I know it is impossible for some to believe, but there was a time when going shopping was, at least for a young boy living in semi-rural North Carolina in the early to mid 1990s, something akin to strolling down Rodeo Drive: it was an event. At that time, Target was still finding its foothold in North Carolina and was still Wal-Mart’s cool, big city cousin. Their stores still had the ribbon of neon lights around the interior walls and still had the sit-down cafe that made the whole place smell like movie theater popcorn. This was before in-store Starbucks, before CVS took over their pharmacies — before a lot of things. The only Target within an hour’s drive was in Raleigh (or possibly one of those neighboring towns collectively and erroneously known as ‘Raleigh-Durham’), so going there on a Saturday morning with my grandmother, mother and sister was the closest I ever got to experiencing Disney World.

Of course, in this pocket of a previous existence, even going to Wal-Mart was kind of a big deal. I remember the location in Hillsborough was, for a time, our ‘local’ store even though it was about 20 miles away. It was the old, pre-Supercenter format — cramped and covered in the once ubiquitous ‘roll back’ smiley face. Thinking back, it’s possible the most memorable thing about these journeys wasn’t the shopping but the fact we would always have lunch in town. In later years, if we really wanted some excitement, we’d go to the Supercenter in Siler City!

I bring up these memories because there was a time during the 1990s and into the early 2000s when shopping was something people wanted to do, not necessarily had to do. This was the heyday of the shopping mall — I remember being absolutely awestruck when The Streets at Southpoint opened just down the street from my grandmother’s house. Shopping was a way of life, a pillar of the late-stage capitalist social and cultural milieu. But, as the internet became more and more interlaced with our daily lives, shopping online became more convenient and, in many cases, less expensive. At some point we became disenchanted with the ritual of driving to the mall, dedicating two or three hours to walking the promenades and returning home laden with bags and lengthy sales receipts. We began trading trips to Old Navy for Prime shipping, oversized paper Macy’s bags for compact Shien mailers. Going to the store became less an adventure and more a trial.

As a result, the once glistening temples of commerce began to fall into disrepair and chaos. Indoor malls gave way to vast shopping centers designed to look like Main Street storefronts, complete with sidewalks and roundabouts. Before long, however, these places were also shadows of their former selves. The golden age of shopping was coming to an end. Some malls have managed to hang on, others have been vacant for years, others have been razed to make room for other things. Storied marques such as K-Mart and Sears have vanished from the suburban landscape, driven to extinction by online competition and the cancer-like growth of Wal-Mart. Fast fashion apps have been sapping revenue from respected merchants like J.C. Penny and Amazon continues to sell everything from everywhere.

As more and more commerce moved to the online space, physical spaces deteriorated. This decline only accelerated in 2020 once the COVID-19 pandemic further shifted attention (and money) away from brick-and-mortar retailers. With the world largely at a standstill, delivery services became the preferred method of consumption. Restaurants were unable to offer dine-in seating, so DoorDash and similar apps became indispensable to millions of people trying to make it through the months of lockdown. Chain ‘big-box’ stores adopted something called curbside delivery, a curious hybrid of online ordering and in-person pick up, a still popular service years after the pandemic has subsided. But this shift towards curbside and delivery came at a cost. Target, once known for its orderly and tidy stores, has become grubby and soulless. The neon is long gone and while you might still be able to get a box of popcorn from the self-service kiosk, it’s always stale and overpriced. Best Buy used to be a veritable cathedral to all manner of electronics and tech, but it now seems to be a kind of warehouse for large appliances, computers and mobile phone services. There are no DVDs, hardly any video games and the computer software section consists of cardboard placeholders for subscription services from Adobe and Microsoft. It’s the kind of place you might go if you’re looking to buy a TV, but any kind of accessory or component you’ll probably order from Amazon. Nowhere is conducive to browsing anymore either — even ostensibly ‘fun’ places like GameStop and Barnes and Noble have a kind of sadness about them now and, as such, one tries to avoid spending more time in them than absolutely necessary.

Perhaps this comes from decades of wanton consumerism and the inevitable burnout that accompanies any activity if done too hard for too long. The entire world of commerce, at least for the vast majority of us, has lost all style and has seemingly given up on trying to provide an experience and has gone all-in on simply the transactional aspect of the marketplace — here’s the building, here are the goods, buy something or don’t. There is no community, no mystique, no food courts. If all you want to do is spend money to purchase a pair of underpants, there really is no reason to go shopping — simply load up Amazon and you’ll be drowning in options in ten seconds. Why would you waste your time and energy on a boring and unfulfilling trip to the shop when you can have the same emotionally vacuous experience from your bathroom? It probably won’t cost any more and as long as you don’t need those underpants that moment, 2-day shipping from Amazon will work just fine.