Anybody out there want a free vacation? Plane tickets, hotel room, and $80 per diem included? Plus a nice $2,500 check?!
Well, all you have to do is win the Mall Of America’s “Writer-in-Residence” contest.
The Mall of America — pride of Bloomington, Minnesota — is turning 25 this year, and they’re looking for writers to capture that undefinable “Mall atmosphere.” (Um, it’s a mall.)
Submit your 150-word proposal at contest page before 10 March 2017. No previous publishing experience is required. And be creative! As the entry page says, “Heck, if you can make the assignment work as a musical-comedy screenplay, by all means make it so!”
Selected semifinalists will advance to an elimination round, amping their proposal up to a daunting 500-800 words. That’s around 50 Tweets, but life is full of challenges. Be brave.
The Mall of America Gig
So what, exactly, is the “in residence” part? I’m glad you asked. That’s where the real fun begins. You get five eight-hour days hanging around the Mall, and you are supposed to write about it. Not in some corner office! Oh, no. Here’s how it works — from the Official Contest Rules page (PDF):
The work product may scroll continuously throughout the day for passersby to view. Content will not be displayed on the monitor until it has been submitted by the Winner and approved by a Mall of America Marketing representative. The Winner must submit new content of no less than 150 words, to be displayed on the monitor at three (3) mutually agreed upon times each day. Winner’s written work must not be inaccurate, derogatory, incompatible with, inconsistent with, or otherwise contradictory to the Mall of America’s desired presentation of the Mall or the patrons, tenants, licensees, invitees, or employees of the Mall.
Essentially, it’s a zoo with one animal: the lone ad copy writer in its unnatural habitat. Parents can bring their children to observe the writer as it types, stares blankly, types, stares blankly. “Look, Billie, it’s going to forage for food!” I’m tempted to apply for this, but unlike a zoo chimpanzee, I would not be allowed to fling poo.
What Would Be a Good Mall Story?
If you didn’t have to write ad copy, there’s lots of interesting people at malls. The workers, for one: security guards, janitorial staff, those unfortunate young women working at Hot Dog on a Stick. Obvious tourists (although the Mall isn’t as big a draw for them as it was back when). Teenagers with nothing else to do.
There are also old folks, in almost every large shopping mall, who go walking in the morning before stores open. I don’t know which mall started this, but it’s pretty common. It’s a way for the seniors to get some exercise on a surface which is smooth, under climate controlled conditions, and without crowds knocking them over. They’ll usually finish their walk at some little store where they can get coffee and doughnuts. Those are interesting people; I’ve met a few.
Where Have All the (Ad Copy) Writers Gone?
But ad copy? Are ad writers so lousy now you need an open contest to find any new ideas? Malls are surrealistically creepy, and always were — that was their appeal, once they spread like gangrene. Ooh, check out the pus, it’s so strange! Capitalism made blatant, with only the feeblest attempts to resemble anything human — a sad tree here, some soothing music there.
To go biblical, these contest runners are desperately trying to pour new wine into old wineskins. Reanimating an abomination that never should have existed at all.
My Personal Mall Story
Naturally, being a Minnesotan, I have been to the Mall many times. One time, I went to go see a movie. Mall of America has got movie theaters, kiddie rides, bars, the whole deal — just like most mega-malls.
A while before, a friend had given me some marijuana brownies he’d made from homegrown weed. On my movie trip, I was riding the bus, planning on munching popcorn, and I thought this was the perfect time to eat those brownies.
I got to the Mall a bit earlier than planned, and the brownies were kicking in. Very strongly. So I decided to hang out in a sporting-goods shop. I like sports uniforms; they freak me out less than the garish stuff sold in most stores.
I saw a Minnesota Twins jersey I suddenly, really, wanted. I almost bought it. Then I remembered — there was another, competing sporting goods store about 300 feet away. I thought I should comparison shop. So I noted the price and headed for the other store.
The other store had a similar jersey, and I almost bought that one. Until I remembered I’d come there to comparison shop. What was the price in that other store? I’d forgotten.
You can see where this is going. I wandered between those stores — perhaps five times each. Finally I realized it was time for the movie, I was way too high to comparison shop, and I should just buy the damn jersey. Which I still have. Consumerism!
Think Outside The Box, While Inside a Box!
Come up with a musical-comedy screenplay. Or why not a comedy routine? A sarcastic, hipster slag on anyone insufficiently cool to realize how cool the Mall is? Everything is permitted. Nothing is forbidden. Assuming approval from Mall of America Marketing, of course.
I remember, during our high school graduation ceremony, the outgoing principal giving a speech about creativity. Don’t be afraid to dare new ideas, he said. Think different. Be a rebel. This contradicted every authoritarian ruling he’d decreed during my years at school, in a way. But in another way, it didn’t.
Think differently — for money. Be creative, dare to dream — for money. Change the world — for money.
So, have at the contest, folks! Be the zoo writer! Be innovative and new! Just keep in mind:
That’s true even if you don’t win. But hey, you get a chance to write in your cage for five days.
What’s interesting here is that it isn’t much of a contest. Average freelance writers would be paid about half his without having to leave their homes. The amount paid when a writer is forced to travel, is much more. And all their expenses are paid. So basically, they are offering a contest, but nothing is won. It’s just a job offer. Except in this case, they want applicants to create content for them for free that Mall of America gets rights to use. It’s really quite vile.
On the other hand, the idea of having a writing in residence is really cool. But, of course, Mall of America Marketing representatives will never allow anything that could possibly offend anyone to get through. Therefore, it will be boring.
Also, the amount of writing they are expecting is nothing. Writing 8 hours in a day will produce at least a couple thousand words of good material. Of course, they are expecting kids to do this. You don’t have to be published?! A published writer would have to be way down on their luck to consider this job.
The problem with actual ad copy writers is that they are smart, hip, and largely evil (you might say playful). That’s the last thing MoA wants. I was thinking that there’s a thread of what they want in your personal story, “Different stores have different prices on different things. So it pays to spend all day in the mall comparison shopping…” But mostly, they are looking for, “I saw a small child drop her ice cream cone and gallant older man insisted on paying for a new one.” But even there, you gotta be careful — gotta include the mother so it doesn’t look like a potential case of pedophilia.
As it is, the job would be annoying. Although with only having to crank out 450 words of crap per day, it would be easy — especially given that I could go pro-commerce philosophical, “Ain’t it keen all these people are getting together to buy crap and not one of them has shot another — yet.”
Yeah. 450 words in the hotel room wouldn’t be so bad. Sitting in the mall for five days would be excruciating. You can see everything there is to see in one day. The rest would just be tedium.
And now I have “Where Have All The Flowers Gone” stuck in my head…
Reminds me of an old writing exercise. Write about the kitsch capitalist dystopia without mentioning kitsch, capitalism, or dystopia.
That’s a good one …
Again, this wouldn’t be so bad in the hotel. It’d actually be a fun little challenge to describe the spiritual nullity of shopping malls in a way the contest people didn’t catch. But the way they set this up, anyone who isn’t really into window shopping would be suicidally bored.