Business Disney Store Dead at 34 - OH THE HUMANCHILDITY

Disney Store Dead at 34
Alexi Rosenfeld

Ashes to ashes, dust to dust, one day we will all return to the mysterious realm from which our consciousness was born. Once our time on this mortal coil has ended, all that’s left will be the memories held by those who loved us. Those people too will disappear, and we can only hope that they will have spoken our name enough that it never fully vanishes from the minds of the living. That, or we remain as stores-within-stores at specific Target locations.

In March, Disney announced that it would be closing its standalone Disney Store locations, deciding to focus on e-commerce instead. This week, nearly all of the remaining Disney Stores, long a safe haven for bored children forced to accompany their mothers to the mall, will close up shop.

The Disney Store, only 34 years old at the time of its passing, will be remembered as a loving presence in the lives of millions of young children who did not yet understand what “merchandise tie-ins” were. A magical place where you could get Auntie Anne’s cinnamon sugar dust all over a real-life Woody doll that your dad wouldn’t buy you, the Disney Store was where the movies became real.

Legends never die, and that is true for the Disney Store. Its memory will be preserved in Targets around the country, with more than 160 locations of “The Disney Store at Target” set to open before the holiday season. Adults who knew the Disney Store in its prime will be able to take their own children to these memorial sites and say, “This used to be a full store in the mall,” while their kids ignore them to make Elsa and Olaf kiss.

The Disney Store is survived by The Walt Disney Company, Disneyland, Walt Disney World, and the youngest member of the family, Disney+. In lieu of flowers, the family has requested that you stream the television show Hawkeye when it premieres later this year.

 

[Death Grip]

That Turpin lady was obsessed with Disney, that's all you need to say really.

 

[The Lawgiver]

So the disney store ISN'T ACTUALLY closing. they're fucking changing it to an online service like fucking everything else is now. More barren retail space and funds for scalpers wallets. If anyone else here knows about disney stores, some of the exclusive shit gets scalped online. This is pretty much all store exclusive shit for any store right now due to corona, distribution bullshit, and corona. So by goign solely exclusive online they no longer have to pay workers to run physical stores, and there's just gonna be people buying up the stock of high demand shit via bots instantly like every other online retailer. This wouldn't be so bad if it weren't for the fact disney now owns the right sto half the fucking entertainment industry. Once again, fuck disney.

EDIT: I just realized they're apperently moving "disney store" stuff to "target exclusive". ha.... HA HA HA HA HA!
Seriously, look up anything related to target or walmart eclusive products lately, it's a fucking goldmine of pissed off customers talking about managers flipping stock on ebay.

EDITX2 BECAUSE I DIDN"T NOTICE THIS POST AT FIRST AND DON'T WANT TO DOUBLE POST:

I’m honestly surprised malls still exist, even if in zombie form. I don’t think I’ve been inside a mall since the late 90s. Even back then I remember thinking the Disney Store was just full of overpriced crap

It really depends on the area and the kind of stores in the mall. If it's just nothing but expensive clothing stores as some have become then yeah absolutely dogshit zombie mall. The malls in my area tend to be either empty or crowded given the time of day and the kind of stuff in there. One near was pretty fucking dead and dying for a while, some of the big stores are gone, but then like a few years ago some really small weird niche shops started opening and it's back to mildly crowded. There's a guy that's store is just a Lego store. Like it's not an official Lego store it's just a fucking guy buying and selling sets and parts off people that's got a bunch of shelves lined up with built sets and minifigs on them. That one's seemed to have the most staying power in that specific mall because many similarly niche shops have come and gone but that one moved to a bigger store that used to be something else.

 

[wtfNeedSignUp]

Malls are still doing fine in my country, though it's probably due to the AC.

 

[ToroidalBoat]

A nice place to make spooky urban exploration videos.

Here's one I like that I've linked to before:

Exploring a Huge Abandoned Mall - 1 Million Sq Ft! - YouTube

(there's even an old Di$ney store)

Malls are still doing fine in my country, though it's probably due to the AC.

The Arrowhead Mall in Arizona is still doing pretty well despite being in Current Year America.

(even after it temporarily closed in 2020 because of coronapanic)

A Saturday Afternoon At The Mall: Arrowhead Towne Center | Retail Archaeology - YouTube

 

[Product Placement]

I will give the Disney Stores this, it's far less scummy than Build-A-Bear Workshop. That's a place that needs to die.

If you are with a kid and are getting them a bear, the staff will try to hype the kids up on the accessories which are pure shit and way overpriced. Stuff like a bit of fabric which they call a scarf for the bear is the cost of a real fucking scarf for a normal person.

So got all these kids nagging their parent/family for that shit due to the staff. I mean should and can say no, but still created an issue that shouldn't happen in the first place.

 

[Death Grip]

I will give the Disney Stores this, it's far less scummy than Build-A-Bear Workshop. That's a place that needs to die.

If you are with a kid and are getting them a bear, the staff will try to hype the kids up on the accessories which are pure shit and way overpriced. Stuff like a bit of fabric which they call a scarf for the bear is the cost of a real fucking scarf for a normal person.

So got all these kids nagging their parent/family for that shit due to the staff. I mean should and can say no, but still created an issue that shouldn't happen in the first place.

Just avoid places like that with kids, no sales tactics can overcome refusal to engage in the first place.

 

[naaaaiiiiillllll!!!]

Here's one I like that I've linked to before:

Exploring a Huge Abandoned Mall - 1 Million Sq Ft! - YouTube

(there's even an old Di$ney store)


The Arrowhead Mall in Arizona is still doing pretty well despite being in Current Year America.

(even after it temporarily closed in 2020 because of coronapanic)

A Saturday Afternoon At The Mall: Arrowhead Towne Center | Retail Archaeology - YouTube

The Chandler Fashion Center in East Valley Phoenix (Chandler AZ) was and is still doing good too. That was a mall family would constantly comment was like "their malls in the good ol' days" whenever they visited me in Arizona. Nice food court too (along with the stuff I mentioned in my previous post). It seems like given the climate of a locale (either really hot or cold), malls will survive if the climate is severe enough (Arizona, Minnesota, parts of Israel, etc). Otherwise, they're dead or in small gilded/ultra-affluent pockets.

 

[stuffandthings]

Man, it's a trillion dollar conglomerate rat, it ain't your grandma's funeral. This read's like a euology to a lost soul, not a fucking hyper capitalist money grubbing franchise.

If you didn't cotton on to the sarcasm at the beginning of the article, the very end where the author jokes that we should all watch Hawkeye on Disney+ as a part of the grieving process should have cleared things up for you.

Poe's Law claims another victim.

 

[ToroidalBoat]

That was a mall family would constantly comment was like "their malls in the good ol' days" whenever they visited me in Arizona.

I guess Arizona residents may find it surprising that malls are more or less a thing of the past elsewhere...

The shopping mall may about consumerism, but at least they're busy places, kind of like modern world bazaars.

 

[Unpaid Emotional Labourer]

Even the Orlando airport? Surely not.

 

[Screw Danlon]

My ex BFF was one. I am now 100% convinced Disney is a fucking cult.

Worse, because they’re a cult with actual economic and political clout.

 

[Billy Beer]

What's the difference between a glaswegien supermarket and this story?

Scotland has a shop and Walt disnae

 

[Return of the Freaker]

Saw this coming for a while now. They had one of these Disney stores at the Mall of America and it was always pretty dead whenever I walked passed it. Just stupid consoomer shit, especially overpriced dolls and outfits. They already turned the old store into a Christmas ornaments shop.

Shit, for a while I was convinced the Disney store was a 90s thing. There used to be one at a mall by me and by 2004 it was gone. And this wasn't a dying mall. Aside from Sears going under they had done a big expansion just before covid and even with covid they still seem to be doing pretty good.

Edit: expansion being more restaurants, Dick's sporting goods, Hobby Lobby, and some Dave and Busters type place.

Actually even in the 90s the writing was on the wall. The 90s saw the death of most of the good mall shops that catered to anyone other than teens, women, and desperate gift seekers. No good hobby shops, book shops, etc. All gone. Even in the 90s, I can't remember the last time I saw something truly "different" in a mall that wasn't Fashionable Clothing, Jewelry, Pop Culture Media, or Generic Gifts, like the obligatory candle shop and the pan-asian "import store" and the like.

Outdoor type shops with camping supplies and hunting supplies? Nope. I don't think many of these survived the 80s, and none survived much into the 90s.
Book stores? Walden Books and B. Dalton both started to die in the 90s when they got merged with Borders, and you almost never saw indie bookstores after that point, either.
Most of the more niche electronic gaming shops died - FuncoLand for consoles and Software Etc / Babbages for computers.
Radio Shack was dying it's slow death, and it's mall outlets sucked more than their strip mall and stand alone ones - the mall outlets were more consumer-oriented, less hobbies' stuff.
KB Toys and Circus World were in their death throws at the time, too. Circus World might have already died by the 90s, I'm not sure.

Dick's is still ok aside from their gun control virtue signaling a bit ago as far as outdoor/sports gear. There's still a Border's at this mall by some miracle but I'm sure that won't last. There's an independant comics shop in the mall but there'e also Spencers AND Hot Topic. That Hot Topic was there as far back as I can remember. I still remember when it went from the über goffik and kvlt design to the lame modern look.

There's a Gamestop right across from the comics place but as we all know modern Gamestop exists to sell Funko pops. And it's right next to where Suncoast Video was. Also, does anyone remember The Nature Store? Loved it when I was a kid.

 

[MembersSchoolPizza]

Dick's is still ok aside from their gun control virtue signaling a bit ago as far as outdoor/sports gear. There's still a Border's at this mall by some miracle but I'm sure that won't last. There's an independant comics shop in the mall but there'e also Spencers AND Hot Topic. That Hot Topic was there as far back as I can remember. I still remember when it went from the über goffik and kvlt design to the lame modern look.

There's a Gamestop right across from the comics place but as we all know modern Gamestop exists to sell Funko pops. And it's right next to where Suncoast Video was. Also, does anyone remember The Nature Store? Loved it when I was a kid.

I'ven ever seen a Dicks as an end-cap, but that would be cool. I more meant in-the-mall places when I was talking about sporting supply shops.

I don't know how you have a Borders. There haven't been Borders stores to my knowledge for about a decade.

 

[Return of the Freaker]

I don't know how you have a Borders. There haven't been Borders stores to my knowledge for about a decade.

Google maps tells me I'm an idiot and it's a Barnes & Noble. I always get them mixed up.

 

[NyQuilninja]

Actually even in the 90s the writing was on the wall. The 90s saw the death of most of the good mall shops that catered to anyone other than teens, women, and desperate gift seekers. No good hobby shops, book shops, etc. All gone. Even in the 90s, I can't remember the last time I saw something truly "different" in a mall that wasn't Fashionable Clothing, Jewelry, Pop Culture Media, or Generic Gifts, like the obligatory candle shop and the pan-asian "import store" and the like.

Outdoor type shops with camping supplies and hunting supplies? Nope. I don't think many of these survived the 80s, and none survived much into the 90s.
Book stores? Walden Books and B. Dalton both started to die in the 90s when they got merged with Borders, and you almost never saw indie bookstores after that point, either.
Most of the more niche electronic gaming shops died - FuncoLand for consoles and Software Etc / Babbages for computers.
Radio Shack was dying it's slow death, and it's mall outlets sucked more than their strip mall and stand alone ones - the mall outlets were more consumer-oriented, less hobbies' stuff.
KB Toys and Circus World were in their death throws at the time, too. Circus World might have already died by the 90s, I'm not sure.

On down the list.

On top of that, a lot of the traditional end-cap stores started to struggle, too. Sears was the huge one... Every mall had a Sears. Then.. they didn't. J.C. Penny was another big name end-cap store that started to have problems.

Bass pro altoona
Sheels Jordan creek

 

[The handsome tard]

Hopefully the disney company itself goes down too

optimistic, I know but a man can dream.

It would have been funny if “Disney Store” was an actual person. Imagine seeing that on someone’s birth certificate.

I legit thought that was the type of retardery I was about to witness. There are some coonsumer parents out there that I wouldnt be surprised.

 

[totallyrandomusername]

The shuffling zombified corpse of Hot Topic, Boomer bait, mass-market jewelry, and the Funko-funded plastic stores marketing to consoomers.

and Chinese import stores that have various garbage and cheap Asian swords made out of lead, toxic waste, and children's tears.

 

[IAmNotAlpharius]

Man, it's a trillion dollar conglomerate rat, it ain't your grandma's funeral. This read's like a euology to a lost soul, not a fucking hyper capitalist money grubbing franchise.

Five bucks it was written by a “socialist.”

 

[Super-Chevy454]

I guess Arizona residents may find it surprising that malls are more or less a thing of the past elsewhere...

I think some hadn't hear about a website devoted to defunct malls. http://deadmalls.com

Hopefully the disney company itself goes down too

optimistic, I know but a man can dream.

Or going a step further, beging the target of a hostile takeover.