Flashback to the Timeless Malls of the 1980s

When ’80s kids went along to the mall, they weren’t just planning to shop. It was a spot to hang out and socialize, to pay time with friends — and, oftentimes, find a date. A mall was a kind of cultural and civic hub, a sprawling cement playground that has been home to the latest in fads and trends. It was enabling you to buy glittery watermelon lip gloss and butterfly clips for your hair, even when you really wanted a set of thigh-high platform sneakers from Brookstone, and it had been also the type of place where, if the mood struck you, you have access to your ears pierced at Claire’s. https://time.com/3805133/flashback-to-the-timeless-malls-of-the-1980s/

In the era of David Byrne’s True Stories, shopping malls were seen as emblems of modern American life, replacing town squares and bringing people together. But that’s not just how malls have shaped our culture in reality. Instead, malls have been used as a setting for sexy horror movies (Mallrats), apocalyptic thrillers (Dawn of the Dead) and teen comedies like Fast Times at Ridgemont High and Bill and Ted’s Excellent Adventure.

These films accentuate the stress between the pleasures of mall life and the potential for violence, and they helped to solidify the mall’s role as a tattoo of American consumer culture. It’s a position that hasn’t been completely obliterated by the rise of online shopping and the death of big box retailers, but it has been diminished nonetheless.

In his 1989 book Malls Across America, photographer Michael Galinsky documented the waning glory days of these cultural and social hubs. The images are nostalgic for ’70s and ’80s babies who remember the vibrant stores, loud arcades and busy food courts of these youth. And in an era whenever we all be seemingly glued to your phones, it’s hard to not desire to return to a time whenever we actually left them behind for a little while.

But in the same way the net has sucked up many types of retail, it appears that malls have been pushed out the way in which by other things like online shopping and entertainment options, particularly in places where they aren’t well-suited to weather extreme temperatures or provide much shade. Still, many have was able to thrive by becoming destinations for entertainment and leisure activities as opposed to places to sell goods. And they’ll probably carry on this if the recent popularity of TikTok and YouTube proves anything. For the rest, these time-capsule pictures of the ’80s mall world can take us back to simpler instances when life seemed less hectic and a tad bit more magical.