Retail Nostalgia

Ask any aging Millennial how they feel about things today compared to the time of their youth and most will say the same: Everything that used to be awesome totally sucks now. This feeling is evident all across social media where there’s been a massive uptick in posts and memes espousing a longing to return to the good ol’ days of renting VHS tapes, playing video games on a bulbous CRT TV, and refusing to let the terrorists win. Nowhere is this degradation of human experience more evident than the aisles of your local Walmart.

Yes, retail behemoth Walmart has now joined the ranks of Blockbuster Video, Pizza Hut, and a third example in that it’s no longer as fun to shop there as it was circa 2002. Don’t believe us? Well, let's take a trip not only down the aisles of a modern Walmart store but also memory lane to try and figure out if that’s true and why it’s definitely true.

Walmart spits in the face of your childhood right away as the parking lot no longer feels safe enough to play tag in or ride shopping carts around like kids were allowed to do way back when.

The crushing of your inner child’s soul continues as you note the absence of a kindly, old greeter who would gingerly place a smiley sticker on your chest as you entered the store. That comforting feeling of welcomeness that could only come from a store employee putting hands on you is missing now. Sadly, it seems that today’s Walmart would rather have elderly people retire instead of greeting their customers and flagging minorities as possible shoplifters well into their golden years for like $6 an hour.

You can remember the happy feeling of running away from your parents, today’s danger of kidnappers and child trafficking being nonexistent in 2002, to go check out the goldfish in the pet department or live lobsters in the seafood section. All you can do now is sigh as you pick up a tube of extra strength Preparation H off the shelf and wonder how Walmart’s marketing team can change so much as to make you lose the sense of youthful elation you once felt here.

Take for example the massive wall of televisions or video game demo booths that would occupy so much of your time when you came here in your youth. You would smile to yourself as you recall camping out in the electronics department for a while if that time wasn’t now occupied by waiting in line to pick up your cholesterol medication at the pharmacy, a dim shadow of the fun you once had here.

You used to run up and down these aisles for what must have amounted to miles and miles. Nowadays, you can only walk slowly through the store, leaning on your cart as it eases the pain in your knees a little, while you search for ibuprofen and that toothpaste for sensitive teeth. You wonder if Walmart even cares that they've ruined the shopping experience from your childhood.

You wistfully remember coming here the day before a sleepover and grabbing a two-liter bottle of orange soda along with several bags of chips and candy, filled with the exciting knowledge of the great time ahead of you. “Well no more of that!” says Walmart as now all you get is a jug of Benefiber, a few bottles of distilled water for your CPAP machine, and some antacid just in case some surprise heartburn keeps you from falling asleep promptly at 9pm. Oh, why would you do this to us, Walmart!?

Even the clothing section fails to evoke the joy it once did. All you can find here are shirts featuring wine puns and whatever a “Chappell Roan” is instead of the incredible selection they once had featuring the likenesses of Linkin Park or Eminem and others displaying mottos about bombing Muslims and letting God sort ‘em out. This place was once full to the brim of clothing urging us to “never forget”, but it is you who has forgotten, Walmart!

Alas, those days are gone forever, a point that’s driven all the way home by the checkout process. While in the past you would just get everything you picked out without a care in the world, you’re now required to pay for it all and take care that you don’t spend too much as you’re on a budget, a worry that didn’t exist in the Eden that was Walmart in 2002. You also recall that the cashiers used to be much friendlier, giving you a smile as you asked your mom for an impulse-shelf candy bar, unlike today when all they want to do is rush you out the door even though you’re not done complaining about the self-checkout process yet.

Sadly, while some will tell you it’s just nostalgia for the loss of your youth and perhaps the onset of a midlife crisis, this experience has objectively proven that it’s actually the modern version of Walmart that sucks and not your life. But that feeling doesn’t have to be, like many of your hair follicles, dead forever. All you have to do to emulate that old feeling is close your eyes, think back real hard to what made those old trips to Walmart so very special, and type all that stuff into a prompt for an AI video generator so you can relive those moments over and over again forever!

Just don’t get so absorbed in it that you end up sitting on the toilet watching it for a long time after you’re done pooping. You know, because of the hemorrhoids.