A Nebraska outlet mall wanted to be a 'laboratory' in the culture war over reopening businesses amid

2020-05-07T15:09:01Z

Nebraska Crossing, an outdoor mall in Gretna, Nebraska, opened again to the public on Friday amid the coronavirus pandemic.
Its owner had said he wanted it to be a "case study" in the culture war over the business closures in much of the US.
The mall's official Twitter account, @nexoutlets, on Sunday appeared to block reporters and other Twitter users, including state Sen. Megan Hunt.
The incident has become a meme on social media — albeit one rooted in concerns about the implications of the mall's reopening.
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In mid-April, Nebraska Crossing had grand aspirations of being one of the first malls to reopen in North America after business closures related to the coronavirus pandemic, staking out a firm position in the culture war over the restrictions and their length.

But what started as a plan to position the mall as a symbolic leader in the controversial movement to quickly reopen businesses has spiraled into a meme after a messy set of events, making the mall famous for reasons other than it intended.

Nebraska Crossing intended to be a 'case study' for reopening businesses in the United States

Nebraska Crossing is an outdoor outlet mall in Gretna, Nebraska, just a short drive from the state's biggest city, Omaha. While it never formally closed during the pandemic — Nebraska was one of few states that never instituted a formal stay-at-home order — most of the mall's stores closed to customers.

Rod Yates, the owner of Nebraska Crossing, told the Omaha World-Herald on April 14 that he wanted a "soft opening" on April 24, before the end of Gov. Pete Ricketts' request that Nebraskans avoid nonessential errands and limit social gatherings through April 30.

The mall framed itself as a test case of sorts for stores reopening; Yates told The New York Times in mid-April that Nebraska's relatively low number of COVID-19 cases and deaths made it ideal for the mall to be "a case study, a laboratory" for the resurrection of businesses in the United States.

Yates told the World-Herald that the mall was preparing a variety of safety precautions, including checking employees' temperatures and installing shield guards at registers. An update sent to general managers said the mall was in close communication with Ricketts.

Ricketts didn't ask the mall to delay its reopening. Per the World-Herald and state records, Yates and Nebraska Crossing have donated nearly $100,000 to Ricketts since 2014.

The mall faced criticism for its attempt to reopen

The president of the Nebraska Hospital Association called the move "irresponsible" and said it was "in direct contradiction with public health guidelines" in a letter published in the World-Herald on April 15. General managers of stores in the mall told the World-Herald that they were nervous about the reopening, with one saying, "I'm not willing to be a test subject for you guys, and neither are my employees." There was even a Change.org petition calling for the mall to delay its reopening.

The reopening itself was plagued by mixed messaging to stores and shifting plans. While the soft opening was initially set for April 18, it was later pushed back to April 24. The mall then clarified that the soft opening was only for store employees, though one employee told the World-Herald that it had been clear that the soft opening was intended for the public.

When the mall finally opened on Friday, it was done haphazardly. The World-Herald's Alia Conley reported that there was no one seated at a checkpoint at one of the mall's entrances (Yates said the reporter had arrived during the setup and before the opening.) Conley also reported that Johanna Boston, the mall's chief strategy officer, ordered a World-Herald reporter, a photographer, and another journalist to leave the mall, saying it was private property.

While Nebraska has crossed the threshold of 6,000 COVID-19 cases and is expected to experience peak hospitalizations on May 13, the governor began to loosen restrictions on Monday.

Nebraska Crossing blocked reporters and other Twitter users before removing its account

Conley tweeted on Sunday that she noticed she had been blocked by the mall's official account, @nexoutlets, after writing her account of the mall's reopening.

—Alia Conley (@aliaconleyOWH) May 3, 2020

Another World-Herald staff writer, Aaron Sanderford, also tweeted on Sunday that he had been blocked.

Other Twitter users, including Precious McKesson, the finance director for the Nebraska Democratic Party, and Seeing Red Nebraska, an organization that describes itself as providing "commentary on Nebraska politics from the left," also tweeted about being blocked by the Nebraska Crossing account.

"We have received targeted hostile comments directed to Nebraska Crossing from select users on Twitter, including the press," a Nebraska Crossing representative said over email. "We removed their ability to tag our business as their comments were based on opinion, or random tweets, not factual reporting. Twitter was rarely a platform that we utilized in the shopping center industry, so we decided to remove our account."

While Conley has regularly covered Nebraska Crossing, there appeared to be no instance of her tagging its account before she tweeted about being blocked. Sanderford's account showed that his previous direct engagement with @nexoutlets was on May 12, 2019, when he tweeted a photo of a Nike shoe presumably bought at the outlet mall. (Sanderford did not directly tag @nexoutlets in that tweet, but it appeared as a reply to the account.)

State Sen. Megan Hunt also said on Sunday that she was blocked after she tweeted about the account blocking Conley. Hunt told Insider that she expected the mall to block her and that she wasn't surprised when it did.

—Senator Megan Hunt 😷 (@NebraskaMegan) May 3, 2020

Less than an hour after Hunt tweeted that she had been blocked, she said that Nebraska Crossing had deleted its account, then that Boston had deleted her account as well. (The Twitter handle linked to Boston's LinkedIn profile led to an account that appeared to have been deleted.)

Nebraska Crossing's social-media behavior has been turned into a meme

The deactivation of the Nebraska Crossing account and the series of blocks came during a wave of discussion on social media about the mall's reopening plans and its asking reporters to leave the property.

—Eric (@tornadosoul7) May 3, 2020—🅂🅃🅁🄴🅂🅂🄴🄳 🄸🄽 🅃🄷🄴 🄼🄸🄳🅆🄴🅂🅃 🖤———✨ (@Siriusly_Cullen) May 4, 2020

Several Nebraska Crossing parody accounts have sprung up since the account's deactivation.

There's @nexoutlets1, whose display name is "Nebraska's Crossings Outlets," or @nexoutIets, which uses a capital I instead of a lowercase l to mimic the mall's original handle. Another parody account has the description "Overly abrasive, bad outlet mall. Media not allowed."

"Someone has created a false profile, with our former Twitter handle, impersonating Nebraska Crossing — utilizing all of our trademarked collateral including websites, photographs, etc, and passing off their false profile as our business. This is being investigated by Twitter," Nebraska Crossing told Insider.

Nebraska Crossing's social-media conduct and its apparent reluctance to let reporters be present for its opening have fed discussions about the mall on platforms like Twitter and Reddit. While certain elements of the discourse — like the parody accounts or the people lamenting that they never had the chance to get blocked — have veered into meme territory, it is still rooted in real safety concerns about the reopening.

"I think the impression you give to others through social media can undermine or support any goal you have," Hunt told Insider, adding that Nebraska Crossing "could have used this platform to convey that they were taking precautions, being careful, and putting public health and the safety of staff and customers first."

"Instead, they did something really petty and immature that reflects the concern many people had about the opening — that it was a political and greedy decision, not a decision based on the interest of public health," she said.

Ultimately, Nebraska Crossing's blocking reporters on its property and on social media seemed to jeopardize the mall's credibility as a case study for businesses attempting to reopen during the pandemic.

"You can't be a case study if you're not transparent about how things are actually going," one Twitter user wrote.

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