickory farms as it was yesterday.

12
Make first dates in the food court

two girls on a date at the food court
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Take your favorite scabies or guys to dine at the shopping centerFood Tribunal before hitting a movie was not considered adate. That was what the heads of serious shopping centers called a good evening. And if things went well, it could end up with a snack of the night's night with Wetzel's pretzels. If it's not a romance, we do not know what is.

13
Get glamorous shots at J.C. Penney or Sears Studio Portrait

sears store
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It was the snapchat and Instagram of his time. J.C Penney's soft lighting orSears portrait studio Done for your skin in the 80s and the 90s which filters make the faces of teenagers today.

14
Using each sample at Bath & Body Works

Bath and Body Works store at mall
Mike Mozart / Flickr

You can probably always feel cucumber melon right now, right? Or maybe you were more than one person from Plumeria and Pearberry. No matter what your perfume of choice was, if you grew up in the 1990s, it is likely that chances are high, you spent far too much time sniffing all the bath and scented bodies had to offer before make your selection. And then you pulled your mix-and-match 6 for choices of $ 24 at home in one of these blue and white Gingham paper bags. Oh, and do not forget to clean the germs you picked up there with a cherry blossom hand disinfectant!

15
Try not to make a visual contact with anyone at Victoria's Secret

victoria's secret
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You were either inVictoria 'Secret To get 5 years on $ 25 underwear or you were with your other that was significant. Anyway, the goal was to choose your choice habits and get out of there as quickly as possible, without creating visual contact with other buyers or employees.

16
Avoid shopping center cops

mall security
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They behaved like agents of the public force, except that they had no real authority. They were responsible for enforcing the law and order in the world of the mall, and some of them took their job a little too seriously.

17
Pick up tapes to Sam Goody

Sam Goody storefront inside a mall, one of the great 1990s stores
Commons Wikimedia

iTunes and Spotify did researchnew music easier than ever. But we will always miss these long afternoons around the racks in Sam Goody, the World World, Camelot and Coconut. Some of them even hadwhole walls filled withAudio cassettes!

18
Spend hours in the arcade

arcade
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Long beforeonline game Or home consoles, the only way to play the nearest new video game was to load your pockets with rollers of neighborhoods and go to Aladdin Castle. Nothing builds character like having to wait 45 minutes for your chance to play Donkey Kong.

19
Shopping to the king of chess to look like aBreakfast clubchild

chess king clothing store
King chess via YouTube

When you just had to look like a character in aJohn Hughes moviewas the unique clothing shop for you, especially if you were trying to dress up likeScream inPretty in pink. The only chain of the mall is responsible for a real army of Duckie Wannabes.

20
Give your phone number to buy anything at Radio Shack

radioshack
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You could not buy a pack of alkaline alkaline batteries at the mall without the seller demanded your phone number. It was one of the greatest mysteries of the culture of the shopping center and the source of many conspiratory contemplations.

21
Bookstores who come from books

book shelves
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Online outlets like Amazon have long extended to areas beyond books. But a classic shopping centers like Waldenbooks and B. Dalton hadbooks And nothing but. Oh, of course, they had some extras like magazines and greeting cards, but if you enter a walkbooks in the 80s or the 90s and asked if they also sold photo frames andHarry Potter WandsThey would have seen you looked as if you were crazy.

22
All these strange kiosks

kiosk
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If the myriad of shopping choices at the mall was not enough for you, there were also these strange kiosks in the middle of each corridor, selling everything, watches to blankets with the faces of your children.

23
"Shopping" without entering stores

woman window shopping at mall
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You have not always gone to the shopping center to buy something. Sometimes it was just drifting down aimed at shopping to store, check the selections and make a list of mental wishes of what you may want to buy in the future. Some of us spent whole weekends at the mall without a dollar in our name. Ah, the days of glory. And if you want to remember your childhood even more, consult the 50 things that only people who lived in the 1980s will remember .

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Categories: Culture
Tags: Facts / Shopping
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