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Paradigmatic New Means of Consumption

New York, New York may be the pinnacle of Las Vegas simulations, at

least for the time being. It certainly led to the creation of many casino-

hotels (e.g., Paris, Venetian) that were modeled after it and sought to

simulate a specific city or geographic locale. This casino-hotel

attempts to simulate a romanticized New York City circa the first half of

the 20th century. The Statue of Liberty, the Brooklyn Bridge, Coney

Island, Central Park, Rockefeller Center and other aspects of New

York’s iconography are jammed together in a miniature representation

of the city (Littlejohn, 1997). At street-level, authentic-looking trash-

cans, manholes, street signs, and graffiti add another simulated layer.

The effect is to condense everything associated with New York City

into a gigantic movie set. Yet, «this isn’t a real New York, or anything

like it. If you look closely, almost everything dissolves» (Littlejohn,

1997: A16).

Simulations in the built environment are usually carried over into the

theming of the rest of the casino-hotel’s operations. Employees typi-

cally dress in costumes consistent with the hotel theme. In Caesar’s

Palace, some of the staff is costumed as Roman gladiators and

maidens. Restaurants also carry through a theme. In the Orleans

Hotel, the French Market Buffet serves Louisiana specialties. Shows,

too, echo the theme. In New York, New York the show “Madhattan,”

featured authentic New York street performers. The cumulative effect

of theming is simply to reinforce and extend the power of the simula-

tion.

Simulations are one way in which rationalized settings can be reen-

chanted. As noted above, simulations help casinos to temper the

effects of rationalization. As a counterfactual, imagine that casinos

were built like warehouses—dimly-lit, cavernous buildings wrapped in

plain brick. Such warehouse-like casino-hotels would be easy to con-

struct and inexpensive to build and to operate. Gamblers might stop in

once or twice, but would they return again and again? Would they trav-

el great distances and at great expense to gamble in a warehouse?

Using Campbell’s terms, would fantasizing about enormous winnings

be enough to bring them to Las Vegas (especially since there are now

so many more local casinos in which they could gamble)? More impor-

tantly, would gamblers bring their families, at great expense, to a city

populated by warehouse-like hotel-casinos? The answer to these

questions is clearly no. Visitors to Las Vegas casinos require specta-

cles and reenchantment and one way of providing them is through

elaborate simulations. Yet the success of a new means of consump-

tion is premised on the extension of both rationalization and reen-

chantment. Without the former, hordes of customers could not be ser-

viced efficiently. Without the latter, those customers would be put off

and unlikely to visit with the frequency needed to support the simulat-

ed gambling palaces that dominate Las Vegas. For this reason, Las

Vegas hotels spend a fortune on what amounts to little more than

elaborate decorations.

Most of the other new means of consumption involve the use of simu-

lations of one type or another. However, it is in Las Vegas that simula-

tions have come of age and come to dominate the landscape. Those

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George Ritzer and Todd Stillman

who control other means of consumption and who want to counter

rationalization with the re-enchantment associated with simulations

would do well to study, and are studying, the recent additions to the

Las Vegas landscape. In other words, they would do well to “learn from

Las Vegas.”

IMPLOSION

The term implosion refers to the erosion of boundaries between two,

or more, formerly relatively distinct spheres. If modernity is character-

ized by progressive differentiation of consumption from other activities

(e.g., production), then a symptom of postmodernity is “dedifferentia-

tion” in which the borders between consumption and other aspects of

the social world are imploded. Functional distinctions that once

seemed natural, like, at a more macro level, the distinction between

consumption and entertainment, disappear. Similarly, what were once

separate shops such as the butcher, the grocery, and the bakery

implode into the supermarket. At its most extreme, implosion results in

extensive homogenization. Ultimately, implosion results in a world of

consumption seemingly without borders or limits where everything is

available, anywhere, at any time.

When the boundaries to which people have become accustomed dis-

solve, one result is a reenchanted world in which things that were once

familiar are recombined in a way that makes them seem novel and

unfamiliar. In this way, a set of structures can be combined and recom-

bined to create new spaces of consumption that satisfy a contempo-

rary consumer’s desire for novelty. There are many good examples of

this kind of recombination in contemporary consumer culture: laundro-

mats with exercise equipment, health clubs with lounges for socializ-

ing, movie theaters with pubs or restaurants, and coffee shops with

Internet access. Each of these settings relies on a novel combination

to attract customers. By doing so, they make familiar or routine con-

sumption seem fresh and different.

These imploded worlds of consumption create a kind of spectacle that

can lead people to consume and at ever-higher levels. Not long ago,

Las Vegas was almost exclusively a destination for gamblers. As we

saw, simulations have drawn a wide range of non-gamblers to Las

Vegas and the same is true of implosions. For example, at the MGM

Grand and Circus Circus we have the implosion of a casino and a

theme park into the hotel. The combined casino/theme park is more

spectacular than either would be on its own. The boundary between

gambling and shopping has also been eroded in Las Vegas. The Vene-

tian Hotel and, as we’ve seen, the MGM Grand Hotel both include

large shopping malls; adjacent to Caesar’s Palace is an elaborate and

expensive mall, the Forum Shops. A more general implosion involves

the erosion of the boundary between touring and consuming. Although

tourism has always involved the consumption of goods and services,

in Las Vegas consumption has become the main point of touring. Most

people go to Las Vegas with the sole intention of spending time and

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