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A Society like Las Vegas

American society is extremely commercialized as we focus our values and morals around superficial expectations. Americans find themselves picturing their lives like this: a nice house, a neat family, a dog or a cat, and of course, the perfect spouse. Due to society’s stereotypes, we want an attractive, respectful, and loving husband or wife. These unrealistic expectations and desires lead Americans to joining superficial-love shows such as love island, The Bachelor, The Bachelorette, and etc. On these shows the contestants are always needed to be one thing, attractive. The participants spend their time getting recorded doing activities such as hot air balloons, horse-back riding, and others in order to fall madly in love with their meant-to-be, everlasting soulmate. The couples that find each other and pair up most likely end up spending, a forever loving, 3 month relationship together. These shows expose the egocentric and unrealistic mindset that tends to float in the brains of Americans. Unconsciously, we tend to compare ourselves to how others live around us and from that, we generalize and form a hardened mold of what our life is supposed to look like. Similar to the way we morph and shape ourselves to superficial values, the same happens in Las Vegas. As Didion says, “But Las Vegas seems to exist only in the eye of beholder all of which makes it an extraordinary and interesting place, but an odd one” (Didion). Las Vegas is viewed as a magical and wonderful place, however, all it is realistically is a place to have an excuse to make reckless decisions.

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