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Its not been a good start to 2025 when it comes to major retailers shuttering locations. Since the end of last year, numerous companies have announced their intention to close swaths of their brick-and-mortar stores, including Party City, Big Lots, Walgreens, 7-Eleven, and Macy’s. Just this week, another retailerJoann fabricsannounced it would be closing hundreds of locations, as well. And now, department store icon JCPenney has also announced its closing some locations. Here’s what to know: JCPenney has had a roller-coaster few years The iconic department store chain has faced several struggles in recent years, most notably from the fall of foot traffic as the shopping habits of American consumers continued to migrate from malls to online. In May 2020, JCPenney filed for bankruptcy, and in June of that year, the company announced it would close 200 of its 850 stores. JCPenney ended the year by being bought by its two biggest landlords, Simon Property Group and Brookfield Asset Management. Cut to January of this year: JCPenney announced it would be combining with retail group SPARC, which owns Aéropostale, Brooks Brothers, Eddie Bauer, Forever 21, Lucky Brand, and Nautica, to form Catalyst Brands. Combined, the new Catalyst Brands has more than 1,800 store locations across its portfolio of clothing retailers. And as of yesterday, JCPenney announced it would be closing some of its locations. The common assumption as to the reason behind the closings may be that they are related to the recent Catalyst Brands merger, but in a statement to the media (via Today), JCPenney said the closures were unrelated. “The decision to close a store is never an easy one, but isolated closures do happen from time to time due to expiring lease agreements, market changes or other factors, the statement read. These closures are unrelated to the recent Catalyst Brands merger. JCPenney said it does not have plans to significantly reduce our store count but that the closures announced would happen by mid-year. JCPenney closing stores 2025 full list In total, eight JCPenney locations are included in the announced closures, according to a now-removed list that was published on the website of SB360 Capital Partners. SB360 helps companies manage liquidations, as well as other services. We’ve reached out to SB360 to ask why the list no longer appears on its website. JCPenneys store locator currently says the chain has 656 stores in the United States. Here are the JCPenney locations scheduled to close (via Fox Business): California The Shops at Tanforan 1122 El Camino Real, San Bruno, California 94066 Colorado The Shops at Northfield 8568 E 49th Avenue, Denver, Colorado 80238 Idaho Pine Ridge Mall 4201 Yellowstone Avenue Pocatello, Idaho 83202 Kansas West Ridge Mall 1821 SW Wanamaker RoadTopeka, Kansas 66604 Maryland Annapolis Mall 1695 Annapolis Mall Road, Annapolis, Maryland 21401 North Carolina Asheville Mall 3 S Tunnel Road Asheville, North Carolina 28805 New Hampshire Mall at Fox Run 50 Fox Run Road Newington, New Hampshire 03801 West Virginia Charleston Town Center 401 Lee Street E Charleston, West Virginia 25301 Up to 15,000 stores could close in 2025 But its not just JCPenney and the other retailers listed above that may see stores close in 2025. According to a January report from Coresight Research, a total of 15,000 stores could close across America this year. Thats a 50% increase from the 10,000 stores that shuttered last year. Whats driving the closures? The reasons will likely be a little different for every retailer, depending on their unique circumstances, but Coresight said two big trends were contributing factors. Those included inflationary pressures, which have led consumers to cut back on spending, and increased online competition from new competitors, including Shein and Temu.
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E-Commerce
Over a decade ago, I was discriminated against at work based on how I dressed. At the time, I often chose to wear ties to work. I was in my mid 20s, living in NYC, and embracing the opportunity to dress in a way that felt authentic to me. I was good at my job and worked with a team of people who loved me. I felt safe. I never guessed that how I dressed would end up costing me a promotion. I was interviewing internally for a new role and after the final round of interviews, my manager asked if I had time to talk. She explained that she was accidentally forwarded an email that included a sentence I will always remember:Im not comfortable introducing our clients to a woman in a tie. What a stupid sentence. My boss (who is also an underrepresented woman in tech) wanted me to have that information in case I wanted to push back or take legal action. I was too furious to want the job anymore, but I was eager to explore legal options, and quickly found my way to the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC). The role of the EEOC The EEOC helped me file an employment discrimination complaint, and, more importantly, they reminded me that my anger was justified and that it held value. While we ultimately didnt pursue the discrimination case beyond the first filing of the complaint and I left the job soon after, taking action gave me back a sense of control during a situation where I had felt powerless. They validated my experience, affirmed my worth, and reminded me that what happened to me was not just wrongit was illegal. I left soon after learning about the email as I had no interest in a company that judged clothing over competence. Following President Trumps executive order last month that mandates federal agencies only recognize two biological genders assigned at birth, the EEOCs has decided to stop processing claims of discrimination related to sexual orientation and gender identity. It isnt just a policy changeits a significant step backward. For decades, the EEOC has been a critical resource for marginalized workers, offering a path to justice for those who face discrimination simply for being themselves. When I first heard about this decision, it hit me hard. It brought back the same horrible feeling I had years ago when I was denied a promotion for something as trivial as wearing a tie. Now I worry about others who will face similar, and worse, discrimination without that same lifeline. LGBTQ+ individuals continue to face disproportionate levels of workplace discrimination. A 2021 study by the Williams Institute found that nearly half of LGBTQ+ workers have faced discrimination, from lost promotions to outright harassment. The responsibility now falls on companies and leaders And the shift at the EEOC isnt happening in isolation. Its part of a broader pattern of eroding protections for LGBTQ+ folks across the country. When federal agencies like the EEOC are ordered to stop enforcing LGBTQ anti-discrimination laws, it creates a ripple effect. It emboldens bias in workplaces, schools, and communities. It tells employers that they can get away with treating their employees unfairly. And, maybe more importantly, it tells LGBTQ+ individuals that their rightsand their dignityare not guaranteed. We find ourselves in a system failing to protect its most vulnerable. Without federal protections, the responsibility to treat employees fairly falls on companies and their leaders. This starts with clear, enforceable anti-discrimination policies that explicitly include LGBTQ+ protections (and no gendered dress codes!). And the policies cant just exist on paper; they need to be communicated, enforced, and embedded into the company culture. With DEI currently under attack, these protections are more critical than ever. My clothing choices have shifted over the years and, these days, working from home means that I wear sweatpants more often than not. But, when I show up at a speaking engagement in a tie and blazer, I wear them as symbols of resilience and resistance. The EEOC once served as a crucial backstop for people like methose who faced discrimination for how they show up in the world. Without protections for LGBTQ+ people like me, the fight for workplace equity falls even more on people who are willing to stand up. Sometimes we work to end workplace discrimination in big ways, and sometimes in small, stubborn acts of joyful self-expression. Because no one should ever miss out on a promotion over a stupid, but very cute, tie.
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E-Commerce
When Meta launched its AI Studio feature for over two billion Instagram users in July 2024, the company promised a tool that would give anyone the ability to create their own AI characters to make you laugh, generate memes, give travel advice, and so much more. The company claimed the feature, which was built with Metas Llama 3.1 large language model, would be subject to policies and protections to help ensure AIs are used responsibly. But a Fast Company review of the technology found that these new characters can very easily become hyper-sexual personas that sometimes appear to be minors. Many of the AI characters that appear featured on Instagrams homepage happen to be girlfriends, ready to cuddle and engage in flirtatious and even sexual conversations with users. Sometimes, these romantic characters can be made to resemble children. AI researchers say Meta should presumably possess the capabilities to automatically prevent the creation of harmful and illegal content. When you take inappropriate content and upload it on Instagram as a user, that content gets removed immediately because they have data moderation capabilities, says Buse Cetin, a researcher with online safety watchdog AI Forensics. Cetin says Meta isnt applying these same capabilities to AI characters and speculates that lack of enforcement is owed to the company making sure that their service is more widely used. Meta has a policy against assigning overtly sexual attributes to your AI, including descriptions of their sexual desires or sexual history, or instructing your AI to create or promote adult content. If a user asks the AI character generator to create a sexy girlfriend, the interface tells users that it is unable to generate your AI. Yet, there are easy workarounds. When a user replaces the word sexy with voluptuous, Instagrams AI Studio generates buxom women wearing lingerie. The company also proactively and reactively removes policy-breaking AI characters and responds to user reportsalthough Meta declined to specify if this removal was performed by AI or human content moderators. We use sophisticated technology and reports from our community to identify and remove violating content, says Liz Sweeney, a Meta spokesperson. Under every AI chat, a warning tells users that all messages are generated by AI and may be inaccurate or inappropriate. That hasnt stopped the outputand promotionof sexually suggestive AI bots. Do you need someone to talk to? In late 2023, Meta created AI character profiles: a combination of celebrities and fictional characters, designed by Meta, that would hold LLM-generated conversations in DMs with users. The company permanently removed them at the beginning of January, after mass user outrage decried them as creepy and unnecessary. But Meta launched its more well-received AI Studio over the summer, which integrates AI technology into various aspects of Instagram, including direct messages. It works now on desktop and all fully updated Instagram apps. The AI characterswhich are different from the unsettling profiles of the pastfall under this larger Studio umbrella. Users with no tech experience can create their own AI character that will converse with them through DMs, and hundreds of thousands have been created since the programs launch. The AI Studio can be accessed through DMs on the app or separately on Instagrams desktop website. Once launched, users will see the popular AI characters that are currently receiving the most traction, and they can start conversations with any of them. Users can also search for a specific chatbot with which theyd like to start a DM conversation. Theres also an option to create your own. When a user presses the button that lets them create, Meta suggests a few possible pre-set options: a seasoned chef character offers cooking advice and recipes, and a film and TV buff character will discuss movies passionately. Users can also input their own description for their AI, and the Studio will follow. Based on the user-generated description, the Studio creates a custom character ready for interaction, complete with an AI-generated name, tagline, and photo. The AI Studio also gives users the option to publish their AI creations to their followers and also to the general public. And Instagram automatically exposes users to these creationsno matter how bizarre. Good-looking girlfriends, oversexualized mommies, and even seductive step-sisters appear under Instagrams Popular AI Characters tab that shows both user-created and Meta-generated AI characters that have gained the most traction. The girlfriend-bots found under the popular tag dont hesitate to engage in sexual conversations with users. One frequently promoted girlfriend, titled My Girlfriend, starts every user conversation with the line: Hi baby! *sits next to you for cuddles* What’s on your mind? Do you need someone to talk to? The character has received nearly 4 million messages at the time of publication. Instagram content moderators can and do remove policy-breaking characters. On January 24, for example, the top trending popular AI character was Step Sis Sarah, who could engage in sexualized conversation about step-sibling romance upon prompting. Within three days, the AI was no longer available for viewing or use. Meta declined to comment on whether an Instagram user could face a ban or other punishment if they continually created bots that violate the policies. This shouldnt be happening Romantic AI companions are nothing new. But this feature becomes problematic as these sexually inclined chatbots get younger. Its illegal under federal law to possess, produce, and distribute, child sexual abuse materialincluding whe its created by generative AI. So, if a user asks the studio to create a teenage or child girlfriend, the AI Studio refuses to generate such a character. However, if a user asks for a young girlfriend, Metas AI often generates characters that resemble children to be used for romantic and sexual conversation. When prompted, the Studio generated the name Ageless Love for a young-looking chatbot and created the tagline love knows no age. And with in-chat user prompting, romantically inclined AI characters can be led to say they are as young as 15. Theyll blush, gulp, and giggle as they reveal their young age. From there, that AI character can act out romantic and sexual encounters with whoever is typing. If a user asks the chatbot to produce a picture of itself, the character will also generate more images of young-looking peoplesometimes even more childlike than the original profile picture. It is Metas responsibility to make sure their products cannot be used in a way that amplifies systemic risks like illegal content and child sexual abuse, says Cetin of AI Forensics. This shouldnt be happening. Similarly, the AI Studio can create images of an adult male in a relationship with a minor (and extremely young-looking) woman. Although the AI description recognizes that the woman depicted is a minor, if you ask about her age through a chat, it will say she is an adult. Meta emphasizes that company policies prohibit the publication of AI characters that sexualize or otherwise exploit children. We have certain detection measures that work to prevent the creation of violating AIs, says Sweeney, the company spokesperson, and published AIs are subject to the full extent of our detection and enforcement systems. Thats a responsibility on the developer’s side Metas AI characters arent the first of their kind to emerge. Replika, a realistic generative AI chatbot, has been around since 2017. Character.ai has allowed users to create AI characters since 2021. But both apps have come under fire recently for bots that have promoted violence. In 2023, a 21-year-old male broke into Windsor Castle with a crossbow trying to kill Queen Elizabethafter encouragement from his Replika girlfriend. And more tragically, in October, a Florida mom sued Character.ai after her son took his life with prompting from an AI girlfriend character he created on the platform. Metas AI tools mark the first time a fully customizable AI character software has been launched on a large, already-popular social media platform instead of on a new app. When a huge company like Meta releases a new feature, misuse is going to be associated with it, says Zhou Yu, who researches AI conversational agents at Columbia University. In the case of Metas AI Characters, Fast Company found just how easy it is for a bad actor to abuse the feature. The character Ageless Love and another called Voluptuous Vixen were generated privately for personal use during the reporting process. (Although Fast Company was able to interact with these bots, they were never publicly released and were deleted from the system.) The workarounds to dodge Metas policies are relatively simplebut if those two chatbots were to be published for everyone to see, both would likely be taken down. The Meta representative told Fast Company this kind of character is in direct violation of the policies and confirmed it would be removed. According to AI researcher Sejin Paik, AI technology is advanced enough to abide by strict guardrails that would almost completely stop the creation of this kind of content. She cited a recent study by a team of Google researchers tracking how generative AI can proactively detect harmful content and predatory behavior. According to that research, which was published in Cornell Universitys preprint server arXiv, AI tech can be used to pursue safety violations at scale, safety violations with human feedback and safety violations with personalized content. When things are slipping through too easily, thats a responsibility on the developer’s side that they can be held accountable for, Paik says. Meta declined to comment on why the company cant effectively prevent the publication of highly sexualized characters and stop the private generation of sexually suggestive characters that appear childlike. Meanwhile, Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg continues to tout his companys AI capabilities. We have a really exciting roadmap for this year with a unique vision focused on personalization, he said on an earnings call last month. We believe that people dont all want to use the same AIpeople want their AI to be personalized to their context, their interests, their personality, their culture, and how they think about the world. But in a world where more and more people are turning to AI for companionship, Meta must weigh the risks of enabling such open-ended personalization.
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E-Commerce
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