Popups- noting or pertaining to a store, restaurant, etc. that temporarily takes over a vacant space and does business there for short time.
I was at the dentist being fitted for a retainer -- (yes, at this age) it's not a long story, but another day another column -- when I receive not one but three invites to a "popup something" or the other.
I am going to try and explain to you as lucidly as I can, in the course of this column, why this word makes me cringe and boil. First, let's understand me. I am a true-blue 80s child. I embrace bad hair, cheesy music, carbs for dinner and nepotism like any other 80s prototype who ever shook a leg to Billy Jean in stone-washed jeans. I also put a high premium on tradition. We were the generation of "Cheers" where everybody knew your name, and got our family values from Dallas and Dynasty (you know where everyone actually loathes each other but shows up nonetheless to family lunch on Sunday and poses for group pictures) it goes without saying, I am heavily invested in perpetuity!
Now let's understand the "popup". A popup, I am told by the good folks who answer random searches online, is a marketing wunderkind that's revolutionizing urban real estate and is the messiah of small scale retail and cottage industry world over. The popup allows you to rent an empty space, for a limited amount of time (from a day and up to three months), is generally cheaper to shop at than traditional brick-and-mortar stores and most of their transactions are in cash.
While this is great news for entrepreneurs (read: your cousin twice removed who is making the most darling hand crocheted tea cozies, that your mother insists you buy and before you know it you have a drawer full of orphaned technicoloured cozies that no one uses because the tea pot is almost extinct!), my brain short circuits every time I hear it!!! It is the most pretentious name for an idea in a, smug, artsy and not in a good way, superfluous, as in why are they saying that when they can say exhibition or trunk show, kind of way.
They are mushrooming like flesh-eating zombies in an apocalyptic raid on Earth, and now you'll find they've expanded to include clubs (as in with a DJ) cafés, restaurants, and god knows what else… a popup vaccination booth, next (though on second thought that's not entirely a bad idea). Don't get me wrong, I have no beef (are we still allowed to say that word? Hell yeah, since we've nixed the #66) with counter culture or redefining stuff, my beef (ha ha) is with the impermanent and impersonal nature of the beast.
Sure you can augment your wardrobe, home, intestinal flora and expand your tastes to whatever chia almond butter smoothie propagating, fair trade wearing fad that captures your fancy for the next 15 minutes, but no one there will ever know your name!
Instead, you'll overindulge your appetites and a week from now be in the throes of serious buyer's remorse because you've ended up with something that doesn't fit right or wear well and there is no where to return it. To add to it, you'll spend the rest of your life deleting texts from them, about more upcoming events, because we all know from experience that Block Contact never stopped an overzealous PR team!
But suit yourself. I've worked myself up into enough of a frenzy and need to work it off with a good ol' oil massage at a salon patronised by now four generations of my family, where they know when I'm due for my roots, the exact way I like my hair blown out and that my kids are due back for Easter break and this is the last moment of uninterrupted sanity I am likely to have for a while, as they put in extra heart into the unknotting of my shoulders and always use my name when bidding me adieu.