Waiting in the Wasteland

Have you ever just stopped to think what strange times these are? Think to where the western world was back in 1919, and then today. Not only is our technology so far beyond that era, but the people behind this one are mostly dead and only living on pure momentum. One blackout and things can get very bad very fast. And that's all it could take. The loss of a high-trust society means fracturing is inevitable, and so is decay.

A good example of this rot is the last real community center, the mall.

Hold your horses, I know it sounds stupid to those older than Gen X and younger than Gen Y, but here me out. You might not understand just what has been lost.

This post is slightly out of the scope of this blog, mostly because I use this platform as a way to discuss art and entertainment and its relation to us as people, but the mall does relate to that. It was once the main purveyor and shopping source of consumer products for a period of time in the western world and, simultaneously, was the last place a community could gather and enjoy life. Those old TV shows and movies from the '80s and '90s that presented teenagers hanging out at the mall? That was real, and it did happen.

And now it's gone.

See, the shopping mall is a bit of an anomaly in western culture. It has been mentioned many times in entertainment and by those older as a ridiculous thing with no value. It was criticized for being a bastion of materialism and greed and the highlight of everything wrong with the world at the time in how we care more about loud noises and shiny products over our fellow man. Simultaneously, to those who grew up with have vastly different views. Younger generations recognized the shopping mall as the last bastion of socialization where they could be themselves and commune. To them it was a glorified community center. Both were right about what it was, but time has proven that the latter had the better point and the former clueless as to why.

Humans have always had places to congregate. We're social beings, we love to interact with others and relate to and grow among those we share our spaces with. We're all here together so why not make the best of it? We had places like town squares, church halls, and parks, among other smaller gatherings for just such things. But as time has gone on and we've isolated and fractured ourselves from each other we have lost most of those spaces for (admittedly petty) reasons. In the early 80s when the shopping mall came in it was the last spot where people could congregate over one of their last remaining similarities--that being that everyone needs to buy things. So a place where you can hang out and meet people while you do it? That made sense.

But nothing lasts forever. With the creation and growth of online shopping and stores such as Amazon, the shopping mall is on the way out. For those who primarily used it as a means to buy goods, as the older generations did, this means little. Now you can simply move your spending habits to your credit cards and watch the mail box instead of spending all day walking around a giant building and navigating maze-like structures. Convenient. For the Boomer nothing has changed, in fact their lives are even easier.

For those of us in Gen X and Gen Y it is a different story. It is another piece of our past that is being demolished. We were the only ones who got to use the shopping malls for the other stated purpose. Those growing up now, or in their early twenties, missed out entirely. The '80s and '90s were the peak time for shopping malls, in the '00s the shift had already begun to be made to places such as eBay and Amazon as well as social media. By the time Millennials became teenagers malls had already begun their decline, though they might have experienced a small part of it. Gen Z, on the other hand, missed out. They were given nothing in exchange for losing malls and have no place of congregation to call their own. Social media has taken the place of gatherings, and isolation reigns supreme.

I think this is best experienced in the oddball synth genre, Vaporwave. Specifically the "Mallwave" aspects. Vaporwave itself is a postmodern music genre that uses ideas, motifs, and samples from lost pop culture that forms an eerie time capsule of things that were lost and abandoned. A simultaneous celebration and dirge for the final days of the modern age, it is one of those musical styles that can't help but be chilling no matter what is done with it. Vaporwave hits deep to the bone for those who understand this strange mishmash of ideas and sounds that have long since lost meaning and were discarded, mostly because there has been nothing to replace them. It highlights a buried past in a dying culture that has no future.

Music scenes form and exist to fulfill a hole and a need. Pub Rock and Punk arose when Rock lost its way. Retrowave came about because synth music had lost what people loved about it. Vaporwave exists because social cohesion and community doesn't exist anymore and there is no answer as to what to do about it. Jokes about the "substance" behind the genre aside, it is a pretty hopeless musical style though not entirely by intent.

See, for instance, this:

If you have the time I do suggest watching and listening to such videos as this. I'm not sure if it can affect anyone outside of certain generations, but it does say something without actually saying it. Even if the sound is haunting.

That's more or less what Vaporwave is. A confusing jumbled mess of memories, commercials, and longing, is all that remains of a forgotten era that had hope behind it. Soon enough even that will be gone, too. I suggest reading the comments to the video for maximum effect. The users all instantly understand what is happening.

Another piece of a world that no longer exists is being erased.

I sympathize with the younger generation now. While the mall wasn't perfect, it was something. This an aspect of it that the Boomers never quite got. It was the end of what little community remained for those of us in the West. Now it is completely gone. Arcades, comic shops, computer places, rental spots, music stores, skate shops, the food courts, book stores, movie theaters . . . they're not there anymore. Those in Gen X and Y are the only ones left to remember this at its peak, and more for the positives than the negatives. Because, believe it or not, there are more negatives to losing them than positives.

What's being lost isn't the consumerism. That still exists. Black Friday is still a problem, Amazon sells millions of product every day, people still buy Funko Pops. The old hippie Boomer complaint about the mall has shifted places to where they currently shop. Nothing has changed there.

What has changed is what counted. Now we have a wasteland where the last semblance of community once stood.

Personally I have no nostalgic attraction to the mall itself. The two I visited as a kid are still around, albeit nowhere near as prominent as they were when I was younger. Fewer people go there even at peak hours. You start to wonder where everyone spends their time now. Even in the Christmas season no longer are they ever packed or overflowing with people. Heck, one of the malls doesn't even have a food court anymore. Nonetheless, they are declining fast. It's only a matter of time before they're gone, just as the music stores, arcades, and comic shops are. They'll be gone by 2030. Unless you want to see people you know why would you even go to them now? You can get everything online and usually for better prices. Mostly I went to hang out with friends, to see movies, or to waste time on a slow weekend, and I don't see too many of the kids these days doing any of that there, especially with most of the better spots long gone. As I said, everything was replaced with nothing. There's no reason to go to them now.

Obviously, not being a teenager anymore, I don't really go to the mall anymore. One had a barber that had been in operation since I was a kid until it closed last year. The stores I went in don't exist anymore. Most stores don't even carry the things I want, and haven't in years. They don't have sales on top of it. Even if I wanted to go: what would I do there?

The 20th century is over. Now we live in a decaying 1997 where everything rots away and is replaced with an uncanny valley doppelganger when it outlives its usefulness. In a landscape like this I completely understand why movements such as Vaporwave take off. They know that we will never truly escape this feeling at being stuck on the edge of collapse . . . until it finally happens.

What I want to leave you with is this news story from 1982 back when the mall first became noticed and discussed. It's a long report, but if you are interested in cultural decay and the zombie state we're currently in I do suggest watching it to the end, especially the final seven or so minutes.

We can make it a pop quiz.

Does anything in this report sound familiar to you? Do the older and younger generations' reactions to the mall look familiar to you, and why might that be? Do those quoted in the last seven minutes describe any arguments you see now?

Choice quote:

"Yes, you give up things with progress. You give up . . . I don't know what you give up to tell you the truth! It's a difficult question to answer. I think you gain more than you ever give up."

Isn't it fascinating that this was the mindset for centuries before the 21st century proved it all wrong? He instinctively knows you give things up by mindlessly plowing ahead, but he can't think of what it is. When I look at the broken remains of the malls I think of stupidity such as that quote.

We're still out here in the wasteland, mall or not. Those who remember them fondly rarely if ever talk about what they bought and how much they enjoyed exchanging money for goods and services. It was never really about consumerism or trends, but about filling that growing hole in the depths of our souls that just seems to grow decade after decade and century after century as we singlemindedly dig our way to a future that is looking more and more like a grave. That pit doesn't cease to be just because we spend our money elsewhere now.

And when all of that is gone, when there is no more community, when there is no place left to go. What happens to those without a place to be, without a signpost to guide them, and with no one to speak to? Do they just listen to the warped Vaporwave sounds of past and dying generations in the dark as they shop for new headphones on Amazon?

Is that progress?

We speak of good and bad art a lot, but that is only part of the problem. The deeper issue is that we aren't satisfied with stale bread and broken down circuses to keep us busy and are minds on some fairy tale Shangri-la that we will never reach. Humans know there is more to us than just amusing ourselves to death. But we don't know how to find it anymore.

It is overly dramatic to say the death of malls is a bad thing, but it is indicative of a worse thing. The death of community is the price of progress. We are beginning to lose sense of trust in each other, and I don't think we can get it back. Alienation is the future, as are pills and razor-blades. Prepare for the inevitable.

I once thought as a child that a normal life was aspirational enough. What else could a man need? A family, a job, friends, acquaintances, all form disparate and yet overlapping social circles that allow us to grow as people and form bonds that will help carry you when times get rough. Kids at the time got this. My grandparents' generation were still alive while this was still true.

But that was then.

We don't live in that world anymore, and I really don't know what world we live in now. I shudder to think what world I will die in should I ever reach old age. The 2010s was the decade of rot. Nothing new came about, and nothing will be remembered from it aside from tiny things. The corpse is now stinking up the joint and no one knows how to dig the grave. Just wait for what takes its place in the 2020s.

If people like this are still around maybe there won't be any 2020s:

"No, I never long for the good old days. That's not being progressive. These are the good old days."

You sure got that right, Boomer.

And they are never coming back.

If these are the best days of our lives I'd hate to see the worst ones. Keep an eye on the prices of drain cleaner, we've got a rough one coming. Hold on to someone while you still have someone to hold on to, and here's hoping for the best.

See you next time from the wasteland.