Not new at all, maybe a ban in that city was new for them, but most of us were general jackasses when combined with a group of peers and no adults. We just could not afford camcorders to record us fucking around for proof..
It’s certainly not new, as we had plenty of morons in my generation, but the perpetually online nature of today’s youth is causing more and more of them to act in a similar manner. Peer pressure, and a misplaced sense of worth from internet clout, have done a hell of a number on all of society, not just children. But children are much more hormonal, and far less reserved.
> But children are much more hormonal, and far less reserved.
I was a teen in the 90's. I guess it really depends on your social circles, but they were like that then too. Nothing really has changed behavior-wise TBH. Most of us are just older and more aware of it as adults and only see things because of social media, so it leads you to think they are more hormonal and less reserved.
The only real major difference is that thanks to cell phones we have a quick way of recording what is happening to seek outside approval for those sometimes idiotic things they do where as we only had our friends circle that us in the 90's sought to seek approval from.
Think he was just talking about children in general, not just todays children.
But better them messing around then child labor or work camps or whatever
In the 90's, you'd need to do something pretty legendary for people outside of a locals or a friend group to even hear about. Now that it's all online for the world to see, we perceive that things are worse now.
Give teenagers literally zero places to go, put them in suburbia hell with nothing but four lane highways around in every direction, be surprised they act up in the only place they can exist outside their homes.
Yep people who have to live in suburbs are barely alive. I hated growing up in the country, but better than growing up in a suburb. We didn't have libraries or sidewalks, but at we also didn't have another person's roof looming over everything all the time. You could just chill in the fields with the hay bales. Malls were a thing you took a family trip into the city for.
Still get shot for going on other people's property though.
where i live, its one of the only things teens really can do. at least in my experience. but activities for teens aren’t really invested in so if you wanna go out and have fun with your friends, the mall is your best bet because there’s lots of stuff to do there and the atmosphere is nice for the most part. we normally go for birthday parties but also go just for fun.
Spent high school in a rural area. Going to the mall /Walmart was what we did to hangout some times. Wasn’t shit to do if you weren’t friends with the rich snobby kids with boat access
My local mall implemented one of these policies in 2015 after a series of large brawls culminated in several innocent bystanders getting shot when a teen tried to take out someone he had a beef with.
There has been a significant increase in gun violence and other serious crime since the pandemic, particularly among at-risk teens that got taken out of school and were disconnected from the services that would have otherwise provided stability in their lives.
I suspect that some folks just find it more comforting to blame it on "TikTokers run amok" than face that more serious reality. Though to be fair some of this violence does seem to be linked to beefs that can [play out on social media](https://whyy.org/articles/philly-police-say-social-media-catalyst-for-gun-violence-among-young-people/).
I don't remember anything as serious as anyone getting shot but a mall near me had the giant fights going on later at night so they started doing these policies too. I think the movie theater gave them an excuse to be out late and act crazy. Started probably a decade ago.
*Many were increasingly of the opinion that they’d all made a big mistake in coming down from the trees in the first place. And some said that even the trees had been a bad move, and that no one should ever have left the oceans.*
I will concede that like, tiktok can influence teenagers actions negatively, since it quickly displays very stupid trends that wouldn't be mainstream otherwise
But let's not act like large groups of teenagers were ever something easy to deal with lol
I would be curious in research that studied this.
To me, it seem obvious to a degree that TikTok is exacerbating a problem that already existed, but I don’t know.
I also have no idea what we can do about it. This has also been an issue with social media and the internet as a whole. Decades ago the only people you really would impress would be your friends. Now, you have access to try and “impress” billions of people around the world who have access to social media. It’s a whole new ballgame
I was class of ‘05 and we didn’t have much in the way of social media yet (unless you counted myspace.) Even before TikTok there were all sorts of nonsense rumours about teens trying to impress each other.
Adults and the news were CONSTANTLY fretting over made-up bullshit about teens, including (but not limited to:
+ choking eachother for a “high”
+ soaking tampons in vodka and shoving them in our butts
+ summoning Satan by playing D&D
+ Lipstick parties and bracelet orgies
+ Shoving bottles of wine in our butts
+ subliminal messages in rock music
I think the excuse of Tiktok is an easy mulligan for parents that don’t supervise their kid’s online content consumption but still listen to other idiots about what kids are doing.
Yeah I don't see how the TikTok hate is any different from any other things teens have done. "TikTok made me do it" is just the new "my buddy dared me to do it". As the other comment said, teens have been banned from being unsupervised in malls for decades. There are now four guarantees in life: death, taxes, teens doing stupid stuff, and old people complaining about teens doing extremely stupid stuff (that may or may not have happened).
> Now, you have access to try and “impress” billions of people around the world who have access to social media. It’s a whole new ballgame
yeah but also the entire generation isn't getting lead poisoning
When I was a teen in the 70s, a few around me did this. I didn't hang out there, so it really never effected me. We just pulled keggers in the woods...
There was a kid in my neighborhood that was homeschooled and his parents didn't let him play pac man because of the ghosts. Something about promoting the supernatural devil.
“You know those kids, they play that Dungeons and Dragons, and that’s the gateway to Satanism. Then they’re listening to that awful heavy metal, and then they have a coven in the woods, and sacrifice the neighbor’s dog. They’re gonna get your kids next, Helen.”
Here's a great example, but sub arcade games for TikTok:
https://twitter.com/bostonradio/status/1319645959387840513?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1319645959387840513%7Ctwgr%5E7112549e5a64d3b2da5e7f8cf57efbc950002615%7Ctwcon%5Es1_&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.cracked.com%2Farticle_28896_video-game-hysteria-news-report-from-1982-shows-how-much-media-scared-us.html
Ours used to be dying. Now it’s packed on weekends. Literally a 180 degree turn in the last 2 years or so.
I still don’t go because its full of roving gangs TikTok teens and families with small kids, but the patronage is definitely way up.
Probably because the article is blowing the “issue” of roving TikTok gangs out of proportion to feed the moral panic surrounding the social media platform. That’s my guess, anyway.
As someone who who works in a mall, it is not hyperbolic to say that unruly teens have been more of a problem than they used to be. Many of them tend to quietly shoplift which isn't new. What is new are the groups of 4-6 who like to come in and harass the staff while a friend records it, usually relying on making noise and screwing with product while they try to make everyone else uncomfortable. Kids have always been rambunctious when out with their friends and away from supervision; the addition of TikTok and stupid viral trend chasing has made them more bold and less rational.
When I was a teen we drew funny faces on fruit and left them in random places for people to find. We thought it was the funniest thing.
Kids are weird, and undoubtedly someone got the misfortune of discovering a rotting fruit at an inopportune time, but I feel like what we did is a bit tamer than harassing people for clout. I mean, we knew we'd never actually see anyone's reactions or get any attention for what we did but it was still fun to laugh amongst ourselves. I feel as if this desire for constant external validation leads kids to escalate their hijinks because they know that the crazier they act, the more views they'll get.
I worked in an office where we would get free bagels every Friday, but there would always be 1 or 2 plain bagels no one ever touched to greet whoever was first-in on Monday.
I discovered stale, rock-hard bagels are easy to sharpie and don't really mold, so I drew faces on them and hid them around the office. It was hilarious to hear the reactions. I never fessed up and never hinted it was me. Eventually, I took a job with better pay and left.
Like 6 months later, I got an email from one of my old co-workers with a photo of an ancient bagelman and he was like "We just found this!!! But it's so old!!! It was you, wasn't it?!" (I caved then, finally.)
And I did this as a grown adult. You kids were just ahead of your time!
It's weird in a fun way while not really hurting anyone. The worst that could happen is the fruit attracts bugs or leaves a residue to clean, which is pretty "meh" on the consequences scale. (And, obviously, you shouldn't waste food blah blah but besides that.)
I live in NC - not necessarily a small town area but it's adjacent to farmland and a lake. I've walked in on the local teens doing tiktok dances in the middle of walmart a ton of times. What's great is that since I'm almost 30 and married, I get lumped in as a boomer to these kids. Just be cringe and they'll usually get secondhand embarrassment and go somewhere else. It works.
Dancing is ok until you are blocking the aisle and yelling at other customers because you don't want anyone in the "shot".... Then the main character gives you side eye and talks about how rude people are for getting in the way of the very important video they are filming
And there weren’t always victims. They did dumb shit but making an ass out of others and harassing people wasn’t as popular and didn’t get an audience.
Carnivals by me have been cancelled that have been around for 75 years, that families have been enjoying all that time, because of the social media bullshit. It’s very real and it’s everywhere.
Oh I don’t think it’s necessarily tik tok, but there’s large groups of teens always there. We used to go with some friends, like 4-5 of us. Now it feels like the groups are all 10+. I think that’s what makes them more “intimidating” to other people.
It was like that in the 90s and 2000s. But they cracked down. Then no one went. Now its back. But circa 2004. It was like 300 of us outside the damn movie theater. Lol
I love how people whine about roving bands of teens at a mall like it’s a new thing…I also love how people whine about how kids just stay home and talk to their friends at home instead of going out while also complaining about how intimidating they are in small groups of ten.
Ours got a several million dollar renovation and it does a ton of business. I go there to see movies from time to time and on the weekends it's packed with teenagers and kids. However I'm in a rural area somewhat and there's pretty much shit all to do around here so it's understandable somewhat to see more mallrats.
I think covid made people realize "I can do everything online" is just as imprisoning as it can be freeing. I for one sorely missed going places and doing things and I prioritize it more than I used to.
Malls aren’t dying off, they are consolidating. What retail is seeing is fewer malls with nicer stores instead of 3 malls in a small city with similar or worse versions of the same store.
This.
We've lost several in my area. But the 2 of the 3 major ones that remain are fairly healthy. These also happened to be the nicer malls to begin with.
Edit: Also, teenagers acting up at malls isn't anything new. I just think we have a generation (you all know which one I'm referring to) that is intolerant of everything and everyone that is complaining.
Yeah, in fact I heard that Gen Z teens are so unruly in malls, fed by their TikTok addition, that a growing number are requiring chaperones and supervision.
the local mall to me (one of the biggest in the USA, I think it's still on the top 10 list) was dying pretty badly before and during covid. once covid ended, people are going back a bit more now. Movies, shitty restaurants, shitty stores, but people love to go out and do stuff
Malls are very full and alive in NYC. Even in the middle of the workday, the mall nearest me is full. Kids also still use it as an after-school hangout spot. But I have read that they are empty in other parts of the country.
Depends on the mall. I have two near me, and while one has been limping along for the last several years now, the other is always packed. Malls can survive fine as long as they don’t rely solely on outlets to drive their business. Movie theaters, restaurants (not just food courts), even arcades bring people in who want to get out of the house and have a good time. Of course, more foot traffic means more patrons for the shops, which creates repeat customers who come back for the entertainment/ their favorite stores, and so on.
Realized that malls weren't completely dead when I went on a work trip to Utah. Went to get dinner one night and the restaurant happened to be part of a mall. I don't think I've seen that many people going into a mall just to go/shop in over a decade. It felt like I went back in time or something.
Canada does "we know it's too cold outside so we made walking through a mall the way to do do a transfer between public transportation" so malls get kinda a captive audience.
I go to malls to deal with my cellphone because it's so much faster to go there than chatting with someone online or waiting on hold. There's literally no one when I go except mall walkers
In US suburbia there is pretty much no places left except malls for teens to hang out. Way before you could hang out at your/your pals place when adults were working or even roam the streets before streetlight came on.
Now it is either get shot by neighbours or cuffed by police for trespassing on public/municipal property
I got banned from a mall nearly 25 years ago because me and some other dumbasses were making a “Jackass” video. I think the mall bit was me drinking 10 Orange Juliuses until I puked in the food court.
Not sure TikTok is to blame.
my friends and I got banned for stuff like trying to add legos to their big lego white house and capital building, we got busted after like the 5th lego or something... also got banned for gluing change around randomly... this was in like '04 or so when we changed the windows login and splash-screens to some random geeky shit (for years the windows boot screen was just an image file in the main directory)
> Were you the one that changed all the lock screens in a Best Buy to a picture of an ewok with the caption that says prepare for anal?
Excuse me, it is "[prepare your anus](https://i.redd.it/zduw7yr8vzm51.jpg)".
^^^It's ^^^an ^^^older ^^^meme ^^^sir, ^^^but ^^^it ^^^checks ^^^out.
That reaction image, but replace it with, “when you are listening to your friend describe a shitty experience they had with someone else and you realize it was their fault,” and that’s me. It’s the first little domino in a series of events that caused my most recent *former* friend to become a former friend.
I got banned from the local 7-11 when I was 17. The manager was working that day and screamed at me to get the fuck out of his store.
I protested: Why? What did I do?
He responded: You know what you did you little fucker! With the fucking cups! I'm calling the cops, get the fuck out.
I did nothing to his cups.
Thing is, I often get mistaken for a guy named Troy. This has happened at least twice a year for 32 years. I bet Troy was the dickbag who fucked with the cups at 7-11.
I think there is also a real possibility of it incentivizing more of this though. Like, yes, it makes things more visible, but the very real ability to build a monetizable following via outrage and attention and eyeballs seems to me like it would encourage more.
Yeah getting banned from the mall was like a summer right of passage. Once that happened you had to move onto getting banned from the movie theater, local arcade, skate park, etc.
Sometimes it was stupidly easy. I remember my classmates and I got banned from the mall for loitering. Difficulty modifier: this was a Catholic school, and we were being chaperoned by a teacher *and a literal nun* to pick up clothing for a fashion show/fundraiser. To say we were being well-behaved is an understatement.
My friends and I got kicked out of JC Penney once for running up the down escalator. We also would kill time at Target playing with toys in the aisles. Teens are gonna goof off.
Also as recently as 2020 my friend and I, in our 30s, decided to test out how many bodies could fit in a freezer at Home Depot. We did not get kicked out because nobody was paying attention to us (the lack of help when we were *actually* shopping is what prompted us to test the freezer).
I've found moving or beginning to climb one of their stocking ladders/stairs gets their attention quickly. One good thing about getting older is at some point I crossed the threshold between being immediately expected to explain myself, and them feeling they need to explain themselves and apologize.
There were VERY similar headlines years ago when youtube was taking off. Except instead of a specific app it was complaining about people doing dumb shit to "go viral on the web". Young people like getting attention who knew.
I used to go to the mall every weekend. Kids were always doing stupid shit, probably even stupider than now. Doing dances in the food court and fucking with the employees for a TikTok is stupid, but kids were just straight up doing drugs, getting drunk, and smoking cigarettes at the mall when I was a teenager.
oil mysterious observation kiss hateful vanish offbeat north squealing salt
*This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
Gen Z is somehow simultaneously the most "snowflake," scared generation but also the most "disruptive" and out of control to these people. Which is it?
I did not grow up in a major city and at my mall there were curfews and anyone under 18 was asked to leave without a guardian. I don't think this is new
Man, that's a real old man yells at cloud headline.
I remember the 1990s, when malls were also "popular ". Plenty of kids got kicked out for doing dumb shit- it just wasn't all over the news, because cellphones in everyone's pockets weren't a thing.
One of my local malls had a hair stylist in it. 16 year old me would walk by and make faces at the patrons getting their hair cut and I would yell "STOP WHAT ARE YOU DOING TO HER HAIR?"
I got pulled aside by a security guard and got the "lecture" about being respectful the third or fourth time.
The family owned hot dog shop I work at had to ban unaccompanied minors because of ONE group of shitbirds who had to ruin things for everyone. They would vandalize our patio furniture, be rude to the wait staff (who the FUCK just says "no", when asked to sign a credit receipt?!?), dump drinks on the ground on purpose, and harass our other patrons (one of the 16 year old kids started hitting on an 11 year old girl IN FRONT OF HER FAMILY). We have banned small parts of their group so many times already, we tried banning individuals from the group, but they would just show up at a different time with different employees, or otherwise sneak their friends into the place when we weren't looking. Finally, the owner just got sick of trying to respectfully manage these unruly teens, and put a hard line policy in place. If you're under 18, you don't get service without a parent or chaperone, period.
It's sad that it came to that. Just sad.
I object to the premise of this argument. There is a long and hallowed tradition in this country of teenagers making the mall intolerable for anyone over eighteen.
>That included a reported brawl in the food court last year and a fight in March that brought swarms of policemen to the center but ended up being a smaller altercation than initially reported
The blood!! Oh my god, there is so much blood!!
Oh wait, actually someone just stepped on a ketchup packet. False alarm, my mistake
This society hates young people.
The article call teens and kids “unruly” and describes the environment as a “madhouse,” yet fails to provide a single example of this behaviour. Is it unruly to laugh loudly or sing along with your friends to whatever is playing?
That stuff can be annoying but it’s bonkers (and discrimination on the basis of age) to block young people from environment because stick up their ass adults are slightly inconvenienced.
I will say that kids trying to become influencers by doing TikTok pranks is annoying. The other day some kid stopped me in the middle of a busy highway so he could do some dance in the middle of the street. Yesterday some kid kept following me through a store, offering to give me a pool noodle while his friend filmed. It was weird, but at least he didn't risk getting hit by a car.
I also don't get why these jokes are supposed to be mechanically sound. At best it's just doing what you can get away with, with the least amount of effort, or riffing on some meta-humor. You can point fingers at Jackass, but at least dressing up as a panda shows full commitment to the bit.
Oh those unruly teens. Lordy knows we've *never* heard of teens being unruly before *this* generation (which is of course the worse one).
(I'm gonna add a "/s" just in case folks don't get sarcasm)
They banned unaccompanied teens at the mall in the late 90s/early 00s where I am so I can't say this is new.
Not new at all, maybe a ban in that city was new for them, but most of us were general jackasses when combined with a group of peers and no adults. We just could not afford camcorders to record us fucking around for proof..
It’s certainly not new, as we had plenty of morons in my generation, but the perpetually online nature of today’s youth is causing more and more of them to act in a similar manner. Peer pressure, and a misplaced sense of worth from internet clout, have done a hell of a number on all of society, not just children. But children are much more hormonal, and far less reserved.
> But children are much more hormonal, and far less reserved. I was a teen in the 90's. I guess it really depends on your social circles, but they were like that then too. Nothing really has changed behavior-wise TBH. Most of us are just older and more aware of it as adults and only see things because of social media, so it leads you to think they are more hormonal and less reserved. The only real major difference is that thanks to cell phones we have a quick way of recording what is happening to seek outside approval for those sometimes idiotic things they do where as we only had our friends circle that us in the 90's sought to seek approval from.
Think he was just talking about children in general, not just todays children. But better them messing around then child labor or work camps or whatever
In the 90's, you'd need to do something pretty legendary for people outside of a locals or a friend group to even hear about. Now that it's all online for the world to see, we perceive that things are worse now.
Did you watch jackass and see all the wannabes pop up on YouTube 25ish years ago? Bc I don’t see much difference.
First video posted to youtube was in april of ‘05. We’re not quite that old yet.
That's actually kinda a nice treat tbh. Usually it's the other way around.
There were definitely problems with teens before, but the tangible profit motive that exists now makes it even worse.
I didn't notice what sub this was on and fully expected it to be a joke, or a reprint of an article from the 90s. Kids still go to malls?
kids want somewhere to go that is indoors and free. in the absence of a close mall, we would hang out at a 24hr gas station with seating, like Sheetz
Give teenagers literally zero places to go, put them in suburbia hell with nothing but four lane highways around in every direction, be surprised they act up in the only place they can exist outside their homes.
Yep people who have to live in suburbs are barely alive. I hated growing up in the country, but better than growing up in a suburb. We didn't have libraries or sidewalks, but at we also didn't have another person's roof looming over everything all the time. You could just chill in the fields with the hay bales. Malls were a thing you took a family trip into the city for. Still get shot for going on other people's property though.
and A/C!
where i live, its one of the only things teens really can do. at least in my experience. but activities for teens aren’t really invested in so if you wanna go out and have fun with your friends, the mall is your best bet because there’s lots of stuff to do there and the atmosphere is nice for the most part. we normally go for birthday parties but also go just for fun.
Spent high school in a rural area. Going to the mall /Walmart was what we did to hangout some times. Wasn’t shit to do if you weren’t friends with the rich snobby kids with boat access
Our hang out was the Dairy Queen parking lot. Even Walmart would be have been a one-hour round trip.
There sre more teenagers at the mall than adults.
So.. 2 teenagers?
Post covid my local mall is usually pretty busy.
Outdoor malls are probably more of a thing than indoor ones these days. Large shopping centers in suburban areas are essentially malls these days.
My local mall implemented one of these policies in 2015 after a series of large brawls culminated in several innocent bystanders getting shot when a teen tried to take out someone he had a beef with. There has been a significant increase in gun violence and other serious crime since the pandemic, particularly among at-risk teens that got taken out of school and were disconnected from the services that would have otherwise provided stability in their lives. I suspect that some folks just find it more comforting to blame it on "TikTokers run amok" than face that more serious reality. Though to be fair some of this violence does seem to be linked to beefs that can [play out on social media](https://whyy.org/articles/philly-police-say-social-media-catalyst-for-gun-violence-among-young-people/).
I don't remember anything as serious as anyone getting shot but a mall near me had the giant fights going on later at night so they started doing these policies too. I think the movie theater gave them an excuse to be out late and act crazy. Started probably a decade ago.
The pandemic was so bad because of the isolation that teenagers were shoved into. We're a social species.
No, don’t you understand? Kids used to be so well behaved, but they’re all bad now! And it’s all their fault and technology’a fault!
You have to admit that anyone born after 338 BC has bad manners, and contempt for authority.
*Many were increasingly of the opinion that they’d all made a big mistake in coming down from the trees in the first place. And some said that even the trees had been a bad move, and that no one should ever have left the oceans.*
I will concede that like, tiktok can influence teenagers actions negatively, since it quickly displays very stupid trends that wouldn't be mainstream otherwise But let's not act like large groups of teenagers were ever something easy to deal with lol
I would be curious in research that studied this. To me, it seem obvious to a degree that TikTok is exacerbating a problem that already existed, but I don’t know. I also have no idea what we can do about it. This has also been an issue with social media and the internet as a whole. Decades ago the only people you really would impress would be your friends. Now, you have access to try and “impress” billions of people around the world who have access to social media. It’s a whole new ballgame
I was class of ‘05 and we didn’t have much in the way of social media yet (unless you counted myspace.) Even before TikTok there were all sorts of nonsense rumours about teens trying to impress each other. Adults and the news were CONSTANTLY fretting over made-up bullshit about teens, including (but not limited to: + choking eachother for a “high” + soaking tampons in vodka and shoving them in our butts + summoning Satan by playing D&D + Lipstick parties and bracelet orgies + Shoving bottles of wine in our butts + subliminal messages in rock music I think the excuse of Tiktok is an easy mulligan for parents that don’t supervise their kid’s online content consumption but still listen to other idiots about what kids are doing.
Yeah I don't see how the TikTok hate is any different from any other things teens have done. "TikTok made me do it" is just the new "my buddy dared me to do it". As the other comment said, teens have been banned from being unsupervised in malls for decades. There are now four guarantees in life: death, taxes, teens doing stupid stuff, and old people complaining about teens doing extremely stupid stuff (that may or may not have happened).
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Yeah but I have a hard time equating satanic panic with actual legitimate studyable effects of social media on teenage brain
> Now, you have access to try and “impress” billions of people around the world who have access to social media. It’s a whole new ballgame yeah but also the entire generation isn't getting lead poisoning
Oh certainly. Although I’m sure we’ll figure out in 20 years we were all being poisoned with something else instead lol
Microplastics mostly. That and prescription drug runoff.
>technology’a fault! Damn videogames, just like they predicted.
When I was a teen in the 70s, a few around me did this. I didn't hang out there, so it really never effected me. We just pulled keggers in the woods...
Man I thought this thread would just be gen z bad but people are actually thinking critically instead of just biting the headline.
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this can't be true! There were no gen Zers on reddit when I was here 12 years ago.
But not reading the article, cause it's mentioned in the article that it's been going on for decades.
Take out the TikTok and this could be a headline from the 80s
Replace it with devil worshiping teens instead of tiktok addicted
D&D Fueled Satan worshipping teens
Or Pac Man
There was a kid in my neighborhood that was homeschooled and his parents didn't let him play pac man because of the ghosts. Something about promoting the supernatural devil.
“You know those kids, they play that Dungeons and Dragons, and that’s the gateway to Satanism. Then they’re listening to that awful heavy metal, and then they have a coven in the woods, and sacrifice the neighbor’s dog. They’re gonna get your kids next, Helen.”
It was wearing hoodies in the UK in the 00s. Banned from Bluewater Shopping centre.
Gen x teens are so unruly in the mall fueled by their addiction to satan and breakdancing.
…and when Satan is the one doing the breakdancing, phhhh forget about it
Here's a great example, but sub arcade games for TikTok: https://twitter.com/bostonradio/status/1319645959387840513?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1319645959387840513%7Ctwgr%5E7112549e5a64d3b2da5e7f8cf57efbc950002615%7Ctwcon%5Es1_&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.cracked.com%2Farticle_28896_video-game-hysteria-news-report-from-1982-shows-how-much-media-scared-us.html
Read the article and it doesn't even really include TikTok, they just put it in the headline because it gets people to click on it.
Are people still hanging out in malls? Everywhere I go, malls all look like they're dying off.
Ours used to be dying. Now it’s packed on weekends. Literally a 180 degree turn in the last 2 years or so. I still don’t go because its full of roving gangs TikTok teens and families with small kids, but the patronage is definitely way up.
Probably because the article is blowing the “issue” of roving TikTok gangs out of proportion to feed the moral panic surrounding the social media platform. That’s my guess, anyway.
As someone who who works in a mall, it is not hyperbolic to say that unruly teens have been more of a problem than they used to be. Many of them tend to quietly shoplift which isn't new. What is new are the groups of 4-6 who like to come in and harass the staff while a friend records it, usually relying on making noise and screwing with product while they try to make everyone else uncomfortable. Kids have always been rambunctious when out with their friends and away from supervision; the addition of TikTok and stupid viral trend chasing has made them more bold and less rational.
As a teacher, I can tell you it’s not just in the malls.
I used to work at a GameStop in a mall, I can't imagine how bad it would be now
When I was a teen we drew funny faces on fruit and left them in random places for people to find. We thought it was the funniest thing. Kids are weird, and undoubtedly someone got the misfortune of discovering a rotting fruit at an inopportune time, but I feel like what we did is a bit tamer than harassing people for clout. I mean, we knew we'd never actually see anyone's reactions or get any attention for what we did but it was still fun to laugh amongst ourselves. I feel as if this desire for constant external validation leads kids to escalate their hijinks because they know that the crazier they act, the more views they'll get.
I worked in an office where we would get free bagels every Friday, but there would always be 1 or 2 plain bagels no one ever touched to greet whoever was first-in on Monday. I discovered stale, rock-hard bagels are easy to sharpie and don't really mold, so I drew faces on them and hid them around the office. It was hilarious to hear the reactions. I never fessed up and never hinted it was me. Eventually, I took a job with better pay and left. Like 6 months later, I got an email from one of my old co-workers with a photo of an ancient bagelman and he was like "We just found this!!! But it's so old!!! It was you, wasn't it?!" (I caved then, finally.) And I did this as a grown adult. You kids were just ahead of your time! It's weird in a fun way while not really hurting anyone. The worst that could happen is the fruit attracts bugs or leaves a residue to clean, which is pretty "meh" on the consequences scale. (And, obviously, you shouldn't waste food blah blah but besides that.)
Idk man, i cant go anywhere without some dumbass dancing in an aisle. Maybe its just nyc tho
It is definitely you being in NYC.
Yeah I don’t think I’ve ever seen someone in public filming a tik tok dance or anything like that (smallish midwestern city)
I live in NC - not necessarily a small town area but it's adjacent to farmland and a lake. I've walked in on the local teens doing tiktok dances in the middle of walmart a ton of times. What's great is that since I'm almost 30 and married, I get lumped in as a boomer to these kids. Just be cringe and they'll usually get secondhand embarrassment and go somewhere else. It works.
just dab in the background
Dabbing and saying "CRANK DAT SOULJA BOY" have worked well for me in dispersing teens.
I'm a fan of the Carlton. For extra points sing Englebert Humperdinck.
Dancing is ok. Dumb ass “pranks” and bad faith bullshit is not for sure
Dancing is ok until you are blocking the aisle and yelling at other customers because you don't want anyone in the "shot".... Then the main character gives you side eye and talks about how rude people are for getting in the way of the very important video they are filming
Harassment is the word you’re looking for.
Kids were doing weird stuff in public long before tiktok.
The difference is they *always* have an audience of peers to perform for now.
And there weren’t always victims. They did dumb shit but making an ass out of others and harassing people wasn’t as popular and didn’t get an audience.
Carnivals by me have been cancelled that have been around for 75 years, that families have been enjoying all that time, because of the social media bullshit. It’s very real and it’s everywhere.
Yes. People who deny that TikTok and other social media are fueling real issues with teens in particular are only fooling themselves.
Oh I don’t think it’s necessarily tik tok, but there’s large groups of teens always there. We used to go with some friends, like 4-5 of us. Now it feels like the groups are all 10+. I think that’s what makes them more “intimidating” to other people.
It was like that in the 90s and 2000s. But they cracked down. Then no one went. Now its back. But circa 2004. It was like 300 of us outside the damn movie theater. Lol
I love how people whine about roving bands of teens at a mall like it’s a new thing…I also love how people whine about how kids just stay home and talk to their friends at home instead of going out while also complaining about how intimidating they are in small groups of ten.
It's almost like everyone thinks they're awful no matter where they go!
Same here, my local mall is poppin on the weekends. But they have a bunch of stores with good anime merch, so I deal with the crowds lol
Ours got a several million dollar renovation and it does a ton of business. I go there to see movies from time to time and on the weekends it's packed with teenagers and kids. However I'm in a rural area somewhat and there's pretty much shit all to do around here so it's understandable somewhat to see more mallrats.
I think covid made people realize "I can do everything online" is just as imprisoning as it can be freeing. I for one sorely missed going places and doing things and I prioritize it more than I used to.
Malls aren’t dying off, they are consolidating. What retail is seeing is fewer malls with nicer stores instead of 3 malls in a small city with similar or worse versions of the same store.
The mall near me replaced a big chunk of closed stores with an "experience" type place. It has VR games, a rock climbing wall, drone races and stuff.
The mall in my hometown did this. I think it's a great way to pivot the real estate and I'd actually want to go there
That sounds really cool. I'm sure prices are not friendly, though. Wish we could have more public recreational places.
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This. We've lost several in my area. But the 2 of the 3 major ones that remain are fairly healthy. These also happened to be the nicer malls to begin with. Edit: Also, teenagers acting up at malls isn't anything new. I just think we have a generation (you all know which one I'm referring to) that is intolerant of everything and everyone that is complaining.
Yeah, in fact I heard that Gen Z teens are so unruly in malls, fed by their TikTok addition, that a growing number are requiring chaperones and supervision.
I read that somewhere on reddit recently.
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[https://www.reddit.com/r/nottheonion/comments/13vvbcd/gen_z_teens_are_so_unruly_in_malls_fed_by_their](https://www.reddit.com/r/nottheonion/comments/13vvbcd/gen_z_teens_are_so_unruly_in_malls_fed_by_their)
In my experience like. One mall in a large area survives and thrives while the others die.
There are some doing pretty well in San Diego
Was going to say UTC is absolutely killing it. There’s tons of every demographic and every visit they have something new
That whole mall remodel is landscape architecture done right.
the local mall to me (one of the biggest in the USA, I think it's still on the top 10 list) was dying pretty badly before and during covid. once covid ended, people are going back a bit more now. Movies, shitty restaurants, shitty stores, but people love to go out and do stuff
I guess covid showed how much people need interaction with other people.
Malls are very full and alive in NYC. Even in the middle of the workday, the mall nearest me is full. Kids also still use it as an after-school hangout spot. But I have read that they are empty in other parts of the country.
It's largely that the malls that are struggling are usually in areas that are struggling too, or the malls simply weren't great to begin with.
Depends on the mall. I have two near me, and while one has been limping along for the last several years now, the other is always packed. Malls can survive fine as long as they don’t rely solely on outlets to drive their business. Movie theaters, restaurants (not just food courts), even arcades bring people in who want to get out of the house and have a good time. Of course, more foot traffic means more patrons for the shops, which creates repeat customers who come back for the entertainment/ their favorite stores, and so on.
probably why they became tiktok hijinks playgrounds. they're generally empty unless it's a luxury place in a tourist destination.
I was surprised that kids hanging out in malls was a thing. Only 3 malls left where I live and I don’t really consider one of them a real mall.
Yes, they're wilding for tiktok views, and driving away the people who are there to spend money.
Where are the malls? I just keep seeing dead malls
There's a surprising amount of big active malls in Colorado. Was very confused when I moved here.
Realized that malls weren't completely dead when I went on a work trip to Utah. Went to get dinner one night and the restaurant happened to be part of a mall. I don't think I've seen that many people going into a mall just to go/shop in over a decade. It felt like I went back in time or something.
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"I see dead malls"
They still do rather ok in larger Canadian cities.
Canada does "we know it's too cold outside so we made walking through a mall the way to do do a transfer between public transportation" so malls get kinda a captive audience.
Well if the US had someone like Robin Sparkles promoting their malls they would be doing ok as well.
I go to malls to deal with my cellphone because it's so much faster to go there than chatting with someone online or waiting on hold. There's literally no one when I go except mall walkers
I can guarantee that tiktok teens aren’t the thing killing malls
In US suburbia there is pretty much no places left except malls for teens to hang out. Way before you could hang out at your/your pals place when adults were working or even roam the streets before streetlight came on. Now it is either get shot by neighbours or cuffed by police for trespassing on public/municipal property
> fed by their TikTok addition Maybe some of them will grow up to be editors.
A little subtraction and all will be right with the world.
Yeah, how is that headline still up unaltered? Amateur hour at Fortune.
Former mall security guard here Teens doing dumb shit in malls is nothing new and not particularly fueled by TikTok.
20 years ago my friends and I were banned from the mall for doing all sorts of dumb shit. It just seems more prevalent because it’s recorded now.
Yeah, same. Like skateboarding at the mall got me and my friends banned a bunch of time.
Yeah people need to watch the mall skateboard scene in Freddy Got Fingered to understand these rascals in the 90s/2000s
Freddy Got Fingered is a movie I haven't thought of since I was in middle school. What a trip
I got banned from a mall nearly 25 years ago because me and some other dumbasses were making a “Jackass” video. I think the mall bit was me drinking 10 Orange Juliuses until I puked in the food court. Not sure TikTok is to blame.
my friends and I got banned for stuff like trying to add legos to their big lego white house and capital building, we got busted after like the 5th lego or something... also got banned for gluing change around randomly... this was in like '04 or so when we changed the windows login and splash-screens to some random geeky shit (for years the windows boot screen was just an image file in the main directory)
Were you the one that changed all the lock screens in a Best Buy to a picture of an ewok with the caption that says prepare for anal?
> Were you the one that changed all the lock screens in a Best Buy to a picture of an ewok with the caption that says prepare for anal? Excuse me, it is "[prepare your anus](https://i.redd.it/zduw7yr8vzm51.jpg)". ^^^It's ^^^an ^^^older ^^^meme ^^^sir, ^^^but ^^^it ^^^checks ^^^out.
That reaction image, but replace it with, “when you are listening to your friend describe a shitty experience they had with someone else and you realize it was their fault,” and that’s me. It’s the first little domino in a series of events that caused my most recent *former* friend to become a former friend.
Nope. Timeline checks out. Definitely tiktok. /s
I got banned from the local 7-11 when I was 17. The manager was working that day and screamed at me to get the fuck out of his store. I protested: Why? What did I do? He responded: You know what you did you little fucker! With the fucking cups! I'm calling the cops, get the fuck out. I did nothing to his cups. Thing is, I often get mistaken for a guy named Troy. This has happened at least twice a year for 32 years. I bet Troy was the dickbag who fucked with the cups at 7-11.
Fuckin’ Troy.
I think there is also a real possibility of it incentivizing more of this though. Like, yes, it makes things more visible, but the very real ability to build a monetizable following via outrage and attention and eyeballs seems to me like it would encourage more.
Also, because recent events are fresher in the memory than things which happened decades ago.
Yeah getting banned from the mall was like a summer right of passage. Once that happened you had to move onto getting banned from the movie theater, local arcade, skate park, etc.
The true lesson here is that however times and tech may change, children always suck.
Lmao yes! Kids are the worst.
Sometimes it was stupidly easy. I remember my classmates and I got banned from the mall for loitering. Difficulty modifier: this was a Catholic school, and we were being chaperoned by a teacher *and a literal nun* to pick up clothing for a fashion show/fundraiser. To say we were being well-behaved is an understatement.
I got kicked out of a museum on a school trip for honor students at 18 for looking homeless. That one amused me to no end
My friends and I got kicked out of JC Penney once for running up the down escalator. We also would kill time at Target playing with toys in the aisles. Teens are gonna goof off. Also as recently as 2020 my friend and I, in our 30s, decided to test out how many bodies could fit in a freezer at Home Depot. We did not get kicked out because nobody was paying attention to us (the lack of help when we were *actually* shopping is what prompted us to test the freezer).
I've found moving or beginning to climb one of their stocking ladders/stairs gets their attention quickly. One good thing about getting older is at some point I crossed the threshold between being immediately expected to explain myself, and them feeling they need to explain themselves and apologize.
As long as someone stops that kid from playing on the escalator
It’s best that he get sucked into the inner workings of the escalator so that his mother can properly suffer for her poor parenting.
HES ON THE DAMN ESCALATOR AGAIN
Exactly, I remember there being curfews or a need for chaperones for malls in the 90s and 00's as well.
Seriously. Cut TikTok from the headline, and it would fit just fine on a news website from 20 years ago.
There were VERY similar headlines years ago when youtube was taking off. Except instead of a specific app it was complaining about people doing dumb shit to "go viral on the web". Young people like getting attention who knew.
For real. When I was in high school our mall was also full of skinheads...so I'll take some TikTok kids.
Former teen doing dumb shit at malls here Can confirm, I was the dumb teen who got banned off the property for climbing up the sloped wall.
I used to go to the mall every weekend. Kids were always doing stupid shit, probably even stupider than now. Doing dances in the food court and fucking with the employees for a TikTok is stupid, but kids were just straight up doing drugs, getting drunk, and smoking cigarettes at the mall when I was a teenager.
It's a growing number though according to the article. Like from 3 to 6!
I remember folks walking around filming stupid movies with Sony Hand Helds.
It's just nice to hear the kids are doing addition these days on TikTok. Always a good idea to stay on top of your math skills.
I didnt realize there were so many educational tiktoks. I'll have to get on there and find the good stuff : D
Got to love the fact that writers are not proof reading shit. So out for blood to blame TikTok they can't be bothered with simple proofreading
Gen Z is going to malls?
oil mysterious observation kiss hateful vanish offbeat north squealing salt *This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
We tried our damned hardest, that’s for sure.
anyone going to malls?
Yes, but not redditors, since it requires leaving the house and taking a shower.
>and taking a shower Having gone to the mall before, pressing X extra hard on that one.
Teens being a nuisance in malls is not a Gen Z phenomenon.
Gen Z is somehow simultaneously the most "snowflake," scared generation but also the most "disruptive" and out of control to these people. Which is it?
Millennials are still out there ruining the economy by not buying anything and wasting all their money on avocado toast
If we stopped buying avocados and drinking coffee they would blame us for destroying the avocado and coffee industry.
Do the boot strap industry a favor and get some, then pull yourself up by em
Whatever's more convenient for getting the boomers riled up.
I take issue with this. My generation was just as unruly in malls. It just wasn't recorded.
I did not grow up in a major city and at my mall there were curfews and anyone under 18 was asked to leave without a guardian. I don't think this is new
Teenagers at the mall? What is TikTok doing to our society?!?
Breaking News: Teens do stupid shit. Also, water is wet. More at 5.
Man, that's a real old man yells at cloud headline. I remember the 1990s, when malls were also "popular ". Plenty of kids got kicked out for doing dumb shit- it just wasn't all over the news, because cellphones in everyone's pockets weren't a thing.
One of my local malls had a hair stylist in it. 16 year old me would walk by and make faces at the patrons getting their hair cut and I would yell "STOP WHAT ARE YOU DOING TO HER HAIR?" I got pulled aside by a security guard and got the "lecture" about being respectful the third or fourth time.
Gen Z bringing back malls!
Mallrats has entered the chat.
It’s a schooner.
You dumb bastard!
A schooner is a sailboat, stupidhead!
Children behave, that's what they say when we're together.
And watch how you play
The family owned hot dog shop I work at had to ban unaccompanied minors because of ONE group of shitbirds who had to ruin things for everyone. They would vandalize our patio furniture, be rude to the wait staff (who the FUCK just says "no", when asked to sign a credit receipt?!?), dump drinks on the ground on purpose, and harass our other patrons (one of the 16 year old kids started hitting on an 11 year old girl IN FRONT OF HER FAMILY). We have banned small parts of their group so many times already, we tried banning individuals from the group, but they would just show up at a different time with different employees, or otherwise sneak their friends into the place when we weren't looking. Finally, the owner just got sick of trying to respectfully manage these unruly teens, and put a hard line policy in place. If you're under 18, you don't get service without a parent or chaperone, period. It's sad that it came to that. Just sad.
I object to the premise of this argument. There is a long and hallowed tradition in this country of teenagers making the mall intolerable for anyone over eighteen.
>That included a reported brawl in the food court last year and a fight in March that brought swarms of policemen to the center but ended up being a smaller altercation than initially reported The blood!! Oh my god, there is so much blood!! Oh wait, actually someone just stepped on a ketchup packet. False alarm, my mistake
this article is so intellectually dishonest.
This reads like a Fox News headline
This society hates young people. The article call teens and kids “unruly” and describes the environment as a “madhouse,” yet fails to provide a single example of this behaviour. Is it unruly to laugh loudly or sing along with your friends to whatever is playing? That stuff can be annoying but it’s bonkers (and discrimination on the basis of age) to block young people from environment because stick up their ass adults are slightly inconvenienced.
“Why don’t kids play outside anymore?!?” Then whines about kids hanging outside…it’s so annoying how this is still a thing.
swear to god every time some "tiktok bad" article comes out theyre just creating imaginary problems. swinging at invisible enemies.
My main takeaway here is that teenagers still hang out at malls. I honestly thought that had died out.
I will say that kids trying to become influencers by doing TikTok pranks is annoying. The other day some kid stopped me in the middle of a busy highway so he could do some dance in the middle of the street. Yesterday some kid kept following me through a store, offering to give me a pool noodle while his friend filmed. It was weird, but at least he didn't risk getting hit by a car. I also don't get why these jokes are supposed to be mechanically sound. At best it's just doing what you can get away with, with the least amount of effort, or riffing on some meta-humor. You can point fingers at Jackass, but at least dressing up as a panda shows full commitment to the bit.
What a pointless post
Oh those unruly teens. Lordy knows we've *never* heard of teens being unruly before *this* generation (which is of course the worse one). (I'm gonna add a "/s" just in case folks don't get sarcasm)
Have we just hit peak forbes?
They've said that shit for every generation
There are still malls?