I've been to very few malls in my life. However, I've enjoyed my few excursions to them: they're fun places to hang out, explore, observe people, and occasionally even shop. I always thought of malls as generally happy places where people went to spend time with their friends and families and to have fun. I had only been to Woodland Mall once before, last weekend, but after watching The Persuaders , reading Pahl's essay, and returning to Woodland Mall this weekend, it made my head hurt when I realized that the mall truly was a sacred place of consumerism
"The average person sees 3000-7000 advertisements a day." I don't remember the exact numbers the film used, but I know the number surprised me enough that I thought, "no way, that can't be right; I probably see about a hundred ads every time I go to the mall, but 3000? I'm not that bombarded!" When I stepped into the mall, the first thing I did was start looking for advertisements. I wasn't consciously aware of them before, but now that I was looking for them, it was hard not to see them. Ads aren't limited to just television commercials, highway billboards, and store window signs. They're on our phones, our mp3 players, our microwaves, our books, our shirts, our shoes, and even our food! They're on the products we buy, they're on the boxes those products come in, they're on the bags the cashiers put those products in when we check out, and they're on the receipts the cashiers hand us after we've paid. The worst part is that, without consciously looking for them, we don't even notice them anymore, because we're so used to them.
When I grew tired of looking for advertisements, I turned by attention to the people around me. While sitting near one of the exits, something interesting I noticed was that very few people leaving had more than one bag. Even more interesting was the fact that very people who were leaving had less than one bag. These people may have come to the mall with the specific purpose of buying one thing, but that's probably wishful thinking. It seemed more likely to me that most of these people had come to the mall to just hang out and not buy anything. Unfortunately, due to the rampant advertising (which they were probably only subconsciously noticing, like I was) and the people with shopping bags all around them, they were pressured into buying at least something. After all, going to a shopping center and not actually buying anything is foolish, right? We have to spend money when we go to the mall; as Pahl says, the mall is a sacred place for us consumerists, and not spending any money there is almost sacrilegious.
I entered the mall intending to buy only two pieces of clothing for a tie-dying event. I'm almost proud to say that I left with exactly what I intended to buy, but I'd be lying if I said I was never tempted to buy something else. It took me almost 2 hours to convince myself that I didn't need a wireless keyboard, a gamepad, a bluetooth headset, an HDMI cable, another fall jacket, a better pair of tennis shoes, or a $5 slice of pizza; I'm a consumerist like most of us are. Fortunately, I'm now a self-aware consumerist. I still believe the mall is a fun place, and I still think it's okay to buy things if I need them or if I know exactly what I want before I walk inside. However, I feel that I have more of an ability to say "no" to buying things than I did before. I also believe that I can better enjoy going to the mall to just hang out, without feeling pressured into buying anything while there. I'm happy to say that my next visit to the mall will be one of my best and most relaxed yet.
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