I’ve noticed a number of people in different places referring to those places as “-----Vegas.” People in Nashville call it “NashVegas,” Broken Doll (with whom I’ve corresponded briefly about this) calls her hometown of Brisbane “BrisVegas,” and there are other examples I can’t think of right now; I’m sure you can supply your own.
So what’s the deal? What is one saying about a city if they compare it in some way to Las Vegas? I’ve been seeing this for years, and maybe I’m dense, but I just don’t get it. Enlightenment, please?
A vegas is a gaudy showplace full of glittering lights and shallow entertainment, often supported by heroic underlying engineering efforts to maintain facilities in an area otherwise unsuited for them. Vegases usually look better at night. Visitors are encouraged to forget about any underlying problems, whether in the vegas or in their own lives, even if their partaking of the entertainment makes the problems worse.
As panache said, sometimes the name can be applied ironically.
Nashvegas is a derogatory reference to how bad the Nashville music scene has become. Today’s Nashvegas country music is over-produced, over-hyped and soulless. It’s “Murder on Music Row”.
A newspaper looked into it last year and found Brisvegas actually stole the name a long time ago from Rockhampton (Rock Vegas), who got it from the Flintstones. Brisvegas seems to have kept custody because, as impressively ignorable as Brisbane is, Rockhampton is even more so.
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