We're Drowning in Gift Guides

On the r/deadmalls Reddit page, photos of linoleum-tiled halls and emptied ornamental fountains proliferate. Some of the malls aren’t totally abandoned, still boasting the husks of universally familiar storefronts — Auntie Anne’s, Kay Jewelers, JCPenney, Claire’s — with a few stragglers wandering between banners that declare “EAT. SHOP. PLAY.” I imagine that behind the glass are teetering stacks of jeans, rows of shoeboxes, storage closets piled with more boxes of metals and plastic and batteries and foam — all unwanted. This is an extreme of the bleak feeling that author Emily Mester likes to call “Mall Sad.”