This post really belonged at the beginning of the blog,
but here it is.
Malltopia blog was created by a legitimate mall enthusiast.
It puts in words and photos one of the things I enjoy most.
How long will I be a mall enthusiast?
Well I can tell you what being a mall enthusiast isn't.
It wasn't some hot new trend that I bought into.
In fact, with economists saying that indoor shopping mall numbers are shrinking,
it's about the exact opposite.
I also didn't decide to love malls to hop on some popularity bandwagon.
It is true that when I was in high school, my teenage friends and I
did hang out at the mall the most.
Because it was something to do.
But present day, none of my married 20-something friends
have the time or the energy to keep up with my enthusiasm.
So let me tell you what it is.
It's a legitimate passion.
It began when I was very small, almost too small to remember.
The mall was just a happy place and a sign of a good time.
Even before I could appreciate fashion and marketing,
It was a place to go with my parents when we wanted to relax
or accomplish something positive, like redecorating the house.
For me as a child, it meant candy shops and toy shops.
It also meant quality bonding time with mom and dad.
As a teenager, it meant quality bonding time more with mom
who enjoyed shopping more than dad
and also with friends.
It meant shopping for cute clothes to wear to high school.
It meant somewhere to hang out with new boyfriends.
It meant picking out my prom and homecoming dresses.
As a young adult, it still meant many of those same things-
A place to buy cute clothes to wear to events,
a place to shop for a date-night dress,
a place to hang out with someone special,
a place to take my friends on a day off.
It also became my sanctuary.
I went to the mall to get away from the stresses of everyday life.
Even when I had to reign in the spending and learn more financial responsibility,
it was still somewhere to go to get away.
It was a place of good vibes-
happy families and friends and couples,
people buying gifts and having a good time,
colorful things to distract me from my anxieties,
sweet smells,
herbal tea and coffee,
cute pets for sale.
I have very few bad memories tied to a mall, if any.
Even a sad, struggling mall has still served me pretty well at times.
The one I called "home" in Lakeland, FL was decent enough
but the one I call "home" hear near Jacksonville is a perfect setting.
It is the bright, wide open, double-decker classic with many skylights.
Built in 1990, it is the epitome of "the American mall experience".
It has 5 anchors, a bustling food court and all sorts of treats for
middle class young ladies like myself.
I spent so much time there in the nine years I've lived here.
Sometimes my visits made no sense at all.
I had no money to spend and no legitimate purpose for
making the 26 mile trek from St. Augustine.
I didn't need anything, and no one was going to meet me there.
It was later that I realized I was drawn to the place because
it felt like a sanctuary.
I could go there no matter what the weather
and there were freebies and things to do even if there was no cash in my purse.
I became so much of a regular there that mall employees thought I was one of them.
And then I got discounts.
One day I finally realized, sadly, that though it might have brought me comfort
to spend my free time there,
since I didn't really have a purpose to go there and spend all that gas money,
I needed to find other hobbies.
For awhile, I had gotten heavily involved in my church
so I was being given volunteer work to do
and that kept me out of the mall.
When it all slowed down,
the mall started to "call" to me again.
Finally, I found my happy medium.
I started this blog.
And the very first entry I put in it
was "The Avenues Mall"... which is the nice two-story middle class beauty I call home.
I have even used its giant center court skylight as a Facebook cover photo.
Then I added my other favorite- my fair weather friend St. Johns Town Center.
They go hand-in-hand on a nice day that's not too hot or cold.
If you are going to drive nearly 30 miles to one indoor mall,
why not go visit the more upscale stores and get some fresh air too at the other one?
(Well, technically SJTC isn't a mall).
Then I went to the others that were within reach.
There's one in Orange Park, one in Daytona,
one mostly dead mall in Arlington (a subdivision of Jacksonville).
There's another dying mall within an entertainment complex
on the river front in downtown Jacksonville.
There's a tiny dead mall here in St. Augustine.
There's two outlet malls. One is more of a strip mall though.
Then I had a week off of work and I decided to make a trip
to my hometown (Lakeland)
and make a tour on the way.
So I hit seven shopping hotspots on the way down,
out in Tampa Bay,
and on the way back.
This year I got married and spent time on the gulf coast
and added a few more.
I even added one from a day trip over the Georgia Border.
Throw in some case studies about things that used to be malls-
used to be someone else's day off sanctuary in another life.
Update the mall's progress or ailments so they don't wind up forgotten.
Tell a story about one that got resurrected as a church.
You have a blog.
Boom.
A constructive outlet for an otherwise non-constructive obsession.
Shopping is fun, but it takes away from all that financial responsibility.
Studying a mall teaches you valuable lessons about economics and marketing.
And that brings me to my other purpose for the blog.
Besides indulging myself on a bit of an unusual passion,
I have dreams of the time and effort poured into the project creating a bit of a portfolio.
I went to Flagler College for Public Relations.
Though I work at a bank now and have not yet used the PR degree, I haven't given up hope.
While I was there, I dabbled a bit in writing for news.
Politics were never my cup of tea, so I shied away from writing about government issues
and economy crisis and instead enjoyed populating the entertainment column
of the college's paper "The Gargoyle".
I went to movies and wrote about them.
Occasionally I wrote about something else like an art walk or a fundraiser.
It was something I believe I did for credit in a class,
but I enjoyed it.
I got a summer internship (also for school credit) writing media kits
for a restaurant association.
I may not have risen to fame or gotten hired to write for the city newspaper,
but I took what I learned and logged it away
and now it helps me write my blogs-
blogs where I can write any amount about anything and promote it
on social networking all I want.
I don't abuse the privilege.
I could spend hours writing bad poetry or misguided song lyrics.
I could rant about celebrities or I could rant about ex's.
I could post images from reddit all day.
Instead, I try to stick to an agenda and a format.
My goal is to someday use all of this mall talk
plus my newest blog about St. Augustine attractions
as a couple of portfolios that will get me hired.
Hired to blog from home, write for an entertainment magazine,
help manage a website like Tripadvisor,
or maybe even travel the country doing valuable research
like the men who wrote Labelscar.
My husband hates shopping.
He doesn't like to be at the mall because he is more of an introvert.
He likes his quiet office in our condo.
But he has similar dreams of launching a web design business from home
and has passions that I don't understand 100%-
one of them is to possibly write video games.
If he could get paid to play video games,
I could get paid to love the mall.
I thank him for inadvertently inspiring me.
For the future of Malltopia:
Coming this fall:
-The birth of a Nordstrom
-An update on the curious case of Regency Square
-A possible addition of Gainesville's mall to the list
Coming this Christmas:
-Lakeland's case study
-The first enclosed mall built since 2006?
(Hopefully) Coming in 2015:
-Miami Malls
-Florida pan-handle Malls
-A tour for the outlet malls of Orlando and Tampa
No comments:
Post a Comment