Describing+Places+-SP


 * Describing Places**

A portion of my thesis deals with consumerism and this is often the driving force behind much of my discussion. I wanted to understand the influence of materialism by to directly observing it and immersing myself in the consumer culture from a critical yet open-minded perspective. What better way to do this than going to a mall. Starting out, it is easier to embrace American consumerism than to avoid it. Every day, we are bombarded by continuous product advertising. Yet, somehow I have kept this influence to a minimum and now it is time to jump in experimentally and see what conclusions I come to. The mall in Syracuse is called Destiny USA. It used to be called the Creosol Mall, but after expanding some years ago, it changed its brand and image with a visionary name and more parking spaces. The mall is actually an iconic building standing as the tallest structure in the immediate facility with a glass pyramid rooftop leading to an antenna tower from the top. At least was the intended architecture to dominate the scene; however, with the exaction, large white brick slab buildings were added and the mall seems to have more than doubled in size. This new building look is quite industrial but to help soften the giant cement prison wall look that one would see from the road while approaching the property entrance by car, the have added banners with only the most aesthetically pleasing well know brand advertisements for products that await within the mall. The inside of the mall was quite impressive. It was Sunday afternoon and Thanksgiving was coming up Thursday: then the infamous back Friday would arrive. I could feel the anticipation in the air as shoppers were scouting out what items would have the best deals and what items they would be willing to fight for to own. The parking lots were flooding over already. To get a good sense of just how many people there were, I sat down at the food court and watched groups of people come and go. I tried to get a sense of demographic percentage but it was impossible because there was an abundance of just about every type of person you could imagine there. I visited and observed people, products, and environment in countless stores including Dicks Sporting Goods, Forever 21, The Gap, Brookstone, and the Apple Store to start. Many of the items I saw people carrying to the checkout lines, I couldn’t imagine people actually needed or even substantially improving quality of life in correlation to their price tags. I was astonished at the volume of each product and it was interesting to stay in one store, ask an employee what the most popular items were and then watch the items disappear from the shelves over a few hours after upon my return. I spent some time in the apple store as well asking their so called geniuses about the different generations of products, warranties, repair services and costs. There’s a lot of fine print to their warranties. Some interesting things I saw at the mall included…
 * A teenager buying three different brands of headphones from best buy. I imagine that he was planning to save the recite and return the other two after
 * Just about every other person fifth line at the Apple store was buying an IPhone 6.
 * Around 30% of people had their phone in their hand. Many were texting while walking.
 * I only saw a few people actually talking on the phone while there.
 * There was free mall Wi-Fi
 * Even Santa had his own advertising
 * Smiling kids and scowling mothers and fathers coming out of stores.
 * Christmas shopping is hectic and the atmosphere is frantic and almost exhilarating
 * The kiosks with electronic maps were designed by ChaseDesign and built at Mack Studios and I worked at both companies over the summer.

It is easy to see why this lifestyle is so willingly embraced. It is exciting and crazy.