The T-shirt wall in the middle of the store was covered with the same shirts, those black ones with the sarcastic slogans like “ew, people” and “don’t hug me, I’m scared” and the array of pop cultural ones featuring Beavis and Butthead, South Park, and Edward Scissorhands. When I visited, there was a big sign for Disney’s Little Mermaid out front and a nauseating amount of anime coated the front of the store.īut beyond the colorful anime merch, Funko Pop and Disney displays, I could see clothing and accessories that looked more familiar. The current store seems less focused on music and more interested in building an empire of fandoms. Hot Topic wanted to reach the edgy teen who went to Warped Tour with thoughts of rebellion and anarchy. I think he meant it as a compliment.īack in the 90s and 00s, the focus was on music and fashions associated with goth, metal, rockabilly and punk. He said he hired me because I was hot and would bring in customers. In fact, after I no longer worked at the store, the manager told me that I didn’t match their usual employee profile. There was a guy with massive dreadlocks and a man with spider tattoos who rode a motorcycle.Īdmittedly, I was the most boring - and perhaps approachable - of the group. One woman had a huge bullhorn septum piercing and talked about the forces that supposedly rule the universe. Our manager was a punk who loved Bad Religion and brewed his own beer. The other employees were an eclectic mix of music-obsessed teens and 20-somethings. The doors were previously intimidating, which always bummed me out.īack in the day, it was my job to stand in front of the store and encourage people to come inside. And I’m actually glad that they ditched the old entryway. Way too quiet for what claims to be “the loudest store in the mall.” The dungeon-esque storefront was gone, replaced by a shiny modern facade that made it look like a renegade cousin of the Apple Store. I was not disappointed.Īs I approached Hot Topic, I noticed it was quiet. And so I decided to revisit my old haunt after 20 years. In fact, she was downright impressed that I’d once worked there, even if it was circa 2003. I thought Hot Topic was a relic of the past, but my 13-year-old niece recently informed me that the store is still super relevant. All of my studded belts are gone, and black is no longer the primary color in my closet. Sure, you can still catch me wearing a Nirvana T-shirt, but you’re also going to see me sporting plenty of Lululemon and Lilly Pulitzer. To be fair, I no longer fit the stereotype of a somewhat moody, early 2000s mall goth. The reason this is a fun fact is because people always act surprised to hear that I was a Hot Topic Teen. Craven got the result that he wanted and ultimately used the take in the film itself, where you can see the young actor nearly jump out of his shoes when Englund, in his own words, "really turns it up." Luckily, Hughes looks upon the event with rose-colored glasses these days, as it remains a favorite story of his to tell at conventions and panel discussions.Here’s a fun fact about me: I used to work at Hot Topic as a teen. Needing the young performer to be genuinely scared of Robert Englund's Freddy Krueger, Craven pulled a bait-and-switch during a scene where he is supposedly running from the character, secretly hiding Englund in full make-up behind a corner of the set and instructing him to jump out unexpectedly mid-take. But according to the aforementioned Never Sleep Again documentary, Craven did once find himself resorting to terrifying trickery to pull an authentic performance out of child actor and Pet Sematary star Miko Hughes on the set of Wes Craven's New Nightmare. For what it's worth, the late, great Wes Craven was often considered to be one of the warmest and most welcoming presences on his film sets, regardless of their frequently morbid subject matter or even the tumultuous nature of the shoot (yes, we're looking at you, The Serpent and the Rainbow).
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