Ah, the mall. I have been living in Madison for quite some time now, and when I can’t get away, I like to go to the mall, usually inebriated in some capacity. I don’t shop there, mind you. It freaks me out, in fact, with mindless consumerism and over-consumption running rampant, along with the vacant children from high school and middle school. This generally lends itself to a highly laughable time, although sometimes a car trip back from the mall can leave me in a depressed blur.
One thing that people are incredibly unaccustomed to at the mall is interference in routine. A couple of friends and myself recently took a trek to West Towne to help establish a bit of suburban base for the Herald’s monthly arts publication, MAINTAIN. One of the things we had to do was address people, inquiring about their purchases. And most of the time the people (oft times high schoolers) were so off put with why we were talking to them that they couldn’t address the issues of why they were buying things there.
The most frequent response to “Why did you buy it?” was “I don’t know.” It’s really sad to see people floundering within their identities and supplicating them with self-depreciatingly ironic statements like t-shirts sporting phrases like “Comfortably Dumb.” The sad part was that that phrase seemed to generally hold for the individual, and for mall life in general.
The mall caters to a demographic, not an individual. For instance, especially if you’re a girl, have you ever been to the GAP to look for pants? I have been with female friends interested in procuring pants from outlet stores such as the GAP, only to find that the only remaining sizes were either in the 0-3 range or 11 and up. No normal sizes. So what does this encourage? It encourages the hunter-gatherer in all of us to get there early and stay for the sales. It lends incentive to spending your money. Not only does one void his or her voice, he or she pays to do so, and whenever is convenient for the outlet store and the sales people that work there.
We are as enslaved to the new fall colors that a marketing team has decided will sell like hot cakes as the child laborers who make the clothes are to the company. An example: capri pants. I know personally about four people that look good in capri pants. And though they may not be pertinent now, with the doom of the cold winter lingering overhead, just wait until it warms up to about 50 degrees and watch what any non-self respecting late-teenage house party-frequenting girl wears in hopes of attracting the opposite sex. Capri pants. And do guys like them? No, not really. But the analysts and marketing consultants endorse advertisements that instill a desire to consume these hellish wonders, and so women of all varieties (and more recently men) flock to East Towne or West Towne or Hilldale to partake in their patriotic duty of consumption.
But the problem not only lies within the ability to consume, but the desire to consume. We want to be smarter, faster and stronger. So we buy Nike. And we want to be adored in that cute scarf by that cute boy. So we invest in Burberry.
We are fed this inconceivable notion that the grass is always greener. Religion does it. So why not have consumerism and popular culture also do it. Look at the droves who lined up to be judged for the fledgling TV series American Idol. Scores of talentless wannabe’s threw caution and reason to the wind in the hopes of living that dream, in hopes of going to Hollywood, mingling with the elite, and living in even more excess than we live in now. We look to that excess and drop our jaws in bedazzlement and splendor. Have you ever watched Cribs? I’m addicted. It’s wonderful to see the lifestyles of the rich and talentless. I feel great when I learn that a 10-year-old (Lil’ Romeo) has his own house, complete with rooms he doesn’t have a use for and shoes he wears once. We as a nation look up to this. If we could only make it, we could do the same, we could go through Reeboks like Rolling Rocks.
And it is these delusions of grandeur that accompany nearly every man, woman and child at one point in their lives. No one wants to be a systems analyst initially, no dis intended towards systems analysts. Everyone wants to be famous.
The thing is that we can’t be. And the sh-tty thing is that we need someone’s excess to give us hope, to entertain us, to lose ourselves in someone else’s life. We pay to be mocked, to live in subservient conditions.
All people have talents. Self-realization allows for the realization that those talents are also good and useful, and probably far superior to those of the stars. But when faced with a commodity culture, it is often easy to lose sight of one’s own inherent significance, and get wrapped up in paying for it through merchandise from a money-thirsty tycoon. I’m not advocating completely withdrawing from the malls (although I don’t think that would be bad). I’m simply advocating knowing why one frequents them in the first place.
Paul Tyree-Francis ([email protected]) is a junior majoring in art. He is a graphic designer and illustrator for the Badger Herald.
