Sometimes reality is scarier than fiction.

Both my mom and my bf is like "eh, who gives a fuck" about this thing but I find this phenomenon strangely captivating and, if you put this and the "urban exploration" niche thing together, you'll get pretty haunting content imo. The "dead malls" phenomenon hit the American Midwest the hardest (2013-17), resulting in mass store closure (including Sears and Kmart going bankrupt), thanks to a combination of multiple factors, including economic mismanagement, corporate corruption, and the most obvious one. You don't need a cyberpunk enthusiast to smugly tell you that this was inevitable since everyone buys everything off e-stores nowadays. *smugly chuckles*

So sit back, put your headphones on, and let discount Logan Pauls (and one Dan Bell, whose quasi-documentary narrative style and corpulent cherub voice I find satisfying as he provides enough backstory and information to keep you HOOKED, my man) take you on a super creepy trip to the shopping malls of the dead.

Stage 1: Prelude
(Mall is well-maintained, most shops are closed. The message the mall attempts to convey is "renovation soon :)" or "coming soon :)." Yeah, riight, lmao.)



Stage 2: Downfall
(Mall is semi-maintained and officially in a corporate self-denial mode. They still think they are going to "open soon" or that they are "open for business," those poor lost souls.)


Stage 3: Mall of the Dead


Further reading:
• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dead_mall
• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Retail_apocalypse
• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Urban_exploration