Outlet mall America

Outlet malls in America depress me. Don't get me wrong. I like a good bargain at the Coach store as much as the next person. I find great deals and usually do my serious annual shopping for essentials such as boots and coats there. The difference in price makes it all worthwhile.

Then why am I hit with melancholy every time I visit one? Well they show me a slice of American life which makes me really sad. A dystopian reality, which would have made for great science fiction a la Wall-E, 50 years ago. This is especially true of north eastern communities bordering Canada.

These malls are usually in the middle of nowhere. They are made up of independent stores and hence lack the artificial cozy fuzziness of a shopping mall where all shoppers co-exist as a community, at least for a time. So you necessarily have to walk outside irrespective of the weather as you enter and exit stores. There sometimes are lineups outside storefronts when incredible sales are on offer. As when you can get a signature handbag originally priced at $400 for $100. And these are legitimate offers for great goods. Having said that, these outlets are for the serious shopper in that you need a sense of purpose unlike in a mall where window shopping makes for an idle pass time within a comfortable cocoon of music, warmth and good cheer. Here shoppers go from store to store lugging huge bags, while making frequent trips to their SUVs to deposit their "steals".

So what's wrong with any of this? Nothing really - except it speaks of a lifestyle where big corporations warehouse stuff in the middle of nowhere and people buy things not necessarily because they need them but to live the impossible dream of beautiful people that inhabit the tabloids in supermarket isles. Or to kill boredom or to honour the ritual of buying gifts for Christmas or chocolates for Valentines or costumes for Halloween or to just plain buy. Do all these people really need all the stuff that is peddled in the malls? Probably not.

But I am most upset when I see the people who shop there and the young sales clerks who attend to them. They are all incredibly unfit and big. I don't really know the social communities they inhabit. But I can only imagine that travelling anywhere out of a hundred mile radius would cost money and take courage for those who never have ventured forth. Some of the sales clerks we met admitted not knowing anything about exchange rates, not having travelled anywhere. In the small communities that surround these malls there are few pass-times except the great outdoors and most people it would appear, do not get off their couch to experience it. I see them trapped in a world defined by the internet, sports TV, hamburger joints and these malls. Wonder what the future holds for them? Do the corporations really care? They only do care that they have people to keep in minimum wage jobs and people to buy their goods. They would rather not have these folks get off the couch, travel far, engage in active pursuits and learn to think critically? The State does not appear to care either given its interest in preserving the capitalist ideal at all costs. It is wilfully blind to the fact that trickle-down economics does not pay the huge college fees that may elevate the lives and social statuses of some of these folks. It should care given that taxes go into state funded medicine. It should also know that state funded education for the young would create a more stable and secure society than money spent on weapons of mass destruction. Well, I hear politicians talk about abortion rights and gay marriage, politically charged topics, but none really has articulated the problem of America's young and the dreadful future that awaits them. When no one seems to care – why do I care so much? I am having a serious rethink about shopping at these malls!