I remember when malls were the social hangout, your physically-instantiated social networking technology.
I’ve noticed many malls now ban people under 18 during most business hours.
Yeah, that makes a lot of sense. Old fuckers, if you can’t handle a few kids standing around and shooting the breeze, go the fuck home. And stay there. And die already.
But it was our mistake in allowing corporations to control our social spaces — both in the physical world and on the internet. There is no blame to be cast but in our direction. The rebuke belongs solely to us.
Though I believe that mall owners believe that they’ve “done the analysis” and demonstrated that malls that ban all young people are more profitable, this probably isn’t true. Like most things in life, power and control and fear and prejudices matter more than profit and thus the analysis will be massaged until what a bunch of scared old people wish to believe is found to be “true.”
I remember when malls were the social hangout, your physically-instantiated social networking technology.
I remember the ’80s and ’90s teen movies where the teens hung out at the mall and it didn’t resemble my life at all. Everyone was either going to after school activities like sports and clubs, church/temple, or doing 3+ hours of homework per night. Literally, the idea of hanging out at the mall was not something people in my peer group did. When I was younger we played outside or watched television or played video games. My cousins who were slightly older and younger than me did not hang out at any of the local malls, which were at least a 20 minute drive from our homes, and far from any bus line.
I’ve noticed many malls now ban people under 18 during most business hours.
What?
Going to and hanging out at the mall was one of the few social ativities anti-social me did during the 80s and 90s. Hard to believe, I know.
And yeah, many malls are banning teens and anyone under 18. Has been happening for years, and has only increased since that article from 2010.
I guess I was more anti-social than you were? My parents were strict.
How did you personally get to the mall to hang out?
Getting to the mall for me would have involved getting a drop-off which was super uncool, especially with parents who’d drop me off last and pick me up first. There were almost no kids my age in the neighborhood, and my actual school friends did not live in my neighborhood. I remember the big things were to 1)go downtown to the coffeehouse, 2)go to the bagel place near the school which was within walking distance 3)hang out at the home of somebody’s very permissive parents to drink and maybe do some other drugs. As for driving myself, I only was allowed to drive by myself when I got fed up and shanghaied the car to go an early morning club meeting, which I didn’t make because I kept trying to lose my dad who decided to follow me to school.
I didn’t go that often because it was a long drive, but it was usually with a friend of mine whose parents would take me when they went. Maybe twice a month or so.
And then as my family got better off and my grandparents started helping us and me out, I had a car to drive there.
Since I basically had no supervision I could (and did) do anything with that car I wished to do. Which was truly a great thing for me at the time — to get away from my mother and to be able to start to have more control over my own life.