#mall gothic

[missghoulia]

💕

[ceruleancure]

New hair style 🖤🖤🦇

[angelsaxis]

The mall provided a testing ground for the state of public sociality many young people find ourselves in now. This state of sociality is birthed by the suburbs’ planning, and accelerated by “stranger danger” mentalities, helicopter parenting, the increasing share of 18-to-29 year olds who live with their parents, and rising rates of social anxiety. Public gathering, instead of being a site for serendipitous connection, is a way to rehearse out interaction with a group of people you already know from somewhere else (maybe school, or work, or Tinder); attempts at connection from those not already deemed “safe” are an interruption to this psychodrama.

-- Mall Gothic, Anna Aguiar Kosicki

[organanation]

Midwest Midwinter Mall Gothic

The weather is unbearably gray. Somehow it is even grayer inside the mall.

You enter through a store packed with Easter and prom dresses even though Easter and prom are 3+ months away.

The clearance racks are stuffed and have no organization by size, color, or type of garment.

The store is empty and soundless aside from one lone salesperson at the perfume counter playing Candy Crush on their phone.

The clothing is all $75+. None of it is your size.

The food court has several vacant stalls. The only place open is a Noodles and Co.

The Freestyle Coca-Cola machine, boasting hundreds of flavor combinations, only spits out Diet Coke.

They serve you something other than what you ordered. The server looks so dead inside that you don't say anything and just eat what you're given.

Some of the shops have lights on and people inside even though the gates are closed and padlocked from the outside.

You've seen the same member of the custodial staff three times pushing a mop bucket. The water is inexplicably green.

You exit through the same store. The mannequins are wearing different clothing than when you entered.

The parking lot has moon-crater size holes. It's okay though, because there are no cars and you can drive anywhere you want.

[hellsulfur]

choosing lipstick

[z00r0p4]

Ok but my trip to the mall yesterday was so weird like. The first thing that happened was the bookstore lady tryna get us into good omens, then we went to FYE (nerd store) and they held me captive for 15 minutes longer than my friend wanted to be there because they started playing a U2 playlist (I kept insisting we stay for “one more song”), and on our way out I was accosted by a cosmetics salesman who put a gold flake facial scrub on my hand.

[littlyon]

Mall Gothic

A wind blows across the parking lot. It smells of the sea. You are nowhere near the sea. A seagull calls overhead.

In the lobby, a small dog walks forwards, then backwards, then forwards again - never progressing, always squeaking. You have heard this sound every time you’ve entered the mall. It is never the same dog.

A furniture store’s display begs you to enter, promising the softest cushions, the coziest chairs. You step forward, but the man behind the counter locks eyes with you, abject misery in his expression. You know that if you go inside, you will never be able to leave.

Music plays everywhere. Songs overlap into an unearthly cacophony. But whenever you enter a store, you can only hear one song. It was not playing outside the entrance.

An enticing smell wafts from the tea store. It is sweet, almost sickening, but you are helpless to resist. You drink from the samples at the front, and it is not enough. Your nose is so saturated with the scent that you can’t remember ever smelling anything else. Is it still blood that runs through your veins, or is it tea?

When you walk back to your car, it is gone, replaced by one of the same make and model. It is identical except for the hubcaps. You look across the parking lot, searching, but all you can see is a sea of gray SUVs that stretches from horizon to horizon. A seagull calls overhead.

One day you get lost and stumble into a store you’ve never seen before. Everyone inside is friendly, the prices are incredible, the atmosphere is perfect. You leave feeling high, elated, at peace. When you come back, you can’t find it, and no one you ask knows what you’re talking about. 

A store you admired as a child closed as soon as you were big enough to fit their clothes. Now that you are an adult, too big for their merchandise, it has returned. You wonder if your adolescence was a dream. Mocking laughter follows you as you walk past.

“Buy 3 get 3 free!” proclaims the red and yellow sign in the window of Claire’s (there is always a Claire’s, and it always has that sign). As you leave the store with a bag full of jewelry, you realize that you do not remember what you bought. You do not remember entering the store.

As you retrace your steps, you pass the dog. It is still moving. It is still squeaking. Does it ever stop? You look into the creature’s wide, dead eyes, and the question becomes, rather, can it?

A server asks if you’d like some chicken. You take it and move on. Another server asks you the same question, and then another, and another. Their faces begin to blur. How many pieces of chicken have you eaten? “Free sample?” you hear, over and over again. Capitalism is collapsing before your eyes. A seagull calls overhead.

[missghoulia]

Repost bc it got flagged as inappropriate

(Edit: got flagged again)