TUCSON- Every December brings along cultural traditions throughout the US for families and loved ones and a visit to Jolly ol' St. Nick at the mall is no exception. However, the Tucson Mall has taken a brave new approach in conjunction with accelerating tech in 2024 and into 2025. "We figured it was about time for a change. Hiring and maintaining reliable independent contractors can be very complicated as it is. Multiply that with higher costs all around and there's bound to be conflict," says Jacobi Wills, a PR laison for Brookfield Properties. "Sometimes Santa calls out sick or Santa wants more pay. And we just can't afford that sort of behavior anymore. Instead, we took advantage of the opportunity to invest in an innovative new tech with the new Tesla Optimus Santa Edition. It will pay for itself in 2 seasonal operations and we're very excited to see how its behavioral adaptive algorithm fares in real time."
However, not everyone is as enthusiastic as Jacobi. Mark Hollinger, a single father, took his daughter to see Santa this week and was taken aback when he noticed an immediate contrast to previous years' Santa Claus.
"I've taken my little girl to see Santa for the past two years here at the Tucson Mall and you can imagine my shock as I saw whatever the H--- that was. One minute my daughter and I are skipping along, all smiles, ready to see Santa. The next, she's making scared noises and tugging at my shirt as we stood in line. I looked over and I see this metallic and plastic looking freak moving all weird with a serial killer Santa face." He pauses and shakes his head with a confused smile.
"They had a drone with a camera and some dystopian voice telling these kids to stay still and smile as they sat on robot Santa's lap. They were all either cying or screaming as his neck turned making all these weird noises and then his dead eyes stared down at them where his mouth started moving like a nutcracker saying "HO HO HO WHAT DO YOU WANT FOR CHRISTMAS" in an AI Santa voice but then it would say the kid's name in a monotone robotic voice. Creepiest sh-- i've ever seen in my life."
Some other parents are showing a more optimistic perspective. "Yeah, I took my little idiots to see Robot Santa and it scared them to death. Now I get to tell them "if you keep misbehaving, Robot Santa will bring you presents" and then they get right in line. They want nothing to do with him." says Teresa Ferguson, a Tucson mom of four.
Despite some of the complaints, Jacobi just calls them "necessary growing pains" and is confident that this new approach will become the norm in a few years' time.
"Sure, we're going to face some resistance. But that's what change is," Jacobi says. "Yes, we've had complaints about how maybe a kid is asking Santa for a 'Batman Lego Set' and then Santa computes that as a query about zoonotic viruses that could ravage humanity. Or maybe a kid asks for a 'Meta Quest 3S' and he recites Solzhenitsyn's 'Gulag Archipelago.' A desire for an 'Xbox' might turn into a history lesson of the Federal Reserve while his head shakes rapidly. It happens. These are just minor tweaks that our tech team is going to have resolved in short notice. We're not concerned in the slightest. Come and see Santa, everyone!"
The Tucson Times News will report more on this story as it develops.
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