Have you ever walked around a dead or dying shopping mall? If you have one near you, I highly recommended doing it. It's quite an experience. Mark Fisher in his last published book before his death wrote about the eeriness of late capitalism, and nowhere is that eeriness more crystallized than in dead or dying shopping malls.
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Just listen to that creepy ambient nothingness.
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theres one near me actually
its always hosting weird small conventions and its biggest attraction left is a giant chess set
but its just another symbol of the death of the american middle class. all thats left for physical stores are walmarts or nordstroms
no in between
though i am happy because malls wouldnt exist without the car suburb culture and the destruction of traditional small business main streets
Would love to visit one. I don't like crowds and avoid them if possible, so I rarely go out to such places, but I live in the third world and they are pretty much nonexistent in my city.
That picture looks comfy, almost like something you'd see in a post-apocalyptic game, except ruined to shit.
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Why is he so popular here recently?
what makes it "late" capitalism
good question
alive shopping malls are even creepier m8
Didn't he do a bit denouncing idpol as a "Vampire's castle"?
It's just a new name for the Spectacle so people don't have to admit that Debord was right.
Late capitalism includes the functioning of the spectacle, but isn't limited to it. It's a catch-all term for the changes that have occurred in developed capitalist countries post WWII.
That's Amazon and Walmart dominating the market. If I can go on Amazon and not only thoroughly vet a product before I purchase it, but get it significantly cheaper, and do so from my phone on the fucking toilet, why the fuck would I go to a mall?
My friends would do that. I always hated going because the only good thing in the mall, the arcade, got closed to improve the mall's image or some shit.
Yeah. It's a pretty good analysis of the moralizing "left" who possess all the Correct opinions.
Forgot the link. My b.
they just tore down our local mall
actually kind of sad to see it go, I discovered manga in the bookstore there and have a lot of good memories of eating in the food court after a movie with friends
its being turned into an upscale outdoor retail and recreation space, blegh
Fisher? Probably because he was a pretty important theorist and he just died tragically.
Not exactly, but I've been in agonizing malls and closed malls.
btw mark fisher is goat
It's just a way to trigger Fukuyamists by reminding them that capitalism is not permanent and is indeed transitory.
watch dawn of the dead
Look at how tidy and orderly the death of that mall is! Signs pointing to closed stores are removed, stores that are abandoned have clean windows, floors are freshly scrubbed, doors, seats, wc still functioning, etc.
Capitalism manages its life-cycles so submissively. Until there's a single dollar profit to be had the mall will go on.
Same thing will happen when the ecological catastrophe hits. The extinction event of the human race will be orderly and well managed. The last man on Earth will close his stall, submit his taxes, count the money he made that last day, and die in an orderly fashion.
Would you live in a mall?
I'd live in a mall. We should convert them to apartments.
Wait, oh, what about indoor gardens instead?
no watch my analysis of dead rising :^)
There is one near me that's in the downtown core of my city. Few people actually shop there but it fills up with vagrants a lot. The only reason it's dying though is because there is a much better mall not far away, that ones pretty busy.
He died recently and I can guarantee you that any leftist worth his shit here has read his Exiting the Vampire Castle somewhere in his early development
There still seems to be a lot of middle class people about its just that they buy stuff online.
Even stuff like womyns clothes. Its becoming popular to order loads of stuff online just to try it on and send back what they dont like for a refund. Or maybe thats just the few girls I know
I spent so much of my teen years going to two malls nearby where I lived that when/if they start closing it will be kind of soul crushing
With the collapse of the American retail industry Malls should be nationalized and turned into indoor urban parks.
I always imagine these people when the delivery guy comes, seething with rage because they have to leave their seat to collect the package.
Also Capitalist Realism, which absolutely everyone should read and re-read.
I never read any of his books unfortunately, but I plan to. But the Vampire Castle article was huge, it was the first left-wing controversy I remember being part of. I sent it to a bunch of people I'm no longer in touch with and got into huge arguments.
Damn now there are two things making me nostalgic ITT, my early days as a leftist and retail
you shouldl read Tales From the Mall by Ewan Morrison
That would make for a good album cover
Capitalism is going away and will be replaced by 2100
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tongue in cheek review of bleak post-NASA florida mall
That's a pretty good prophecy you have there, sounds almost religious.
The one near me closed down. Thousands of retail square footage just went to waste because someone decided we needed a NEWER one that looked exactly the same.
Now, like 3 random local stores like a hot dog vendor have moved into the mostly empty space.
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Most likely, humans won't even be around by 2100
Now that's a religious prophecy if I ever heard one. What's gonna happen? Christ? The Ahmad? Ragnarok? Kali Yuga?
Who gives a fuck. Malls destroyed small shop culture.
I was thinking the same, but what genre?
Nuclear war or climate change would be my bet
funny you mention that because there's one fairly close to me and any time I'm in it there's like 4 people there despite it being huge and no places gives me such a sense of dread and hollowness
never stay there too long the feeling is that overwhelming
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We've been hearing about that for a while, but human's are the sentient cockroach, we'll survive flooding, sweltering heat, desertification and great winters. We'll live through the radiation.
Evil doesn't real.
Satano-Muzak.
In a weird way, I kinda want an apocolypse. The idea of focusing all of one's efforts on survival by directly acquiring, making, and taking the necessities of life, fighting man to man when one's life is threatened and forming relationships on that most meaningful activity of living to see another day has a strangely romantic sense to it, more so than the mundane and banal survival and subsistence under capitalism. I know I wouldn't like it as much as I dream of it though.
There's one near my house that's been on the decline for years and I remember going there frequently as a kid. Walking through it is like walking through T&E's Billion Dollar Movie set or a zombie game, only a lot more depressing since half the lights are off (to save money I'm guessing) but there are still people who are working at some snack stores and there are weird fringe shops for stupid alternative remedies and magnets and shit that are obviously going to die with everything else.
The apocalypse won't look like Mad Max or The Last of Us. It will look like Threads or Children of Men