By Ezra
Speaking of Black Friday, I hit two malls that day and neither was particularly crowded. And I'm home in Orange County, where we meditate on intensifying our materialism. The Spectrum was so empty I could've parked my car lengthwise and no one would've noticed (nor been inconvenienced), and South Coast Plaza, which had a healthy crush of shoppers in it, didn't leave me with a single bruise. Nevertheless, the media's loving reports of Black Friday barbarity indicate a certain level of mania, so what gives?
My only thought is that the malls are dying -- all the really good injuries seemed to happen in Wal-Marts, Best Buys, and so forth. Are superstores the new malls? Or is that merely a holiday phenomenon, with superstores able to slash prices deeper than the small, separate shops populating your average mall?
The mall is so much more a public space than the Wal-mart. I don't know what kids today are doing, but my friends and I never got shot coquettish glances in our local Best Buy nor endlessly debated (and usually chickened out of) approaching the blond in the stereo section. They invented food courts for a reason, people. Where will my kids go to pretend to talk to the opposite sex!?
