Hot Topic: Is it still hot?
Hot Topic prides itself on providing shoppers with “counter-culture” clothing and accessories. As someone who used to drag my parents into the store with me for school shopping and Black Friday, I feel Hot Topic has lost its significance as the store has become less atypical. Finding alternative clothing and accessories has never been more difficult than now.
Hot Topic was founded in 1989 by Orval Madden. With the emergence of MTV and the rise of ‘alternative’ clothing and lifestyle, Madden saw an opportunity to create a store with unique clothing and accessories catered towards customers with goth, emo, scene, and other alternative subculture styles. Madden wanted a teen retail store focused on the alternative music scene. Band t-shirts were a necessity for Hot Topic. Customers would purchase band t-shirts from the likes of The Cure, Soundgarden, Snot, Depeche Mode, Joy Division, and a variety of other popular bands from the 80s and 90s. Nowadays, it is rare to see the aforementioned bands’ merchandise in Hot Topic as the company has pivoted towards more recent rock, metal, and rap artists.
In the modern-day, walking into Hot Topic might cause some to experience a form of whiplash. Instead of seeing all shades of black, you can find mainstream artist merchandise like BTS, Drake, Billie Eilish, Hello Kitty, and a wide variety of anime-related merchandise. There are a lot of long-time customers who are dissatisfied with this evolution. Consumers who lived through the ‘mall-culture-boom’ of the late 80’s and early 90’s are frustrated with how much the store has changed, but fail to realize how fan culture influences fashion sales.
For example, in 2001, Hot Topic opened a new line of stores called Torrid, targeted towards a plus-sized audience. Torrid provided fashionable, edgy, and trendy products similar to Hot Topic’s. When Torrid rebranded itself, however, with a more modest and classic fashion line, it was a blow to many customers—including myself—who found liberation through their founding aesthetic. The rebranding of Torrid left those consumers, then, to look towards other options like Shein and ASOS Curve, which offer an appealing palette at an affordable price—even if unsustainable and contributory to fast-fashion.
As to whether Hot Topic is still a “hot topic,” that is entirely up to the consumer. I loved going to Hot Topic as a kid. It was my safe haven back in middle school, and if given the chance, I would have purchased everything in the store. When I go to the mall, I still always enter the Hot Topic hoping to see something I find worth the money. It has been hard to see the store change so much, but we, as consumers, must understand that change must occur to sustain a business.
Hot Topic is a retail chain business that provides things that will make them money, and that is the unfortunate reality that crushes a lot of people's nostalgia—including mine. The sad fact is that it may never go back to having that authentic gothic and emo aura. It is a product of its time and will continue to adapt to future subcultures, whether we like it or not.
Thumbnail photo courtesy of Wikimedia Commons