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Man uses 'Death of Las Vegas' trend to explain why Americans are done being exploited

What's happening to Las Vegas is a metaphor for how people are feeling about the economy.

via Canva/Photos

The Las Vegas strip.

The "Vegas is Dead" trend on social media has TikTokers sharing videos of an empty Strip and casinos, speculating about where all the tourists have gone. The online speculation is supported by numerous reports indicating that tourism to Sin City is down in 2025. A June report found that overall visitor numbers are down six percent for the first half of the year, with international visitor arrivals falling by over 13 percent in June compared to the same period in the previous year.

There has also been a sharp decline in Canadian visitors due to the White House’s push to make the country America’s 51st state. However, there’s also considerable speculation that Vegas has become too expensive for the average American, and even if they can afford the inflated prices, the price hikes make it a less enjoyable experience. Vegas was once a place where people went to get free drinks in casinos, cheap rooms during the week, and inexpensive buffets to entice them to gamble the rest of their money. These days, critics say the casinos want to price gouge and get you to gamble as well.

 


How expensive is Las Vegas?

Hotels have been removing coffee makers, forcing visitors to buy eight dollar coffees in the casino. A visitor recently shared that she had been charged $26 for a bottle of Fiji water from the minibar in her room at the Aria Resort & Casino. A British magician was charged $74.41 for two drinks at the Sphere, and some hotels charge $50 just to use the mini-fridge.

"On the Strip, people get taken for a ride. Once they get here, they're like, 'I'm tired of being treated like this. I'm tired of having to pay these ridiculous prices,’” Anthony Curtis, publisher of the Las Vegas Advisor website, told The Independent. "There are fees all over the place—fees to park, resort fees on top of room rates. And people are getting fed up with it. We hear that a lot from our customers."

“Vegas is not fun anymore,” Amrita Bhasin, a retail-industry entrepreneur, told MarketWatch.


Why are people turned off by Las Vegas?

TikToker Nathan Ramos-Park recently shared his thoughts on why Vegas is struggling, and he views it as part of a broader trend across America. Ramos-Park is a film and TV writer behind Five Blind Dates, Ero, and Picture This. He says that the city’s prices are so high that they feel exploitative to most people, so Vegas no longer provides the “escapism” it once did.

@nathanramospark

Las Vegas no longer lets people feel escapism. It exploits so hard that people can’t afford to feel any joy which makes them in turn abandon their vices. It’s too expensive to gamble or eat or even park. There’s no coffee makers in the rooms there’s no microwave. There’s no way for people to experience joy modestly. In a way it mocks people. This will be the continuing downfall of Vegas and is a reflection of a broken system where people are exploited too hard. #lasvegas #edc #rio #caesarspalace #bellagio #fountain #fattuesday #thestrip #downtown #losangeles #escapism #exploitation #capitalism #microwave #dinner #coffee #downfall

Ramos-Park recalls going to Vegas in his 20s and getting a 5-star hotel for $20, free bottle service, and, for $100 between three people, they were able to have a “catharsis where we can eat as much as we want, drink as much as we want and it just doesn't exist anymore in Vegas.”

“Everything is just so prohibitively expensive, like buffets are over 80 bucks, even just a park on the strip was $20 for an hour,” he said before arguing that it just feels like “exploitation." Ramos-Park says it’s unnecessary because during uncertain economic times, people want to “escape” and if Vegas lowered its prices, “people would come and fall into the same traps of gambling and losing their money, but they would be happy to do so.”

@bshel74

What is going on here in Vegas? Never seen it so slow. Every casino and restaurant are pretty empty. #Vegas

He adds that his price-gouging leads people to resent corporatism, and it’s not just happening in Vegas, but also in big cities such as Los Angeles, Chicago, San Francisco, New York, and Seattle.

“It ends up hurting everybody. Ends up hurting the business. Ends up hurting the people. That ends up hurting the community, and so I think we're gonna see a lot of counter programming start to pop up, in the next three to five years, against these big kind of corporate locations," he said.

"This is also why I don’t get how there are any Disney adults left. How can you experience escapism when you’re being charged $25 for a lollipop," one commenter wrote. "I noticed the coffee machines being removed from rooms several years ago and it was then I knew we were never going back to the good days," another added.

Whether it’s a surprise resort fee in Vegas, $17 beers at a baseball game, a $45 service charge for Taylor Swift tickets, or a $100 fee to check a bag, people are fed up with being nickel-and-dimed by corporations, and sooner or later, there’s going to be pushback. Hopefully, this downward trend in visitors to Vegas is the wake-up call the town needs to make things reasonably priced again so people will return. Remember, casinos, you can always get ‘em back at the roulette wheel, but you don’t stand a chance if they aren't willing to show up in the first place.

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Asking people not to make Las Vegas 'political' means accepting this nightmare reality.

Sorry, people, we need to politicize this one.

Photo by David Becker/Getty Images.

On Oct. 1, a gunman reportedly opened fire from a hotel window, killing dozens at a country music concert in Las Vegas.

The massacre was shocking because of its size — at least 58 dead and 400 injured — but, truthfully, not surprising. According to Mass Shooting Tracker, there have already been 338 mass shootings in 2017 — a rate of more than one per day. The Las Vegas attack wasn't even the only entry on Sunday.

Predictably, gun company lobbyists are already storming the barricades, urging concerned citizens not to read too much into it. Early Monday morning, NRA spokesperson Dana Loesch posted on Twitter to ask outraged gun control advocates to "temper [their] desire for politics while the facts come in."

Indeed, skepticism is always warranted, prudence is wise, patience is a virtue, etc., etc., etc. On another context-free, history-free planet, Loesch might have a point. But we've been here before.

Too many times.

"Thoughts and prayers" aren't gonna cut it. We need action.

By sheer macabre coincidence, the United States Congress is currently considering a bill that would lift restrictions on purchasing gun silencers.

The legislation, introduced by South Carolina Rep. Jeff Duncan, ends the nine-month waiting period currently required to purchase "sound suppressors" and eliminates a measure requiring buyers to submit fingerprints and a photo. Given the news out of Las Vegas, the timing could not be worse, though with a mass shooting taking place at the rate of roughly once a day, it would almost be weirder if one didn't occur while the bill was being considered.

While the bill's supporters characterize it as designed to help hunters and target-shooters prevent hearing loss, it doesn't take an expert to realize that, in the wrong hands, the result could be deadly. After all, it's harder to save oneself from a mass shooting (or for law enforcement to find the shooter) if it's harder to hear that one is taking place. In an opinion piece for USA Today, Virginia Tech massacre survivor Jeff Twigg railed against the bill, insisting that he only managed to escape because he heard loud gunshots.

Not politicizing mass shootings like Las Vegas does serve a political end — it helps gun rights absolutists slip measures like this by.

The silencer bill is proceeding with the full support of the firearm industry, which is looking for new revenue streams after suffering a post-Obama reported decline in sales. They know it's political, and they're making it so. They're counting on the vast majority of Americans who support tighter gun laws shrugging, praying, and moving on.

Photo by Alex Wong/Getty Images.

Proponents of the measure might point to the fact the Las Vegas shooter likely used an automatic weapon and that fully automatic weapons made after 1986 are already illegal to own. Or that the guy probably didn't use a silencer. Yes, there are all sorts of reasons why stopping this specific bill would not have prevented this specific shooting. Or the last specific shooting. Or the one before that or the one before that.

But no mass shooting looks exactly like the one before it.

Pulse nightclub shooter Omar Mateen used a (legally obtained) semi-automatic rifle and pistol to kill 49 and wound dozens more. Virginia Tech shooter Seung-Hui Cho also purchased his pistols legally. Christopher Dorner, who killed four colleagues and their family members in a span of just over a week in 2013, used a silencer to avoid detection for days.

Lax, patchy gun laws make loopholes easier to find and exploit. While the silencer bill may not map 1:1 onto the next act of mass killing, it does provide potential killers another deadly option.

Mass shootings aren't inevitable.

They are the result of choices we — and our government — make. It's not a coincidence that countries with stricter gun laws have far fewer of them.

In order to stop the next one, we can't just hope and think and pray. We have to actually try. Stopping the silencer bill is a place to start.

The Las Vegas shooting was evil. It was also political.

Politicize it.

Correction 10/3/17: An earlier version of this piece identified the main author of the "silencer" bill as California Rep. Duncan Hunter. The bill was introduced by South Carolina Rep. Jeff Duncan.

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A Sandy Hook mom's emotional response to Las Vegas puts mass shootings in context.

Nelba Márquez-Greene lost her daughter nearly five years ago.

Nelba Márquez-Greene knows what it's like to lose a loved one in a mass shooting. On Dec. 14, 2012, her 6-year-old daughter Ana Márquez-Greene was shot and killed during the Sandy Hook massacre in Newtown, Connecticut.

Ever since, Márquez-Greene and her husband, Jimmy Greene, have been tireless advocates for gun safety. They've called on Congress to take action to mitigate future mass shootings — only to have their concerns brushed off. Time and again, they've watched Congress stand idly by each time a mass shooting took place.

Jimmy Greene and Nelba Márquez-Greene at a news conference in 2013. Photo by Don Emmert/AFP/Getty Images.

Waking up to news of the Las Vegas shooting that left at least 50 dead and hundreds injured, Márquez-Greene shared on Twitter what the families of the victims are going through.

Nearing the fifth anniversary of her daughter's murder, Márquez-Greene gave her followers a glimpse into what the worst day of her life was like. There is nothing that prepares you to lose a loved one in such a senseless (yet preventable) act of brutality. Márquez-Greene's words help put the entire ordeal in context for the rest of us.

"I don't know what to say besides this is on every congressperson who said in '13: There is simply nothing we could do," she tweeted. "You don’t recover from this — as a mother, brother, father. You manage. But there is no recovery. I am heartbroken."

"Today you got 50+ new reasons I take a knee. My heart, my prayers, my ACTIONS are with the victim families."

She slammed Congress for "the level of trauma" citizens are forced to endure in the wake of a mass shooting, when legislators fail to enact laws that would protect citizens from gun violence.

"As a mom who had to bury a child — I could care less about perp color. But how come we never talk about angry White men w/guns?" she chided. "How come we only want to talk when it fits our own narrative?"

"Help mothers keep children safe from gunviolence," she pleaded, calling out people who allow the shooter's skin color or religious beliefs to be the determining factor in whether or not they decide to take action — as well as those who prioritize "fake acts of patriotism over people, pain & real acts of courage."

"I just don't want any more moms to live like I do," she said, calling attention to the kind of gun violence we don't talk nearly enough about: the everyday shooting deaths that happen all around the country.

"I know so many mothers navigating this world of grief and trauma blindly because their kids died in urban centers & there is no sympathy," she tweeted. "Gun violence and grief hurt in EVERY zip code. In every color. Grieving mothers need your help."

Perhaps the most powerful message, however, was the final tweet of the group, which showed 6-year-old Ana, full of life, cheerfully singing along at a piano, along with a message for Roy Moore, the Republican candidate for Senate in Alabama: "As a final thought & reminder to @MooreSenate & congress, this is the little girl u said I should’ve prayed 'harder' for."

Every time there's a mass shooting and Congress chooses not to act, they dishonor all the victims who have come before.

Senator Chris Murphy (Democrat-Connecticut) was a member of the House of Representatives when the Sandy Hook shooting occurred, representing Newtown. He's been one of the biggest proponents of gun safety measures in years' past, even once speaking for nearly 15 hours on the Senate floor to push for action.

Following the Las Vegas shooting, his office released a statement. It reads, in part:

"This must stop. It is positively infuriating that my colleagues in Congress are so afraid of the gun industry that they pretend there aren't public policy responses to this epidemic. There are, and the thoughts and prayers of politicians are cruelly hollow if they are paired with continued legislative indifference. It's time for Congress to get off its ass and do something."

For grieving parents like Márquez-Green, for victims like little Ana, and for all of us who deserve to live in a country free from fear of being gunned down in a mass shooting, let's hope they do.

Jimmy Greene and Nelba Márquez-Greene embrace after a news conference in 2013. Photo by Don Emmert/AFP/Getty Images.

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Michael Bennett did not mince words as he described being detained by cops.

In a shocking Sept. 6 tweet, Seattle Seahawks defensive end Michael Bennett says he was subjected to racist abuse at the hands of Las Vegas police.

The outspoken Pro-Bowler said he was singled out and mistreated for "simply being a black man in the wrong place at the wrong time."

Michael Bennett. Photo by Christian Petersen/Getty Images.

Bennet said that as he returned to his hotel after attending the Mayweather-McGregor fight Aug. 26, he heard what he believed to be gunshots. He wrote that he was running in the opposite direction looking for safety when officers picked him out of a group and ordered to get on the ground.

"As I lay on the ground, complying with his commands to not move, he placed his gun near my head and warned me that if I moved he would 'blow my fucking head off,'" he wrote.

After being handcuffed, Bennett said, he sat in the back of the police car until the officers realized who he was and released him without explanation.

Bennett has been a vocal supporter of Colin Kaepernick's protest of police violence, telling Power 105.1's "The Breakfast Club" that he believes the activist quarterback is being "blackballed" by the league.

Bennett elected not to stand for the national anthem before an Aug. 13 preseason game against the San Diego Chargers. He recently announced plans to continue sitting for the anthem all season in response to events in Charlottesville, Virginia, and has criticized fellow players who choose to remain silent.

"Every day, a white quarterback throws the ball to a black receiver, but when it comes to Black Lives Matter issues, they won't step up and be like, 'There is an issue,'" Bennett recently told The Undefeated.

Kaepernick tweeted his support for Bennett on Wednesday morning, calling the events "disgusting and unjust."

Bennett is considering pursuing legal action against the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department.

Despite the surge in activism like Bennett's and Kaepernick's, high-profile cases of alleged police abuse of people of color have produced few convictions.

"The system failed me," Bennett wrote. "I can only imagine what Eric Garner, Michael Brown, Trayvon Martin, Tamir Rice, and Charleena Lyles felt," he said.

Upworthy has reached out to Bennett's attorney John Burris and the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department for comment.

Update 9/6/2017: In a press conference, a Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department spokesperson claimed Bennett was apprehended when he jumped "over a wall into traffic," leading officers to believe he may have been involved with the shooting, which was later determined to be a false report. While the spokesperson said there's "no evidence that race played a role," he announced the department would be opening an internal investigation of the incident.

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