Respect the struggle
T-POST® #185
In 2023 over 2400 stores are closing in the US alone. Big retailers like Bed Bath & Beyond, Walmart and Foot Locker are fleeing the major cities, leaving buildings and huge parking lots empty with an eerily cinematic War of the Worlds-feeling looming.
The same goes for downtown London as high street stores are vacant and borded up sporting huge signs telling everyone about the “Amazing Flagship Opportunity” that just opened up.” But we can all see we’re really witnessing is the slow and painful death of retail as we know it. Gaping holes in the fancy buildings formerly showcasing the epidemy of successful capitalism and consumerism. It’s the same store all over the western world – minty fresh malls and busy city streets suddenly riddled with dark store fronts and vacant spots.
There are a few reasons to the mass-elimination of these former giants: A gross over-establishment, people working from home, online shopping, excessive rents, public safety concerns and a difficulty finding staff willing to work for next to nothing in cities so expensive you need to be Jeff Bezos’s ex just to afford a place to live.
If there’s any spot you are especially fond of – keep supporting them. You’ll miss it when it’s gone.
Ironically, even Amazon is getting run out of business (at least at its retail locations.) But is this really something to mourn? At this point most of us have realized the level of unsustainability represented by fast fashion and overconsumption. Do we really need all this stuff? On more than one occation I’ve glanced around my crowded apartment or tried to force open the door to my overflowing basement storage unit and heard the voice of James Francos sociopathic rapper-criminal character Alien in the 2013 cult-movie Spring Breakers going: “All this sheeyit! Look at all my sheeeyt! I got, I got SHORTS! Every fuckin color. I got designer T-shirts! I got Escape! Calvin Klein Escape!
Mix it up with Calvin Klein Be. Smell nice? I SMELL NICE! I got my fuckin’ NUN-CHUCKS. Look at my sheeyit! This ain’t nuttin’, I got ROOMS of this shit!” So yeah, albeit I’m no diamond-toothed corn-roll-sporting gunslinging Miami-rapper – but I do have too much “sheeyt”.
Still, this development does make me a little sad. Ok, maybe not seeing a suburban Walmart close its doors – those oversized supermarkets give me the chills – but the general sense of all these arenas of everyday human interaction closing down in favor of digital shopping giants and a doordash-mentality, completely void of personal service does get to me. “Your package has arrived to your closest Instabox, remember to have your Bluetooth connected to open the compartment.” Having an AI wish me a great day just doesn’t have the same ring to it as getting it from an actual human being.
For more than a decade (before I was able to make a living writing self-indulgent “think pieces” on popular culture) I worked in stores.
I sold Danish medium-quality beds, Swedish minimalistic fashion and Japanese phones. And I loved it. I genuinely enjoyed the simple act of making someone smile, helping them out and sending them off feeling a little better about themselves. And to an 18-year-old living in a small town in northern Sweden in the late 90’s, working in a somewhat fashionable clothing store seemed like just about the coolest thing you could do. It was the small-town mall-version of being a “local celebrity”, outshined only by hot bartenders or anyone crafty enough to get a coveted spot on reality shows like “Survivor” or “Big Brother”.
The local store has always been an important place to meet, to interact, and not least a great way for young people to get their first work experiences. Not to mention the framing of some fucking amazing movies. In Judd Apatow’s “40-Year-Old Virgin” Steve Carrells character Andy Stitzer is a shy 40-year-old introvert who’s only social interactions come from his job at a local electronics store. Some of the greatest (most awkward) scenes take place in the store, like when Andy accidently outs himself as a virgin at an after hours poker game (“breasts feels like a bag of sand”), or when Andy’s boss Paula generously offer to take his virginity as a favor and recounts an early sexual experience with the family’s Guatemalan gardener.
In “High Fidelity” Rob Gordon (John Cusack) perfectly embodies the depressed and snobby music-nerd that could be found managing any record shop, and revisiting the film – based on the Nick Hornby novel by the same name – makes you surprisingly nostalgic for the time before streaming, Youtube and unlimited access to any music at any time. My God, I’d spend hours at the record shop listening to the latest drops with the impossible task of deciding between getting Nas’s “Illmatic” or Oasis debut album “Definitely Maybe”.
Look, I’m not going to tell you to stop online-shopping. With everything in the world within reach with a few swipes on the screen it’s hard to go back to the very limited supply of the local store on the corner, but I will tell you this: if there’s any spot you are especially fond of – keep supporting them. You’ll miss it when its gone.
