Woodland Mall Adventures

Woodland Mall

                We arrived at the mall very aware and looking for different things that could have related to what we had seen in The Persuaders or from the reading, but after some time the task was almost forgotten. In the beginning I was looking for more advertisements to pop up or for me to notice if there were any smart ploys that the mall had, but nothing really stuck out. Also from the Pahl reading I remembered what he said about fountains in malls and was hoping to find one in Woodland, but there wasn’t one. However in Woodland I noticed how there are a lot of places to sit outside of the shops. All these sitting areas force people to look at stores and eventually enter these shops so that something is being bought. Thinking back to as we walked around to different shops and went to ones that appealed to us, I transitioned to become a part of the mall and a part of all the people walking around and shopping. I did buy a pair of jeans because my closet was lacking some. However I realized a part of why I bought it was because it was on sale and felt as though I were saving money. In actuality I am just contributing to the mall religion.

                The mall is a place that people go to usually feel better when they purchase things. Everyone is shopping because everyone else is shopping and this adds on to the mall religion. There is no escape of the consumerism. A lot of people that are at the mall feel as though it is a sanctuary, a place to get away and relieve stress by shopping. I have to admit that I have felt like that before, but thankfully I no longer rely on the mall for satisfaction. It is weird thinking of the mall as a type of “church”, but it really could be. People want to be a part of something, so why not at the mall. We really are becoming immune to advertisements and even though their effect seems to have diminished, we actually do pay attention to them. There are huge posters put throughout to mall that interchange to show even more advertisements. Malls are becoming such a normalcy for people’s lives and contributing greatly to our instant satisfaction. There seems to be no escape.