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transcription: women be like "where can i find a goth gf?" my sister in christ we killed the american shopping mall and the goth girls lost their natural habitat
the idea that goth girls are dependent on a consumerist habitat feels offensive
I'm sorry to tell you that hair dye, plastic glitter and make-up does not come from the ecologic goth homestead.
It came from the mall. Sorry.
you don't need malls for hair dye and makeup, plus DIY goths always exist
malls tap into the goth demographic, not create it
when was the last time you managed to set foot in a hot topic or spencers?
Goths are still extant in bdsm clubs and certain bars
The idea that the only Habitat of the Goth is the American Shopping Mall is a misunderstanding, as it is the habitat of the American Mall Goth. Here's some other places where you can find Goths:
Rural Walmart has plenty of hick goths
You've also got the pain goths at bdsm events
As a 'murican, are there Museum Goths of the New World?
Of course. The goths are an adaptable people.
Visagoths?
Banks.
When I was growing up I knew exactly one goth, and he stank because he never showered. There were no goth girls, there were only grebs.
If the ship of Theseus were a meme
When I was growing up, the goths I remember wouldn’t be caught dead in a shopping mall.
I know a lot of the reason people say malls are failing is the internet but I also feel like its due to rising inflation. The malls that still exist near me are so fucking expensive. Most of the stores you can't even get a T-shirt for less than $20.
Not to mention the privacy concerns. The local mall near me has banned face coverings and hooded jackets. I have no doubt's that somewhere along the line footage is being sold to data brokers
Hot Topic and Spencer's are both still running. Also, there's Dolls Kill in LAX.
Also, get a seasonal job as a scare actor. I helped run a haunt, and goth girls were honestly our backbone.
Hot Topic is losing its edge (seriously there was like one rack of fishnets and the rest was branded stuff including Bluey branded stuff) and Spencer's has been reducing locations.
Yea. The Hot Topic of today is nothing like the Hot Topic of 10 years ago.
It used to be a "counter culture" store but when the Mall era started dying they changed into a "pop culture" store trying to chase profits.
The longer Hot Topic sticks around the more likely they're gonna end up like the merch side of an EB Games (any Aussies will know what I mean)
EB Games is Canada as well and I know exactly what you mean.
I feel like Funko pops are like an opportunistic infection. When ever you see them it's not a good sign for the host.
They're definitely waning, I agree. They're still around, though. I still go there every once in a while for cheap, body safe jewelry and band t-shirts.
I appreciate that they at least save the really "safe" stuff for their other brand Box Lunch, but they need to let Hot Topic be edgier
get a job? scaryyy
Burn down, down, burn down Hot Topic
Gotta get a job at a coffee shop but not some corpo chain one of those fucks like black mud, or morning muck or some shit.
Don’t ask how I know but the one on the left is pretty insistent he’s a boy who just likes cute goth girl clothes.
Well NOW I'm jealous. (I assume he's not lying, and doesn't do stuff like taking hormones or getting plastic surgery specifically for crossdressing)
That just makes him a cute goth guyfriend
True that.
If you're in Europe, Castle Party is next week, Amphi Festival is the week after that, and then M'era Luna is in August!
If you're in the US.... uh... the Gathering is in August? I dunno, I've been posting tour info on !gothindustrial@lemmy.world as I come across it... (edit: see here for a collection of tour/festival dates)
What would you call festivals that are emo themed like the ones you linked? Rock?
I've seen emo-themed nights advertised at clubs, for nostalgia. So they might just be called emo. Tho to bring in larger crowds they might use different terms, yeah.
Goth girls were hunted to extinction by the rolling giants and the mall ecology collapsed as a result. The niche is now occupied by urbex enthusiasts and Julien Reverchon.
In winter, I turn into a goth enby or a dark mori kei enby
The goths are all at Affleck’s Palace, as they always will be.
I've been too old to go in there for a decade now my manc brotha
Sorry for the reddit link, but theyre being pushed into grocery stores!
Wait, malls died in USA? Wtf happened? I thought these were supposed to be temples of consumerism!
What happened was same day delivery.
On kind of a weird note, a kind of bright side... a number of former malls are basically being converted into... sort of really slapdash, improvised arcologies.
Most of the stores get resectioned and converted to basically apartments or condos, and sometimes a few are kept open as actual stores.
So... you can now, theoretically, be a goth girl who actually literally lives in a mall, possibly even directly inside a former Hot Topic or Spencers.
Here's Forbes laying out the case for this potentially making financial sense:
Ironically... the original intention of the guy that came up with the concept of a shopping mall... was that they would actually be much more like this, intentionally planned, walkable, largely self-sustaining, utopian communities, dreams of the 1950s/60s.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Victor_Gruen
The mall was commercially successful, but the original design was never fully realized, as the intended apartment buildings, schools, medical facilities, park and lake were not built.
Yeah.
Malls were actually always supposed to be this way.
But we decided to build suburbs and highways instead, fundamentally missing the entire point, because Oil and Gas profits must go BRRrRr
The homely feeling some shopping centers/malls have make sense now, not surprised that was supposed to be the endgame.
Yep.
Fundamentally designed to be inhabited, not just visited.
They've been dying for a while. COVID was a bit of a deathblow, but the rot was setting in way before that. A combination of online marketplaces becoming the norm, and the progression away from people ever leaving their houses really ate away at American malls over the past two decades.
I don't live in America, but I spent a decent amount of time on r/deadmalls back in the day and found the factors behind these monoliths crumpling fascinating.
...big boxes killed malls in the 2000s, the retail apocalypse killed big boxes in the teens, and covid put the nails in big retail's coffin...
Honestly my interpretation is that many of the malls that were either built in places they shouldn't have been or built too large are finally dying off but I've still been some absolutely popping malls as recently as last week
Basically any mall that continues to rely entirely on a big box store or 4 to sustain themselves is crumbling but those which have refocused on smaller stores are in much better shape
Amazon happened
Yes, but at least in my area, which is a mid-sized city, shopping malls are still alive and well.
mall of america is still packed pretty much everyday
Most of them. Now the only ones around are the high-end ones in sizeable cities
I mean there's still a lot of old malls around but they're really pretty sad and most of the stores inside are dead or shuttered.
#BringBackShoppingMalls