Welcome to the Dead Mall Underground
My name is Jon Callahan. I’m a member of Generation X and, as such, I spent much of my youth at a mall. For my generation, the mall was much more than just a place to shop. It was where teens went to hang out and be part of the scene (Third Place). The mall of my youth was destroyed in 2011, and I wrote a book about it called Dead Mall Rising: The Story of El Con Mall. In the process of writing the book, I discovered that El Con Mall wasn’t the only aspect of my Gen X childhood that became a casualty of the Digital Age. Something far more valuable was threatened, too: analog wisdom.
I experienced El Con Mall at the height of its popularity in the 1980s. Things were a lot different back then. Before the Internet came along, people spent more time outdoors, used their imaginations more, engaged with others more frequently through face-to-face communication, and enjoyed lives less cluttered by distractions and the incessant need to remain connected. In the foreword to Dead Mall Rising, I discuss the differences between life in the 1980s and life now.
Here is an excerpt from my book discussing the black pearl, a symbol of analog wisdom— the grounded quality of mind and character that comes from sustained engagement with the physical world, a defining characteristic of life in the pre-Internet era:
People who grew up in the 1980s were among the last to experience childhood and adolescence in a world with no Internet. Being one myself, I can attest that growing up in the pre-Internet age was a priceless gift. Many derisively refer to the pre-Internet period as a “Dark Age,” but I disagree with this negative characterization. If anything, I view it as a precious gem—a rare black pearl.
I chose the black pearl as a symbol of analog wisdom for two reasons. First, throughout history, pearls have been used as symbols of priceless wisdom. Consider the Parable of the Pearl of Great Price and the expression, “pearls of wisdom”. And second, I chose the black pearl specifically because its color and rarity suggest a facet of the human experience sorely lacking in the world today: Mystery.
The dawn of the Digital Age has oversaturated every aspect of modern life with information. Our relentless focus on technological advances and conquering every knowledge frontier has inundated the world with data. The light of knowledge is a good thing, but too much of it blinds us to mystery—an essential aspect of life. The black pearl, formed in the dark and quiet of the ocean floor, is a powerful symbol of the analog wisdom that characterizes the “Dark Ages” of the pre-Internet era.
At the conclusion of the foreword, I explain, “My experiences at the [El Con] mall, which you can read about in this book, are but one example of the richness of life people experienced before the dawn of the Digital Age.” Have you ever wondered what life was like before the Internet, social media, smartphones, and AI? Do you ever yearn for a simpler time when technology didn’t dominate every aspect of human life? If you answered “yes” to either question, subscribe to the Dead Mall Dispatch: The official communications arm of the Dead Mall Underground.
The Dead Mall Dispatch is your source for nostalgic, mall-related stories with a purpose. Rightly or wrongly, nostalgia often gets a bad rap. There is bad nostalgia and good nostalgia. The bad kind (restorative nostalgia) keeps you trapped in the past. The good kind (reflective nostalgia) involves remembering the past without needing to recreate it.
At the Dead Mall Dispatch, we harness the pastime of reminiscing in service of transformational nostalgia: A form of nostalgia wherein the past is leveraged to inform and enhance our experience of the present. Rather than longing for the past or simply appreciating it, transformational nostalgia involves enlisting cherished memories to create a more meaningful experience in the present.
As noted in my book,
“There is wisdom in the analog lifestyles we enjoyed before the digital age. Like treasure hunters searching for a black pearl, we must dive deep, recover this wisdom, and bring it back to the world.”
Here at the Dead Mall Dispatch, that’s exactly what we do. The stories reported here are written to evoke experiences of transformational nostalgia for the reader. Each week, we resurrect a forgotten story from El Con Mall’s past, mine it for analog wisdom, and use it to improve our lives in the Digital Age.
Call to Action: Subscribe to the Dead Mall Dispatch and join the Dead Mall Underground in the fight to preserve analog wisdom in a digital world.