The lack of third spaces placing a crushing amount of pressure on spousal relationships to fulfill all of each individual’s needs made me think about how toxic (and sad the concept of) fandoms have become. Both our alienation and the way social media teach us brand ourselves through labels and IP leads us to put too much pressure on our hobbies and interests - to the point that they become our identity. As fun and healthy as it is to share our mutual interests, we form stronger bonds through our shared efforts and values. Focusing only on hobbies and interests, to the point of superseding our values, we begin to form a sort of dogma. Then, when it’s revealed that people like something on their own terms, and not on ours, it’s as if they’ve broken the law, and have betrayed our Golden Calf (capitalized out of respect.) People also get written off when they’re revealed to have different values than whatever we've projected onto our object of choice. “Oh? Well, you can ignore that guy. True Werther’s Originals fans would never cut somebody off in traffic.” I dunno, maybe some would. Are we a bunch of people who happen to like candy, or are we Legion? It’s strange how easily we begin to make these types of assumptions. I mean, I fall into it, too. Sometimes you come across someone who happens to share a niche interest of yours and you think “these are my people!” Then, you get to know them, and you’re left thinking “these are my people?” in the distressed italics of anxiety. What we like is not what we’re like.
One of the obstacles to revamping a dead mall as a third place is that most of these abandoned malls were so cheaply built, they are literally falling apart after less than twenty years. To revamp it, it will probably need a total rebuild, at significant capital expenditure. Which brings us right back to square one - in the current system there's only one entity class permitted to capex, and that's the corporation.
My city (Southfield, MI. Where children are not starving) is doing this very thing with the abandoned Northland Mall. Arcades and places for console gaming is what I'd add.
Long Island has a lovely history of shopping malls. Some of the malls are definitely making strides towards 3rd Place-iness. One has a added a bunch of nice sit down restaurants, some of which have a day every week that kids eat free. One has a large arcade with lots of games and prizes, it is definitely crowded most days
aww i also wanted to be a librarian once. i was convinced not to by the dominant narrative from adults in my life telling me you need to climb some kind of ladder, and the only ladder to climb in libraries is away from the cool ground-level stuff and up into administrative crap. nobody ever said it was okay to just....get a job you liked, and keep doing it. ah well, most of those jobs are either being foisted down onto lower-paid, non-union, part-time pages and clerks, or else hybridized into gig-economy variants (also lower-paid, non-union, and part-time). so i guess i just got a jump-start on the poverty i would have been dumped into later anyway. lucky me! ;)
A friend of mine said if she were a billionaire she'd turn the mall into a senior center kind of thing, with little like houses inside so people can still feel a bit more independent but still have all the benefits of being inside including the a/c and some access control for those who are prone to wandering off and getting lost...
We need more Goth Waldos in the world. True story, a good chunk of space of my local mall is turning into an apartment complex and it wouldn't surprise me if the whole mall does so in the next few years.
I live in one of the few walkable cities in America, so the concept of teens hanging out at the mall was an alien concept to me when I was young. Even the image you posted at 1:19 baffled me when I saw it years ago, cause that's not what my area looks like. So I feel extremely lucky to have grown up where I did. As for ideas, I really can't think of anything better than what you suggested. Mostly because I like plants myself. But at the end of the day, your idea isn't that crazy at all. The real hurdle is our old friend, profits. Let's face it, if there was a way to make a profit off of it, you bet companies would jump right in. Because we do need money to maintain the place.
There's a dead mall near where I live that would honestly be perfect for this, but I think it's already being turned into something else. :( Edit: Yeah, I just looked it up. "Demolition of the mall began in April of 2023 with a November completion date. The City of San Bernardino plans to redevelop the area with office, retail and housing projects."
I recall that some of the opposition to building apartment complexes was a moralist, francophobic idea that they encouraged hedonistic and promiscuous lifestyles! :0
I wonder if future 3rd places can be virtual. I have some friends who I play in VR with. We go into VRchat and find worlds to explore. There's a "world" on there that is literally an entire Kmart from the 80s. On Friday nights everyone goes in an hangs out in the virtual 80s Kmart. There are clothing sections where you can change your avatar, food courts, parking lots. While in VR you start to really feel like you're just hanging with friends in a real place. People have even built entire vaporwave styled mall worlds inside VRchat. It's dystopian as all hell but I'm still really fascinated by social VR.
They definitely fill a social and psychological need, especially for the disabled, socially anxious, those with genuine personal security concerns, etc. who can't easily congregate in a physical third place. The drawback with them in absence of anything else is they can isolate you from your immediate physical neighbours, and your local civic and political concerns, while also potentially justifying the lack of physical third spaces to the ones with power. Which aids their agenda: isolated from your neighbours and less able to organize effectively, coupled with the denial of public goods and commons that aren't captured by rent-seeking capitalists. Like any big social issue, there's no one simple answer.
We have been doing that for the last 30 years now. Just because the tech gets better, doesnt mean it is a good replacement. Its being done out of necessity, rather than by legitimate choice. Sorry, but this entire Web 3.0 meta garbage is a concept that is antithetical to healthy fully functioning human behavior, all at the expense of humanity, rather than to serve it. There is a niche role for virtual social, but it can never be the true Third Place. Just like trickle down reagonomics, we have decades of data showing how it is Bad in practice, without even having to impose supposition on the matter.
Just a passing thought. Maybe the downfall of the bluebird site will lead people to leave social media and cause a slow growth and return of third spaces... Just a thought.
I work at the library, so my third space is actually my second space…
I've noticed starbucks getting rid of their comfortable seating generally, the focus is more on getting people in & out and online orders i suspect
The cut at 14:52 is hilarious
The lack of third spaces placing a crushing amount of pressure on spousal relationships to fulfill all of each individual’s needs made me think about how toxic (and sad the concept of) fandoms have become. Both our alienation and the way social media teach us brand ourselves through labels and IP leads us to put too much pressure on our hobbies and interests - to the point that they become our identity. As fun and healthy as it is to share our mutual interests, we form stronger bonds through our shared efforts and values.
Focusing only on hobbies and interests, to the point of superseding our values, we begin to form a sort of dogma. Then, when it’s revealed that people like something on their own terms, and not on ours, it’s as if they’ve broken the law, and have betrayed our Golden Calf (capitalized out of respect.) People also get written off when they’re revealed to have different values than whatever we've projected onto our object of choice. “Oh? Well, you can ignore that guy. True Werther’s Originals fans would never cut somebody off in traffic.” I dunno, maybe some would. Are we a bunch of people who happen to like candy, or are we Legion? It’s strange how easily we begin to make these types of assumptions.
I mean, I fall into it, too. Sometimes you come across someone who happens to share a niche interest of yours and you think “these are my people!” Then, you get to know them, and you’re left thinking “these are my people?” in the distressed italics of anxiety. What we like is not what we’re like.
We used to have an indoor skatepark in the area where I grew up… It made for a great third place… :)
I wish this video had come out before my shopping mall was bulldozed.
We have a lot of active malls here in Denmark. Amazon hasn’t ruined that (yet). But the library is the best.
You gotta make a video and show us!
One of the obstacles to revamping a dead mall as a third place is that most of these abandoned malls were so cheaply built, they are literally falling apart after less than twenty years. To revamp it, it will probably need a total rebuild, at significant capital expenditure.
Which brings us right back to square one - in the current system there's only one entity class permitted to capex, and that's the corporation.
you had me at Giant Blathers Statue Fountain Garden
My city (Southfield, MI. Where children are not starving) is doing this very thing with the abandoned Northland Mall.
Arcades and places for console gaming is what I'd add.
This is so awesome!!
Long Island has a lovely history of shopping malls. Some of the malls are definitely making strides towards 3rd Place-iness. One has a added a bunch of nice sit down restaurants, some of which have a day every week that kids eat free. One has a large arcade with lots of games and prizes, it is definitely crowded most days
aww i also wanted to be a librarian once. i was convinced not to by the dominant narrative from adults in my life telling me you need to climb some kind of ladder, and the only ladder to climb in libraries is away from the cool ground-level stuff and up into administrative crap. nobody ever said it was okay to just....get a job you liked, and keep doing it.
ah well, most of those jobs are either being foisted down onto lower-paid, non-union, part-time pages and clerks, or else hybridized into gig-economy variants (also lower-paid, non-union, and part-time). so i guess i just got a jump-start on the poverty i would have been dumped into later anyway. lucky me! ;)
A friend of mine said if she were a billionaire she'd turn the mall into a senior center kind of thing, with little like houses inside so people can still feel a bit more independent but still have all the benefits of being inside including the a/c and some access control for those who are prone to wandering off and getting lost...
Oh that’s a great idea!
I'm a third place (library) worker!
Kind of amazing ✨📚
Same here, comrade!
We need more Goth Waldos in the world.
True story, a good chunk of space of my local mall is turning into an apartment complex and it wouldn't surprise me if the whole mall does so in the next few years.
That’s awesome!!
Let Nature return....
I live in one of the few walkable cities in America, so the concept of teens hanging out at the mall was an alien concept to me when I was young. Even the image you posted at 1:19 baffled me when I saw it years ago, cause that's not what my area looks like. So I feel extremely lucky to have grown up where I did.
As for ideas, I really can't think of anything better than what you suggested. Mostly because I like plants myself. But at the end of the day, your idea isn't that crazy at all. The real hurdle is our old friend, profits. Let's face it, if there was a way to make a profit off of it, you bet companies would jump right in. Because we do need money to maintain the place.
Our Longshore despatch hall (big enough for 500 people) is kind of a third place.
I just noticed something. You're at 290 videos. 300 is right around the corner. Any big plans for it?
There's a dead mall near where I live that would honestly be perfect for this, but I think it's already being turned into something else. :(
Edit: Yeah, I just looked it up. "Demolition of the mall began in April of 2023 with a November completion date. The City of San Bernardino plans to redevelop the area with office, retail and housing projects."
The use of AI video is a blast - very vaporwavey.
It’s runwayML!
ahhhhh oregon
I recall that some of the opposition to building apartment complexes was a moralist, francophobic idea that they encouraged hedonistic and promiscuous lifestyles! :0
I do get up to all sorts of French shenanigans… 🤔
Ooh, get some free reading & writing courses into the conservatory, not just for kids, but for adults.
Oooooohhh!! ❤️❤️
7:53 has an audio repeat
…why am I like this 😬😭
I wonder if future 3rd places can be virtual. I have some friends who I play in VR with. We go into VRchat and find worlds to explore. There's a "world" on there that is literally an entire Kmart from the 80s. On Friday nights everyone goes in an hangs out in the virtual 80s Kmart. There are clothing sections where you can change your avatar, food courts, parking lots. While in VR you start to really feel like you're just hanging with friends in a real place. People have even built entire vaporwave styled mall worlds inside VRchat. It's dystopian as all hell but I'm still really fascinated by social VR.
They definitely fill a social and psychological need, especially for the disabled, socially anxious, those with genuine personal security concerns, etc. who can't easily congregate in a physical third place. The drawback with them in absence of anything else is they can isolate you from your immediate physical neighbours, and your local civic and political concerns, while also potentially justifying the lack of physical third spaces to the ones with power. Which aids their agenda: isolated from your neighbours and less able to organize effectively, coupled with the denial of public goods and commons that aren't captured by rent-seeking capitalists. Like any big social issue, there's no one simple answer.
We have been doing that for the last 30 years now. Just because the tech gets better, doesnt mean it is a good replacement. Its being done out of necessity, rather than by legitimate choice.
Sorry, but this entire Web 3.0 meta garbage is a concept that is antithetical to healthy fully functioning human behavior, all at the expense of humanity, rather than to serve it.
There is a niche role for virtual social, but it can never be the true Third Place. Just like trickle down reagonomics, we have decades of data showing how it is Bad in practice, without even having to impose supposition on the matter.
How do you not have more views
Like and share!! 🙃
Just a passing thought. Maybe the downfall of the bluebird site will lead people to leave social media and cause a slow growth and return of third spaces...
Just a thought.
This is actually something I’ve been thinking about lately
I hope so!
what the hell is up with the way the cars look from 6:30 to 8:30
Hehehehehe zoom 🏎️
Ever been poor or struggling
is this a question?