I always thought it was used to describe kids wasting time in a mall, but this fashion writer seems to use the term to describe any woman who shops in a mall. Which is it?
When I hear the term “Mall Rat” I think of people who go to malls for a social scene and NOT to buy things.
When I hear the term “mall rat” I think of chocolate-covered pretzels and the back seats of Volkswagons.
I’m not sure why.
“Mall Rats” refers those kids who hang out in malls with no specific purpose, other than hanging out with other equally broke/underage kids who have nowhere else to go and be seen.
I think the fashion writer is using the term erroneously, perhaps b/c it was a “hipper” term than “mall-shoppers” or something more fitting to her scenario.
Ditto. Mall rats = tween and teenage kids that hang out at the mall because they’ve got no money and they’re too young to do much else. Are dropped off by their mothers with poofy hair and a mini-van and probably shop at Hot Topic.
Both Lady Chance and I were self- and other-described as Mall Rats back in the 80s.
Suburban middle-to-upper class kids who hung out at the local Mall after school. I don’t think it had anything to do with being unable to afford anything there. It was just the place to be.
Get an orange julius, hang out at the arcade (if available), see which girls were there that day. That sort of thing.
I think the ‘fashion writer’ in the OP is using the phrase in a snobbish sense. And an innappropriate one.
The older people who go to malls are “Mall Walkers,” so named because they go to the mall in the early hours before the stores are opened and walk laps. It’s warm and dry and safe, and they can walk (for their health) in a comfortable enviroment with their friends.
After their walk, they all head to the now-opened food court and get coffee and a bite to eat and sit around and chat.
Mall Rats are definitely kids.
For some inexplicable reason, I can only respond to this by shouting “Fly, fatass, fly!”
“Okay Lunchbox, let’s try this again…we tie you to the roof and you jump off and sail like a Spitfire passing right over the arch nemesis La Fours. You then swing up to the stage and knock out the pin…and when that’s gone the stage is trashed and we go smoke a bowl. You got it? Now get your fat ass up there…and dude, don’t forget your helmet. Snoogins.”
The common meaning is kids who hang out at malls. The writer in the linked article is using the phrase incorrectly.
It sounds like all you quoters are just spouting off lines from some obscure movie.
Whoever wrote it couldn’t have so many fans as to justify your hijacking this thread.
Just leave the lame in-jokes to someone else, would you?