July 20, 2010 | By: Tracy

Twilight & Harry Potter, what have you done?!

When I was young and impressionable -- we’re just going to pretend it was last summer, k? -- those of us old enough to rebel against our parents, but young enough to need them to drive us places so we could hang out with our friends had only one place to go without the parental units insisting on being in tow.


The Mall!

We were Mall Rats and loved it. We thought we owned the food court … and the boys who worked the concession stands at the movie theater were fair game when it came to getting your flirt on. We passed most of our Friday and Saturday nights at the mall, making it our home away from home.

Apparently things have changed a little.

I went into Barnes & Noble last Friday evening to do a little revision work (nevermind the lack of social life that allows to me to spend my Friday nights at a bookstore). It was then I learned that the B&N in Ellicott City, MD has apparently become the new IN place for the braces-and-learners-permit crowd to hang out from time to time.

When did this happen????

I have no real proof, but I’m fairly certain that the huge spike in YA readers -- and those of us who technically qualify as adults, but eat the stories up like chocolate contraband at a Jenny Craig convention -- is thanks to the emergence of widespread popular series like “Twilight” and “Harry Potter”. Now it’s actually considered fairly cool to hang out at the B&N café.

I was so ahead of my time when it came to the cool factor! I just wish everyone else had known it back then.

5 witty remarks:

Misty Waters said...

I was totally a Mall Rat! Weird that kids are hanging out at the B&N's now, though. I almost wanna tell my son and see if he will actually pick up a book now.

It pleases me, though, because of the whole debate of books vs. eReader's that's been going on. This new generation is so techno based that we're going to see the loss of these bookstores.

Shelley Sly said...

Thanks for the heads up about Ellicott City's B&N. ;) There's a B&N closer to me than that one, but I bet there's crowds of teens/preteens there, too.

Oh, and I was so a mall kid. I grew up in Jersey, the mall capital of the universe. We didn't dream of hanging out anywhere else.

Saumya said...

Haha well at least book stores are getting the "cool" rep that they deserve! I was never a Mall Rat and felt that I had to be!

Terry Towery said...

In college, I worked in a large mall electronics store part-time and, well, it was THE place to ogle those awesome '80s mall girls! In fact, I met one of my previous wives (ahem) at the mall.

Viva la mall rats! :)

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