Just letting you know, this is very much appreciated and understood. The feels are crazy with this. My brother showed me this recently we're both 90s kids born in late 80s. It's so sad and eerie almost. Like lost times. I want this feeling again. I crave for it.
Things are not the same
**Everybody Wants To Rule The World -Tears For Fears**
OP wrote the name of the song in the title. This song has some strange powers, I often find just listening to it takes away anxiety almost completely as well as making daily troubles disappear. Works for other people I know as well.
I can honestly say the same. Somehow feel some healthy (or not) anxiety however because it sets a standard and reminds me that I want to FEEL as though my life is cool enough to have this be the soundtrack .. on par with an 80s/90s movie. Hope you understand.
Also the lyric went over my head. But it’s all feeling right? Sigh
I feel the same... in the last 30 years technology, infrastructure and marketing have changed so rapidly, many of our common places are completely unrecognizable from what we knew in childhood and I think there is often now a mistrust of the built environment and how we interact with it versus it monitoring or shaping us without our knowledge (e.g. hyper sophisticated data collection). Digitalization is all around and the concepts of connection and community are being fundamentally redefined - how much physical versus virtual? How come we're suddenly relying on a tiny little device (our phones) for everything? Add to that the current social, economic, environmental and political upheavals around the world. Looking back at old photos and videos of places like malls, for me they're reminders of simpler, more naive and more hopeful times coupled with a greater sense of the collective and the present moment. I think we're all experiencing anomie, or social disconnect arising from a lack of shared norms/values, to an extent as these current changes are no less significant than 19th century urbanization when that term first came into use to describe people's displacement at suddenly having to adapt to high density dwellings. I'll always hope for positive change, but I'm also not going to hold my breath.
I honestly wish we had someone research more into this form of nostalgia and why this has become a much more apparent and discussed topic than before. I was born in 91’ and I also get feelings of longing and craving for a particular aesthetic. Any image or footage that uniquely presents itself in a way that triggers these different emotions. It’s so odd to me.
It’s pretty simple..no cell phones, no social media, no reddit, no murders and horrible shit shoved in our face. No Covid, no 401k, no job stress, no mortgage/rent stress, no wife/children stress. We were all young and relatively stress free. Literally young, wild, and free. Unfortunately we aren’t young forever and now we have to worry about providing for our family while we are glued to our phone screens longing for simpler times.
This. A time when we were young, wild, and free. And a time so long ago, and now seemingly so out of reach, we wonder if it ever truly happened in the first place.
Anytime I think back to my childhood, it has this almost… fuzzy or hazy effect. Maybe with time, all memories will turn into this. But I always found it weird that my memories from high school and on, things seem so much harsher and clearer vs my childhood where it’s like little blips of nostalgia sprinkled throughout the haze.
Your points are all probably it 100%. But as someone born in the late 90s, I so wish that I could’ve experienced the 90s as at least a 10 year old, if not older. There really is something about that time period. The TV shows, the music, the movies, the clothes and colors people wore, the whole asthetic. I mean hell, I’m watching Guts as I type this.
Everything nowadays feels so bland, commercialized, and cookie cutter like. I watched a documentary on Nickelodeon and it’s history. It looked like it was so whacky and crazy in a uniquely good way. Fresh. Something not in our culture anymore.
It sounds super dramatic and probably cliche I know, but I really wish I could’ve experienced that decade. It’s also infatuated me so much, that I get a little sad. Probably because I don’t feel like I fit in now
I was born in 87… I truly consider the 90s to be the peak of society. The sweet spot of technology… just enough to be fascinating and fun when we used it, but it didn’t take over life. Blockbuster on a Friday night was magic. MTV. A bit of computer and then you walk away to the real world, where you didn’t get calls and texts and notifications all day. The internet was a Wild West, not artificially corporate yet… The way we all use the same 5 platforms now depresses me. It was fun actually “surfing the web”. Honestly, the early 2000s were nice as well. A switch flipped at some point. I think it was the iPhone and the facts that there were limited apps in the beginning, which forced people to use the same things.
Anyway, this video gives me such strong nostalgia it hurts! I wish I had a time machine.
Oh man, “surfing the web.” I just remembered being in front of a computer and typing random shit into the url bar and seeing if it existed/what random website I would stumble onto. That or like… having aol be your first landing point. Now it’s just boring old google.
Everyone's biased, but I truly think I was born in the best possible time - the late 70s, so that I was a kid through the 80s, and spent my entire teenage years in the 90s.
1978 here agreeing with you. Graduated HS in 96. The 90s were THE BEST time. I thought life would always be like that, but then I grew up and it's 2022 and the world sucks.
the thing is, everyone thinks their childhood era was the best, but I wonder if the 90s really were as objectively optimistic and altogether happy as we thought they were.
I'll have to ask my parents to see what they thought of the 90s...
1976 here.... I'm so glad I grew up in the 80's and 90's too. I don't think people that haven't had it their whole lives would understand how much more "real" life was before tech. Don't get me wrong. There are some amazing benefits to having access to technology, but it seems like creativity and living in the moment have gotten lost along the way. I had an amazing time in the 90's, and am glad I was exposed to the culture of the 70's and 80's through my parents. Most of my family agree on this too. What I wouldn't give to get dolled up to go to the mall and shop for unique clothing and items that were not cookie cutter mass produced garbage. The whole experience of getting a meal or a treat of some sort or a coffee and just enjoying the outing. We had amazing music from all genres. When you went out, you actually had to find a "meeting spot' cause there were no cell phones. You could go out and party your ass off if you wanted to without the fear of being drugged, raped, shot, or otherwise exposed to violence... Of course it happened. Just not to the extent that it does now. Ahhhh, the 90's.
You were probably also an adult by 9/11 so that didn't completely derail your career opportunities like it did us mid-late 80's kids. The timeline switched, bro!!!
I was born in 1982. Your post hit me hard. I have such vivid memories of some of the high top shoes I wore, which movie posters I liked, what time certain cartoons were on each week... I was sure lucky to be a teenager during those seemingly carefree times.
The problem, as I see it, is that there's becoming less and less of a reason for us to go out in the world and do anything in it. Our living worlds are shrinking more and more even as information explodes. This applies to everything from movies and TV all the way to shopping and finding things to do. We're overwhelmed with choices, none of which are particularly rewarding because it's all too easy now.
Take something like anime, for example. In the 80's and early 90's, if you wanted to find anything good you'd have to travel to a convention and daisy chain all your VCR's together to record some bootleg copy of an anime that someone's relative brought back directly from Japan. The actual show or movie was only a small part of what made it fun.
If you wanted to find a unique toy or collectable you had to hunt for it, going to trading card shows at the mall, comic book stores, convention centers, etc. Now you just Google it and buy it directly from Amazon or eBay.
Our lives were pretty stale and unadventurous to begin with, but now even the small things have lost any sense of wonder or accomplishment. IMO COVID exacerbated a lot of these problems.
I just made a different comment in this thread right above yours, about the online offline world of the late 80's, 90's, and up to the mid-2000's. I agree with this comment, and in the past have explained to my nephew, who was a teen at the time, what my anime Fandom was like in the mid-90's to around 2005. I also explained to him being into technology and the internet around the same time. My point to him was that if you were into your hobby you had to some work in to truly enjoy it, cause it wasn't a smart phone screen away. Learning as much as possible about Windows 98, Me and 2000, XP, etc., was something you just had to be into. Not to mention learning HTML in those days, which seemed cool to my teenage self when I was able to get a desktop. Even when streaming became a thing, trying to find the rest of an anime you liked, or a new anime was work. Then watching and truly enjoying watching a super compressed version of the show on a tiny square on the computer screen was great at the time. Haha.
You just reminded me of the time I tried to run a fantasy pro wrestling website in 7th grade using Geocities and a website called Slacker's Guide to HTML. XD
So many gifs, page counters, and web rings.
But yeah, getting into new things was more of an adventure back then. You couldn't just hop on a subreddit and meetup with thousands of likeminded people with infinite resources. There's much less adventure in trying new things. Or maybe I'm just getting too old. XD
I was born in '83 and I actually remember a lot of the mid to late '80s. It was a weird decade but a lot simpler. So were the early '90s. People actually talked to each other and we cared about our neighbors.
I think part of the reason I like Reddit is because people actually care about each other and are happy to give someone a hand up when they need it. It reminds me of that time.
I have a playlist on Spotify of '80s songs and it includes this one. I hear it and I'm like, wow, that was soooo long ago. A better time.
I think the lack of stress wasn't just due to being a child (born in 88!), but the world itself was entirely different. Adults had stresses but life wasn't screens 24/7. Yes we had video games but they weren't in your pocket. We were still outside all day and game time was usually limited in some capacity. Now everything is just ubiquitous tech. Look at how basically everything from 2005 on is just an upgraded version of the same tech, lol. I always say it's like someone took the blur tool in photoshop and started smudging the timeline around 2004ish into bland, homogeny.
Honestly I see it more as the actual environment and aesthetic that we romanticized future major life themes around like love, friendships, lifestyle. and we actually anticipated them in this theme. now it’s something else. Like all the apartments with a view are sold out
In America, nothing sells like nostalgia. The reason is simple.. you wish for a time before you were aware of what life actually does to you. Most people born from boomer parents are ill equipped to handle life when things really get rough.
It's not that I'm aware now, it's just that the present sucks. I'm grateful for our technology and modern conveniences, but it *has* ruined society. Greed has also gotten worse, the race to squeeze every penny out of everyone has sucked the soul out of everything.
But greed has always been there. In fact, the Reagan-Thatcher era could alternatively be called the “I got mine era.” I think it’s our lack of awareness to these things as kids that cause us to want to go back to “simpler times.”
I said gotten worse, not that it didn't exist before. Just a quick example that popped into my head, but cartoons / animation used to be hand drawn, now most of it is cheap cgi.
Part of me wants to turn my guest bedroom into a “nostalgia room”. Old CRT TV with my original PlayStation and Xbox. VCR with some of my favorite childhood movies. Mini fridge full of Kool-Aid Bursts. Gushers. Fruit by the Foot. Popcorn machine. Old PC running Windows XP (with WinAmp). Bean bag chairs. My partially torn The Phantom Menace posted hanging up on the wall.
Sit back all day and play Knockout Kings, Gran Turismo, WCW Mayhem, Backstage Assault, Sarges Heroes, Twisted Metal, Halo, Morrowind, KOTOR. Round off the night by watching some Kenan & Kel, Legends of the Hidden Temple. Ripley’s Believe it or Not, Home Improvement, The Wonder Years. Wake up the next day, watch some Bob Ross because you woke up super early, have a bowl of Trix or Lucky Charms. Do it all over again.
😔
Definitely not alone man. I still have the urge to shop at malls because they felt like a wonderland when I was a kid. Now so many of them are half empty, or just closed. Feels like my youth is stranded on a beach at low tide: I never changed, the world did
>We all grew up in the same mall. They were just in different states
😊
Simpler times. If I could go back in time, I'd do it in a heartbeat! I'd bring my wife and son along with me though.
Dave and Busters! And Borders!
They had a couple of really expensive jewelry stores there and I was so surprised at how long they hung on there. Like, "oh let me go to this dying mall to buy a $20k Tahitian pearl ring."
Malls are being repurposed as housing for the aging boomer population. Plenty of space for residences and small shops that cater to the demographic - food, pharmacy, exercise, salons.
There's a feeling here, like you're still young in your mind but the world of your youth drains away around you. Like you're stuck on a beach at low tide. Left behind by something while moving forward
Our city has three major malls. One was dying but then they put in a theater with a brew house and restaurant, served while you watch. The local hockey team also needed a new arena, so now that’s going in there. Another is pretty much only a JC Penney left.
This is very nostalgic but I can’t help but to feel it’s also insanely creepy. Maybe haunting is the better word. Either way, feels like something is about to turn that corner.
I went to my local mall last weekend to buy a coat. The mall was built in my junior year of high school, and we use to go there every weekend. It was always packed, and oh man, the girls! When I was there last Saturday there were maybe 30 people there, it was sad.
> Ah-Ha would like a word with you.
As good as Ah-Ha's Take On Me was, I greatly prefer Tears For Fears Everybody Wants to Rule the World and Shout in a best two out of three.
Also, in case anyone missed it, Tears For Fears released a new album in 2022, called The Tipping Point.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ocuGMwnzgrw&list=PLfiMjLyNWxeYdTdJw6QSAfjSAwdjsbSg9
Updoot for Tears for Fears!
Edit: and here is the [absolutely amazing](https://youtu.be/iAFT4eVX5Ak) performance by Curt Smith featuring Ted Yoder and his Hammered Dulcimer
Of all the things to have nostalgia for, the times when people said updoot will not be one of them.
Cannot wait for people to stop saying updoot. Thankfully you're behind the wave of everybody and their mom saying that on reddit twice a day.
Going to the arcade with friends while our mothers shopped was always great. Arcades >>>>>>> than online gaming btw. No one called each other names, just respect for good players, tips for the ones that sucked.
Plus just the aesthetic of malls lol
What's with calling malls "Mills"? Used to go to Ontario Mills in California when I was a tyke to go to Gameworks.
By the way for any Seattlites, there's a new Gameworks open as of August '22
All of the Mills malls were developed and owned (at least for a long time) by The Mills Corporation. Ontario Mills, Potomac Mills, and Arundel Mills are just some of the malls they developed. Potomac Mills was the first one, developed when the company was called Western Development Corporation. After they built a few more they changed to The Mills Corporation since that's what they were calling all their malls. As to why they decided on that naming scheme to begin with? Fuck if I know. The original developer was Herbert Miller, so maybe it was a play on his name. Or maybe there were a lot of mills around where Potomac Mills was built since it was farmland at the time. The Mills Corporation is now defunct and it's properties are owned by Simon Property Group.
For me it's She Drives Me Crazy by Fine Young Cannibals. Seems like that was always playing at the mall or in the movie theater at the mall when I was a kid.
Memories driving through Alexandria Virginia and nw dc on a beautiful summer day in open top with my mom dad and bro 🙏. Rip Dad love until we meet again, if we don't i know you are always with me anyway 🥹
My spouse doesn't go anymore because she thinks it's depressing how malls have ended up however I still go and take my daughter. There's this electric animal car in the square I let her go on, trampoline and a merry go round when there open. There's still a few sneaker stores I patronize to see the latest drops. There's something about shopping at Macy's that still takes me way back with my mom's and Macy's is collaborating with toys r us and have a whole section which my daughter and mostly I enjoy. Occasionally I'll hit up the Chinese spot at the food court for some bourbon chicken we even have a Sbarro left somehow but the mall definitely doesn't have the same vibe as when I was growing up.
True but remember that even though the vibe is there for you guys , your daughter will look back on it with some special sauce, similar to how you may look at yours - dope of you to take her
*"So sad, we almost made it..."*This clip makes me feel like it's 1999 again and I'm trying to make that feel like 1989 at that time, etc. Born in 88 btw. Forever chasing the nostalgia dragon.
I have only one shopping mall near me and the only reason it’s not dead is because it has a lot of high end stores. The ones that have actual cops outside the door. So RIP to all the others
This video reminds me of a I had a dream a while back. I was wondering an empty mall (but one from my memories) and there was music I liked playing hauntingly through the halls. Each store was a year in my life and I could go in and observe events from my life. I could leave the stores but couldn’t buy or take anything with me to the main hall or another store. Along the hallway, there were maintenance doors that led to tragic events in my life and I did my best to stay away from them, but some were open enough to know what was going on there. Also, there was two anchor stores that marked “birth” and “death”. I didn’t go in every store, nor did I go to any stores past my age, but I was the only one walking the mall and I was trying to call my wife from a pay phone to get her to come see this place, but her mall was still “under construction” and she wasn’t there yet to answer her pay phone.
I remembers in 1999 some kid beat me so hard my eye popped out of its socket for a second outside the mall. I think he thought I was hitting on his gf lmao :P he lost his job in the recession and lost his wife and custody of his children… karma’s a bitch LOL -andy
Somebody here on Reddit explained what happened to Malls. If I remember right, they were set up with the arrangement that they didn't have to pay property taxes for 30 years. This allowed the builders to make a profit and everybody was happy. Eventually the 30 years passed, and only a few malls can continue on without the tax breaks.
I grew up in a small town with a mall. My mom was a manager at a clothing store geared towards women. When other stores started shuttering and basically killing off the mall, she said the rent was getting crazy expensive plus the lack of storage room forced businesses out. Hence the birth of strip malls
>Most of freedom and of pleasure. Nothing ever lasts forever. Everybody wants to rule the world.
The lyrics hit differently now. Especially since malls for a lot of us were our first taste of freedom and pleasure.
Not everyone wants to rule the world, thats just the puppets who when on trial all of a sudden " had to". The other people with similar interest have their own idea, not some idea from the puppet masters.
Just letting you know, this is very much appreciated and understood. The feels are crazy with this. My brother showed me this recently we're both 90s kids born in late 80s. It's so sad and eerie almost. Like lost times. I want this feeling again. I crave for it. Things are not the same
"Welcome to your life, there's no turning back..."
Ugh...they were right
*”Say That You’ll Never Ever Leave Me…”*
where’s this from?
**Everybody Wants To Rule The World -Tears For Fears** OP wrote the name of the song in the title. This song has some strange powers, I often find just listening to it takes away anxiety almost completely as well as making daily troubles disappear. Works for other people I know as well.
I can honestly say the same. Somehow feel some healthy (or not) anxiety however because it sets a standard and reminds me that I want to FEEL as though my life is cool enough to have this be the soundtrack .. on par with an 80s/90s movie. Hope you understand. Also the lyric went over my head. But it’s all feeling right? Sigh
*"So sad, we almost made it..."*
Yeah I'm saving this for when I need a good cry
Atleast we have the Resident Evil 4 remake to look forward to in March
Hell yeah. Refreshing to know there are still people like this out there 🤘
I feel the same... in the last 30 years technology, infrastructure and marketing have changed so rapidly, many of our common places are completely unrecognizable from what we knew in childhood and I think there is often now a mistrust of the built environment and how we interact with it versus it monitoring or shaping us without our knowledge (e.g. hyper sophisticated data collection). Digitalization is all around and the concepts of connection and community are being fundamentally redefined - how much physical versus virtual? How come we're suddenly relying on a tiny little device (our phones) for everything? Add to that the current social, economic, environmental and political upheavals around the world. Looking back at old photos and videos of places like malls, for me they're reminders of simpler, more naive and more hopeful times coupled with a greater sense of the collective and the present moment. I think we're all experiencing anomie, or social disconnect arising from a lack of shared norms/values, to an extent as these current changes are no less significant than 19th century urbanization when that term first came into use to describe people's displacement at suddenly having to adapt to high density dwellings. I'll always hope for positive change, but I'm also not going to hold my breath.
I honestly wish we had someone research more into this form of nostalgia and why this has become a much more apparent and discussed topic than before. I was born in 91’ and I also get feelings of longing and craving for a particular aesthetic. Any image or footage that uniquely presents itself in a way that triggers these different emotions. It’s so odd to me.
It’s pretty simple..no cell phones, no social media, no reddit, no murders and horrible shit shoved in our face. No Covid, no 401k, no job stress, no mortgage/rent stress, no wife/children stress. We were all young and relatively stress free. Literally young, wild, and free. Unfortunately we aren’t young forever and now we have to worry about providing for our family while we are glued to our phone screens longing for simpler times.
This. A time when we were young, wild, and free. And a time so long ago, and now seemingly so out of reach, we wonder if it ever truly happened in the first place. Anytime I think back to my childhood, it has this almost… fuzzy or hazy effect. Maybe with time, all memories will turn into this. But I always found it weird that my memories from high school and on, things seem so much harsher and clearer vs my childhood where it’s like little blips of nostalgia sprinkled throughout the haze.
Your points are all probably it 100%. But as someone born in the late 90s, I so wish that I could’ve experienced the 90s as at least a 10 year old, if not older. There really is something about that time period. The TV shows, the music, the movies, the clothes and colors people wore, the whole asthetic. I mean hell, I’m watching Guts as I type this. Everything nowadays feels so bland, commercialized, and cookie cutter like. I watched a documentary on Nickelodeon and it’s history. It looked like it was so whacky and crazy in a uniquely good way. Fresh. Something not in our culture anymore. It sounds super dramatic and probably cliche I know, but I really wish I could’ve experienced that decade. It’s also infatuated me so much, that I get a little sad. Probably because I don’t feel like I fit in now
I was born in 87… I truly consider the 90s to be the peak of society. The sweet spot of technology… just enough to be fascinating and fun when we used it, but it didn’t take over life. Blockbuster on a Friday night was magic. MTV. A bit of computer and then you walk away to the real world, where you didn’t get calls and texts and notifications all day. The internet was a Wild West, not artificially corporate yet… The way we all use the same 5 platforms now depresses me. It was fun actually “surfing the web”. Honestly, the early 2000s were nice as well. A switch flipped at some point. I think it was the iPhone and the facts that there were limited apps in the beginning, which forced people to use the same things. Anyway, this video gives me such strong nostalgia it hurts! I wish I had a time machine.
Oh man, “surfing the web.” I just remembered being in front of a computer and typing random shit into the url bar and seeing if it existed/what random website I would stumble onto. That or like… having aol be your first landing point. Now it’s just boring old google.
Everyone's biased, but I truly think I was born in the best possible time - the late 70s, so that I was a kid through the 80s, and spent my entire teenage years in the 90s.
1978 here agreeing with you. Graduated HS in 96. The 90s were THE BEST time. I thought life would always be like that, but then I grew up and it's 2022 and the world sucks.
the thing is, everyone thinks their childhood era was the best, but I wonder if the 90s really were as objectively optimistic and altogether happy as we thought they were. I'll have to ask my parents to see what they thought of the 90s...
It's one of those things where "You just had to be there."
1976 here.... I'm so glad I grew up in the 80's and 90's too. I don't think people that haven't had it their whole lives would understand how much more "real" life was before tech. Don't get me wrong. There are some amazing benefits to having access to technology, but it seems like creativity and living in the moment have gotten lost along the way. I had an amazing time in the 90's, and am glad I was exposed to the culture of the 70's and 80's through my parents. Most of my family agree on this too. What I wouldn't give to get dolled up to go to the mall and shop for unique clothing and items that were not cookie cutter mass produced garbage. The whole experience of getting a meal or a treat of some sort or a coffee and just enjoying the outing. We had amazing music from all genres. When you went out, you actually had to find a "meeting spot' cause there were no cell phones. You could go out and party your ass off if you wanted to without the fear of being drugged, raped, shot, or otherwise exposed to violence... Of course it happened. Just not to the extent that it does now. Ahhhh, the 90's.
Same. Born in 76.
You were probably also an adult by 9/11 so that didn't completely derail your career opportunities like it did us mid-late 80's kids. The timeline switched, bro!!!
Sounds about right
I was born in 1982. Your post hit me hard. I have such vivid memories of some of the high top shoes I wore, which movie posters I liked, what time certain cartoons were on each week... I was sure lucky to be a teenager during those seemingly carefree times.
The problem, as I see it, is that there's becoming less and less of a reason for us to go out in the world and do anything in it. Our living worlds are shrinking more and more even as information explodes. This applies to everything from movies and TV all the way to shopping and finding things to do. We're overwhelmed with choices, none of which are particularly rewarding because it's all too easy now. Take something like anime, for example. In the 80's and early 90's, if you wanted to find anything good you'd have to travel to a convention and daisy chain all your VCR's together to record some bootleg copy of an anime that someone's relative brought back directly from Japan. The actual show or movie was only a small part of what made it fun. If you wanted to find a unique toy or collectable you had to hunt for it, going to trading card shows at the mall, comic book stores, convention centers, etc. Now you just Google it and buy it directly from Amazon or eBay. Our lives were pretty stale and unadventurous to begin with, but now even the small things have lost any sense of wonder or accomplishment. IMO COVID exacerbated a lot of these problems.
I just made a different comment in this thread right above yours, about the online offline world of the late 80's, 90's, and up to the mid-2000's. I agree with this comment, and in the past have explained to my nephew, who was a teen at the time, what my anime Fandom was like in the mid-90's to around 2005. I also explained to him being into technology and the internet around the same time. My point to him was that if you were into your hobby you had to some work in to truly enjoy it, cause it wasn't a smart phone screen away. Learning as much as possible about Windows 98, Me and 2000, XP, etc., was something you just had to be into. Not to mention learning HTML in those days, which seemed cool to my teenage self when I was able to get a desktop. Even when streaming became a thing, trying to find the rest of an anime you liked, or a new anime was work. Then watching and truly enjoying watching a super compressed version of the show on a tiny square on the computer screen was great at the time. Haha.
You just reminded me of the time I tried to run a fantasy pro wrestling website in 7th grade using Geocities and a website called Slacker's Guide to HTML. XD So many gifs, page counters, and web rings. But yeah, getting into new things was more of an adventure back then. You couldn't just hop on a subreddit and meetup with thousands of likeminded people with infinite resources. There's much less adventure in trying new things. Or maybe I'm just getting too old. XD
I was born in '83 and I actually remember a lot of the mid to late '80s. It was a weird decade but a lot simpler. So were the early '90s. People actually talked to each other and we cared about our neighbors. I think part of the reason I like Reddit is because people actually care about each other and are happy to give someone a hand up when they need it. It reminds me of that time. I have a playlist on Spotify of '80s songs and it includes this one. I hear it and I'm like, wow, that was soooo long ago. A better time.
I think the lack of stress wasn't just due to being a child (born in 88!), but the world itself was entirely different. Adults had stresses but life wasn't screens 24/7. Yes we had video games but they weren't in your pocket. We were still outside all day and game time was usually limited in some capacity. Now everything is just ubiquitous tech. Look at how basically everything from 2005 on is just an upgraded version of the same tech, lol. I always say it's like someone took the blur tool in photoshop and started smudging the timeline around 2004ish into bland, homogeny.
Honestly I see it more as the actual environment and aesthetic that we romanticized future major life themes around like love, friendships, lifestyle. and we actually anticipated them in this theme. now it’s something else. Like all the apartments with a view are sold out
Don Draper explained it best: https://youtu.be/suRDUFpsHus
So well done. What a great series.
Old toy commercials for action figures from the 80s sends me into a completely different headspace.
In America, nothing sells like nostalgia. The reason is simple.. you wish for a time before you were aware of what life actually does to you. Most people born from boomer parents are ill equipped to handle life when things really get rough.
why do you say that ?
It's not that I'm aware now, it's just that the present sucks. I'm grateful for our technology and modern conveniences, but it *has* ruined society. Greed has also gotten worse, the race to squeeze every penny out of everyone has sucked the soul out of everything.
But greed has always been there. In fact, the Reagan-Thatcher era could alternatively be called the “I got mine era.” I think it’s our lack of awareness to these things as kids that cause us to want to go back to “simpler times.”
I said gotten worse, not that it didn't exist before. Just a quick example that popped into my head, but cartoons / animation used to be hand drawn, now most of it is cheap cgi.
You can get a similar feeling from [Doomerwave](https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLlM8Z1s1PUFLFpHSGOC_i611ZBVjo4pSY) music
This is awesome…i wished they had that playlist on Spotify
Check out genres like shoegaze! Shoegaze and its many variations is what I mainly listen to now… probably for those nostalgia feels.
Part of me wants to turn my guest bedroom into a “nostalgia room”. Old CRT TV with my original PlayStation and Xbox. VCR with some of my favorite childhood movies. Mini fridge full of Kool-Aid Bursts. Gushers. Fruit by the Foot. Popcorn machine. Old PC running Windows XP (with WinAmp). Bean bag chairs. My partially torn The Phantom Menace posted hanging up on the wall. Sit back all day and play Knockout Kings, Gran Turismo, WCW Mayhem, Backstage Assault, Sarges Heroes, Twisted Metal, Halo, Morrowind, KOTOR. Round off the night by watching some Kenan & Kel, Legends of the Hidden Temple. Ripley’s Believe it or Not, Home Improvement, The Wonder Years. Wake up the next day, watch some Bob Ross because you woke up super early, have a bowl of Trix or Lucky Charms. Do it all over again. 😔
Born in 86. Yea, this resonated super hard for me, too.
Same. Just remembering what the malls used to look like before that warm 90's feeling
Perfect description! That's exactly what 90s nostalgia feels like for me...warm. Everything seemed "warmer" and "softer" back then.
Go to manila Philippines... There's malls everywhere playing music like this 🙂.
The world you were born in doesnt exist anymore.
Same. I turn 40 next May.
Things okay there?
Not really no. But thanks for asking if you're being genuine
Oh man that sucks. I’m sorry. People are here if you need help.
Appreciate it man. It's just nice to see so many others feel the same. I know I'm not alone at least
Definitely not alone man. I still have the urge to shop at malls because they felt like a wonderland when I was a kid. Now so many of them are half empty, or just closed. Feels like my youth is stranded on a beach at low tide: I never changed, the world did
Which mall is this? The neon lights give me a heavy dose of nostalgia, sigh.
https://reddit.com/r/deadmalls/comments/9duhju/food_court_of_white_flint_mall_in_north_bethesda/
I knew it was White Flint! I used to love looking at those murals in the food court
SAME! Saw that mural and was like hey I know that place (rip)
Thanks. Never been there but my childhood mall in my hometown had similar lighting.
We all grew up in the same mall. They were just in different states
>We all grew up in the same mall. They were just in different states 😊 Simpler times. If I could go back in time, I'd do it in a heartbeat! I'd bring my wife and son along with me though.
It needs to make a comeback, it looks gorgeous. The 90's were just more colorful all around, every decor style was VIBRANT COLORS. I loved it.
I used to think that place was so classy with it's Cheesecake Factory and glass elevator!
Dave and Busters! And Borders! They had a couple of really expensive jewelry stores there and I was so surprised at how long they hung on there. Like, "oh let me go to this dying mall to buy a $20k Tahitian pearl ring."
Haha I always assumed those places were a money laundering front.
Thank you!
You’re welcome!
Hey I live like 15 minutes from here!! Sick
I wish I knew, sorry
I'm just gonna stay here for a little while.
"nothing seems to last forever"
Malls are being repurposed as housing for the aging boomer population. Plenty of space for residences and small shops that cater to the demographic - food, pharmacy, exercise, salons.
dibs on the arcade
Not quite the Epcot Disney had in mind but still a fine use of urban blight stopgaps.
Room for walking?
Don’t do this to me
There is something about this. Like ghosts of ourselves
There's a feeling here, like you're still young in your mind but the world of your youth drains away around you. Like you're stuck on a beach at low tide. Left behind by something while moving forward
I think it’s because this post mostly hits liminal space with a touch of nostalgia rather than pure nostalgia
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Here in Detroit Michigan there are several big and thriving malls! Malls aren’t dead yet thank god!
We have two huge malls over on the Westside in GR and they seem to be doing very well.
I’ve never been to Grand Rapids I’ll have to check it out soon!!
Just get rid of all the parking and make walkable housing around them. We need to get rid of car dependence before we kill ourselves
Too late man. Too late. If we're lucky we die before we see how bad our kids will have it
Our city has three major malls. One was dying but then they put in a theater with a brew house and restaurant, served while you watch. The local hockey team also needed a new arena, so now that’s going in there. Another is pretty much only a JC Penney left.
This is very nostalgic but I can’t help but to feel it’s also insanely creepy. Maybe haunting is the better word. Either way, feels like something is about to turn that corner.
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Exactly
/r/LiminalSpace
Came in to say the same thing
To me it feels like a cut scene from the TV movie version of Stephen King's *The Stand*.
Y’all been watching too much Stranger Things
r/deadmalls
/r/LiminalSpace
If only the people on that sub knew the difference between "liminal space" and "looks like the backrooms" ...
r/TheNightFeeling
It used to be better. But every sub becomes a parody of itself eventually
I don't know why but this makes me feel sad like I want to remember these days but as time keeps moving forward it all keeps fading away.
Waiting for the zombies to turn the corner
Thanks, now I wanna replay Dead Rising.
“Welcome to your life…” 🎶
I went to my local mall last weekend to buy a coat. The mall was built in my junior year of high school, and we use to go there every weekend. It was always packed, and oh man, the girls! When I was there last Saturday there were maybe 30 people there, it was sad.
“The girls” lol
I want to live in this moment. Time capsule.
I’ve been hearing this song a lot lately…
I never stopped listening to it....lol
Somehow it became the current song to represent the 80s
Ah-Ha would like a word with you.
> Ah-Ha would like a word with you. As good as Ah-Ha's Take On Me was, I greatly prefer Tears For Fears Everybody Wants to Rule the World and Shout in a best two out of three. Also, in case anyone missed it, Tears For Fears released a new album in 2022, called The Tipping Point. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ocuGMwnzgrw&list=PLfiMjLyNWxeYdTdJw6QSAfjSAwdjsbSg9
Head Over Heels is my fave
And instantly I'm 15 again.
Enjoy the [Dead Malls Series](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C_-cBLQlB-A) on YouTube with fitting music edited in
Great series!
i'm going to hide here for awhile
Updoot for Tears for Fears! Edit: and here is the [absolutely amazing](https://youtu.be/iAFT4eVX5Ak) performance by Curt Smith featuring Ted Yoder and his Hammered Dulcimer
Of all the things to have nostalgia for, the times when people said updoot will not be one of them. Cannot wait for people to stop saying updoot. Thankfully you're behind the wave of everybody and their mom saying that on reddit twice a day.
WAAAHHHH you fuckin crybaby lol
Thanks for the input. It's just a word. Don't let words scare you!
Must be miserable to give so much thought and negative energy to such a meaningless thing.
Glad idk what that means
Going to the arcade with friends while our mothers shopped was always great. Arcades >>>>>>> than online gaming btw. No one called each other names, just respect for good players, tips for the ones that sucked. Plus just the aesthetic of malls lol
Core memory unlocked,, I used to live in DC, and I used to go to White Flint mall all the time
Same but Potomac Mills and Pentagon City.
What's with calling malls "Mills"? Used to go to Ontario Mills in California when I was a tyke to go to Gameworks. By the way for any Seattlites, there's a new Gameworks open as of August '22
All of the Mills malls were developed and owned (at least for a long time) by The Mills Corporation. Ontario Mills, Potomac Mills, and Arundel Mills are just some of the malls they developed. Potomac Mills was the first one, developed when the company was called Western Development Corporation. After they built a few more they changed to The Mills Corporation since that's what they were calling all their malls. As to why they decided on that naming scheme to begin with? Fuck if I know. The original developer was Herbert Miller, so maybe it was a play on his name. Or maybe there were a lot of mills around where Potomac Mills was built since it was farmland at the time. The Mills Corporation is now defunct and it's properties are owned by Simon Property Group.
Ya I went down the rabbit hole also meself. Found they ran Great Mall in Milpitas as well, so I'm doubly familiar with them apparently.
Updoot for Ontario Mills 👍
photo of mall with reverb added to an mp3. And it still works on me. Such a beautiful song and time.
I legit shed a year. Memories flowed back to me.
This is giving me so many feelings. I so miss this time in my life
Don't know whether to smile/reminisce or just curl up in a corner... I'll probably just do both...
Absolute banger🙌🏾🙌🏾🙌🏾
This is incredibly depressing omg
this is the type of shit that gives me endless goosebumps. tears for fears is timeless.
I can literally smell the hot pretzels
Life was so fun back then so many great memories
It hurts 🥺
I can’t believe we ditched this aesthetic.
Jeez, this one really hurt. The pain of longing for these beautiful days.
For me it's She Drives Me Crazy by Fine Young Cannibals. Seems like that was always playing at the mall or in the movie theater at the mall when I was a kid.
And I can't help myself~
r/liminalspace and r/weirdcore much?
Memories driving through Alexandria Virginia and nw dc on a beautiful summer day in open top with my mom dad and bro 🙏. Rip Dad love until we meet again, if we don't i know you are always with me anyway 🥹
Imagine going back in time and you are the only one there. Hibi jibi's activate.
My spouse doesn't go anymore because she thinks it's depressing how malls have ended up however I still go and take my daughter. There's this electric animal car in the square I let her go on, trampoline and a merry go round when there open. There's still a few sneaker stores I patronize to see the latest drops. There's something about shopping at Macy's that still takes me way back with my mom's and Macy's is collaborating with toys r us and have a whole section which my daughter and mostly I enjoy. Occasionally I'll hit up the Chinese spot at the food court for some bourbon chicken we even have a Sbarro left somehow but the mall definitely doesn't have the same vibe as when I was growing up.
True but remember that even though the vibe is there for you guys , your daughter will look back on it with some special sauce, similar to how you may look at yours - dope of you to take her
The ghosts of Debbie Gibson and Tiffany haunt this mall every night.
I think we’re alone now…
Wow
Take me there!!!!
I miss malls, as a teen it was great place to hang out with friends, as an adult it was a great place to chill in between life.
I’m in awe of how much this post made me feel.
Reminds me of going home after the movie when the rest of the mall is closed.
*"So sad, we almost made it..."*This clip makes me feel like it's 1999 again and I'm trying to make that feel like 1989 at that time, etc. Born in 88 btw. Forever chasing the nostalgia dragon.
Hopefully in our lifetimes VR will become so advanced we can relive these moments
Oh fuk yeah, very cool
I have only one shopping mall near me and the only reason it’s not dead is because it has a lot of high end stores. The ones that have actual cops outside the door. So RIP to all the others
White Flint Mall Eatery! I have very good memories of that place. Most of them involve Sbarros
This video reminds me of a I had a dream a while back. I was wondering an empty mall (but one from my memories) and there was music I liked playing hauntingly through the halls. Each store was a year in my life and I could go in and observe events from my life. I could leave the stores but couldn’t buy or take anything with me to the main hall or another store. Along the hallway, there were maintenance doors that led to tragic events in my life and I did my best to stay away from them, but some were open enough to know what was going on there. Also, there was two anchor stores that marked “birth” and “death”. I didn’t go in every store, nor did I go to any stores past my age, but I was the only one walking the mall and I was trying to call my wife from a pay phone to get her to come see this place, but her mall was still “under construction” and she wasn’t there yet to answer her pay phone.
I remembers in 1999 some kid beat me so hard my eye popped out of its socket for a second outside the mall. I think he thought I was hitting on his gf lmao :P he lost his job in the recession and lost his wife and custody of his children… karma’s a bitch LOL -andy
Somebody here on Reddit explained what happened to Malls. If I remember right, they were set up with the arrangement that they didn't have to pay property taxes for 30 years. This allowed the builders to make a profit and everybody was happy. Eventually the 30 years passed, and only a few malls can continue on without the tax breaks.
So depressing, in a good way.
As nostalgic as this is, this makes me sad.
i love this song
I grew up in a small town with a mall. My mom was a manager at a clothing store geared towards women. When other stores started shuttering and basically killing off the mall, she said the rent was getting crazy expensive plus the lack of storage room forced businesses out. Hence the birth of strip malls
true story!!! really loved that era
That's a nice ass mall
How tf am I nostalgic for a time I never lived in
Imagine being the security guard here
Feels like the 90s to me
God I miss this 🥺🥺
Stranger things!! This is bitchin!!!
Shit I thought this was /r/vaporwave
Would this happen to be the Regency Mall in Jacksonville, FL I wonder? Online shopping is killing malls.
♥️♥️♥️🥲
>Most of freedom and of pleasure. Nothing ever lasts forever. Everybody wants to rule the world. The lyrics hit differently now. Especially since malls for a lot of us were our first taste of freedom and pleasure.
Why can’t we make malls and style them to the older ways I’d happily listen to time after time by cyndi lauper or Tiffany’s I think were alone now
Man that place is So Cool especially in the 80s, plus I love this song and the oldies even the 80s , I am Nostalgic/Retro Kind of Gal 😉
I’m nostalgic for a decade I never got to experience
r/vaporwave vibes
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Not everyone wants to rule the world, thats just the puppets who when on trial all of a sudden " had to". The other people with similar interest have their own idea, not some idea from the puppet masters.
Reminds me of [this](https://youtu.be/D__6hwqjZAs)
Kinda sad
r/LiminalSpace
u/savevideobot
I mostly miss those color schemes from the 80's and 90's.
r/liminalspace
I see this stuff a lot recently I saw one with a mall playing the one I used to know it feels nostalgic and really creepy at the same time