(This obviously isn’t an entire chapter. I think I’m going to try posting bite-size quips several times a week instead of one entire chapter at a time.)
“As soon as I had planned out the route for the trip, until I was just a few states away from Minneapolis, I had been having a constant inner debate about what to do about the Mall of America. I was going to be in Minneapolis for a day, and the Mall of America is the biggest thing that Minnesota has going on, so it made sense to see the monument to commercialism while I was there.
But there was a voice in the back of my head that pleaded, “The Mall of America? That’s tourist shit man! That’s not America, that’s a plastic, soulless imitation of America!” It’s pretentious, but that’s how I felt. Throughout most travel writing, the overarching theme has been this: If it’s popular, it’s fake, and if a destination is somewhere your average tourist would go, “real travelers” must avoid it like the plague. Don’t ask me what a “real traveler” is, but from what I hear they only eat regional cuisine and only drive on gravel roads.
After struggling with these notions of authenticity while on the road, I eventually decided that I would visit the Mall of America. Because really, the Mall of America is just as representative of America as Central Park is, or the Washington Monument is. It’s similar how, and trust me, I don’t feel great writing this, McDonald’s represents America just as well as the mom and pop diner. Yes, the independent restaurants are more romanticized, and have unarguably better food, but that doesn’t invalidate McDonald’s authenticity. Now, I’m not referring to the food’s authenticity, but the ability in which a place represents the population and lifestyle of the country. Because America is where the people are at, and if you really want to see the country, you have to go to them, no matter if you consider a place to be trite or cliché.”
