TikTok user Jay Godwin’s videos on Boronia Mall, Mooroolbark Terrace, hugely popular
A Ringwood East man’s videos of quirky and bizarre locations in Melbourne’s suburbs, including shopping malls stuck in time, are attracting hundreds of thousands of viewers.
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A Melbourne man’s TikToks of “sad and comforting” venues across the suburbs are attracting hundreds of thousands of views.
Ringwood East’s Jay Godwin, 26, has profiled a number of locations, including Boronia Mall, Mooroolbark Terrace and the Kilsyth Centenary Pool on his TikTok page Just Looking Around.
His Boronia Mall TikTok, using music from Twin Peaks, has attracted more than 400,000 views, while more than 180,000 people have watched his video on Mooroolbark Terrace.
Both shopping malls are known for being “stuck in time” and have barely changed for decades.
Jay said he didn’t plan to create his TikTok page, but after getting a great reaction to his first video on Mooroolbark Terrace, he decided to make more.
“I always really liked the fantasy of time travelling and I had heard there was this shopping centre in Mooroolbark that was like going back into the 80s (The Terrace),” he said.
“I was looking after my nana’s dog while she was overseas and she lives right up the road
so I went down one day and recorded some videos that I sent to my friends.
“I stitched them together on TikTok and pretty much woke up the next day and it had a lot of views.
“I didn’t expect it at all and people were telling me to go to other places.”
He has also visited Carousel Ice Cream store, Lunar Drive In, and Northcote Plaza.
Jay said he had been profiling places he went to growing up that were “stuck in time a little bit”.
In his TikTok of Boronia Mall, built in 1973, he says it feels like it’s “stuck in purgatory”.
Hauntingly a poster of schoolgirl Siriyakorn “Bung” Siriboon, missing since 2011, is still on a shop window.
The TikTok also features someone on a mobility scooter made out to look like a Harley Davidson motorbike.
“Just going in there, I work on weekends, so when I go it’s in the middle of the day and it was mainly just me and really old people, proper centenarians (who were in there),” Jay said.
“It makes me a bit emotional feeling like I’m in a place that is kind of from my childhood.
“It kind of feels like you’re getting away from the 2020s a bit.
“(The poster of Bung) seemed like a great example of a place stuck in time and a person stuck in time.”
“The feeling I’m chasing, the whole idea of the page now what I’m trying to do now is to recapture that feeling from childhood.
“For me it’s a little bit sad because it’s a world that doesn’t really exist anymore but it’s comforting because it’s the place that we grew up in.”
Jay said he believed places like Boronia Mall and Mooroolbark Terrace should be upgraded, with features including improved accessibility, but not erased.
“The issue is there is a lot less Boronia Malls than there is Westfields.
“When you go to (a big shopping centre) it can feel a bit soulless … I do feel like big multinational corporations are erasing the places that feel like Melbourne.”
Jay’s TikTok of Kilsyth Centenary Pool, built in 1972 and currently closed due to structural issues as Yarra Ranges Council assesses its future, has attracted more than 150,000 views.
The pool is known for its iconic dome structure.
“I have memories of walking into the dome, and it could be winter in Melbourne outside but you would go in and it’s humid and there’s this big blast of warm air and chlorine.
“They also had this real cool rock pool I think.”
Jay has also featured Bell Street Mall in Heidelberg West and the old Olympic Village and has plenty of new locations he plans on capturing next.
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