Alternate Title: Why am I nostalgic for a building last updated in the 90’s I wasn’t alive yet

I heard about a term recently while watching a YouTube video, anemoia. For those not aware of the term anemoia is the feeling of nostalgia for a time you never have known. It really got me thinking for a bit because that’s the general feeling I have felt about a lot of things. Obviously nostalgia on its own isn’t really something foreign to me or others (I think most people my age have seen plenty of those “2000’s kids nostalgia” videos on social media) but the feeling of nostalgia for a time you never really experienced is something that I don’t see people really ever mention. On a broad scale I feel anemoia around a lot of images related to past time periods (mainly anything 70’s-90’s though some 50’s-60’s related things apply here too) and while yeah you can kinda just chalk that up to “well the media you consume will make you nostalgic for those eras” I don’t think that’s really the whole picture. I think just in general we’re drawn to things from “the past” and just the idea that like “old stuff makes us feel nostalgic cause it’s old” even if we never lived during that time.

So what does this have to do with dead/abandoned malls? A lot actually. The majority of indoor American malls were constructed during the 60’s-Early 90’s. Some were remodeled during this time to better reflect current design trends and some might’ve only gotten minor modifications. As a result they maintain a look that’s very distinctive of the time they were made/remodeled. In the case of dead malls especially, some may have never really had the funds to update their look through the ages and keep a distinctly dated look. This coupled with the usually very empty environment these places have and you’re left with something that in a lot of ways feels like a time capsule to a prior decade, same goes for well preserved abandoned malls too. As a result, walking through or even seeing photos of one can start to make you feel nostalgic, even if you never stepped foot inside there. The feeling of anemoia comes into play. I think this is probably why I grew so attached to dead/abandoned malls. Outside of my own personal attachment of finding out I lived really close to one for my whole childhood the feeling in general of seeing , and on the rare occasion actually going to one, seeing photos and videos of other dead/abandoned malls online induced that feeling of nostalgia. I’m a lot younger than most of the people who actually grew up around the time these malls were bustling and I don’t even live in the state some of these malls are/were in. But I still feel so nostalgic looking at them and their dated designs and emptiness. I think that’s really what appeals to me the most about them, the way they can truly transcend time periods like this both visually and through nostalgia. I know people like to consider places like this “”liminal spaces”” because of this (I will make a rant on this topic because I have a lot to say and most of it is not the nicest) but like idk man, I’d consider them that in the sense they’re temporary spaces but not just because they fill someone with the sense of anemoia.

I’m kinda rambling now but point being it’s really interesting how certain places and locations that we have never seen or lived through can be so nostalgic, I think that’s part of the charm that dead/abandoned malls carry with them.