“The biggest difference between the mall rats of yore and those of today are those of today are actually purchasing, whereas before many of the mall rats didn’t,” business reporter Jennifer Waters told WBBM Newsradio’s Rob Hart on the Noon Business Hour this week.
She joined the program to discuss the resurgence of hanging out at the mall. While it seemed like the beloved teen pastime might be disappearing along with the mega-malls of years past, Water said it’s making a comeback.
However, mall culture is different in the 2020s. Teens are now equipped with smart phones that they can use to pay for purchases and more.
“The other part of what makes these Gen Z shopping so much more interesting is that they're documenting everything,” Waters explained.
That means that trips to the mall are now ending up on Instagram reels, TikToks and other social media posts. Waters said that these posts are actually helping malls breathing new life into them after challenges from the 2010s, through the COVID-19 pandemic and into today.
“Some malls are even creating like content places, making their malls more photogenic with modern content studios… kinds of things where they’re putting places where the kids can pose and do whatever and a lot of kids are putting clothes on and then putting them on Instagram or TikTok and looking for that kind of exposure,” she said.
So, if you see kids filming social media posts on your next trip to the mall, don’t despair. They’re just doing their part as part of the mall rat Renaissance to make sure we’ll have malls to go to in the future.
