Unpopular opinion: hitting 50 explored malls was way less meaningful than hitting 10

I crossed 50 abandoned malls last month out near Cleveland, and honestly it felt hollow. The first 10 though? Those hit different. My third mall had a frozen yogurt machine still plugged in with a half-empty cup next to it. Number 7 had a food court map that listed a place called 'Hot Dog Heaven' and I found a receipt from 2012 in a register drawer. After about 20 malls they all start blending together. Same broken escalators, same collapsed ceiling tiles, same graffiti. But those first few were raw discoveries where every corner had something personal left behind. Now I'm chasing that same feeling and it's just not there. Has anyone else found a specific number where the novelty wore off for them or am I just burned out?

2 comments

2 Comments

robertgreen20d ago

Man that "Hot Dog Heaven" receipt really got me lol. My 4th mall had this weird old arcade cabinet that still made sounds when you tapped the buttons and I stood there like an idiot pressing start for like 20 minutes. But by the time I hit maybe 15 malls I started getting annoyed at the same dead plants in the same planters and same busted fountains. The magic wears off fast when every place has that exact same wet carpet smell.

alice_kim20d ago

Oh man, that "wet carpet smell" description is way too accurate lol. But I gotta gently correct you on something - it's not 15 malls you hit, it's probably way more than that if you're talking about the weird arcade cabinet thing. Those old cabinets were everywhere in the 90s and early 2000s, right? I swear every mall had at least one of those things sitting in a corner collecting dust. The dead plants thing though, that's the real universal mall experience (especially the ones that are clearly fake but nobody bothers to clean them). The smell honestly gets worse the more you notice it, like once you start paying attention to it you can't un-smell it everywhere.

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