Word for the “fakeness” of extravagant places

Question

When visiting Casinos, Vegas, Hollywood blvd, Dubai etc one is overwhelmed with marketing about how fabulous they are. But once actually there, something feels off. There’s nothing specific one can single out to explain this feeling, but it just feels as though the surface-level extravagance is hiding something. Like the brilliance is only skin deep. Like pretty wallpaper covering a rotting wall.

Is there a word for this?

Dictionary and thesaurus searches only seem to show positive words like “grand” or “extravagant”, or negative words that have a sense of obviousness eg “fake”, “tacky”. These words seem to describe either good or bad. There is no sense of an underlying, hidden, negative aspect.

Ideally one could use this word in a sentence like: “Vegas is x”, “Vegas has a sense of x”, “Vegas makes me feel x”.

Thanks guys

Answer 1

Given appropriate context, superficial could convey such a property.

not thorough, deep, or complete; cursory. "he had only the most superficial knowledge of foreign countries"

lacking depth of character or understanding. "perhaps I was a superficial person"

(From Oxford Languages, from the Google results)

While it can be used to mean various things, I think if you described a city as superficial it would usually be understood to imply that, as you say, "the surface-level extravagance is hiding something". However, depending on the specific instance this could be misunderstood (for example as describing the people rather than the buildings).

Answer 2

While I don't think there's a perfect word for you situation, one that comes close is "tawdry" looking bright and attractive but in fact cheap and of low quality. (Cambridge)

"Gaudy" unpleasantly bright in colour or decoration is also applicable and also negative.

Others that may be useful in forming a picture are "gilded" or "gold-plated". The impression I got of Vegas was gold-plated fibreglass -- shiny but not even solid. Continuing in a similar direction we have "thinly-veiled" but thinly-veiled what? A casino may be a thinly-veiled attempt to extract your money in the guise of entertainment, but the ambience isn't quite that of a thinly-veiled con. A veneer of sophistication (or of something similar) could be a useful phrase too.

An (almost) applicable description is "Little expense had been spared to give the impression that no expense had been spared", which is a quote form The Restaurant at the End of the Universe by Douglas Adams.

As for the feelings it invokes, the words would be very different - "unease" for example.

Answer 3

contrived

having an unnatural or false appearance or quality : ARTIFICIAL, LABORED m-w

Deliberately created rather than arising naturally or spontaneously.

Created or arranged in a way that seems artificial and unrealistic. Lexico

If you see something that seems fake since it was too perfectly planned out, call it contrived. Vocabulary.com

But the modern practice of urban development does not have these features. It does not deal with growing wholes at all.

First, ...

Second, the growth is not, in any deep sense, unpredictable. It tends, most often, to be controlled by conceptions, plans, maps and schemes. But these plans do have the capacity to generate a growing wholeness. Instead the force an artificial, contrived kind of wholeness.

Third, ... The order is superficial, skin deep, only in the plan or in some contrived orderliness of the arrangements. There is no deep inner coherence, which can be felt in every doorway, every step, and every street. ref.

Boston itself was a more peaceful city than New York, and had a charm reminiscent of a European town, with its less-planned, less-contrived layout reminding him particular of Rouen, and its many gray and white buildings bring back memories of Paris. ref.

...a sort of Sundy-go-to-meetin kind of look about this part of the city, that I don't like a bit better than I do the pinched up, narrow contrived appearance of the rest. ref.

These geometric pools are often found in city courtyards or adjacent to period homes built in the French renaissance or Italian ... It is easy to make mistakes and end up with a contrived appearance when combining rocks, plants, and water. ref.

Answer 4

it just feels as though the surface-level extravagance is hiding something.

façade noun (FALSE APPEARANCE)
a false appearance that makes someone or something seem more pleasant or better than they really are

Tacky (adjective)
Things that are tacky are cheap, flashy, garish, gaudy, loud, tawdry, or trashy. Tacky clothes are usually inexpensive yet flashy and showy — obnoxious.

Like the brilliance is only skin deep.

As others have mentioned, gold-plated, gilded. Sometimes written as gilt.

Like pretty wallpaper covering a rotting wall.

Paper-over (verb)
To hide an unpleasant situation, especially a problem or disagreement, in order to make people believe that it does not exist or is not serious

Answer 5

Lexico gives:

Potemkin

Pronunciation /pəˈtem(p)kən/ /pəˈtɛm(p)kən/

ADJECTIVE (informal):

Having a false or deceptive appearance, especially one presented for the purpose of propaganda.

Origin: 1930s from Grigori Aleksandrovich Potyomkin (often transliterated Potemkin), a favorite of Empress Catherine II of Russia, who reputedly gave the order for sham villages to be built for the empress's tour of the Crimea in 1787.

Answer 6

Veneered may be suitable for usage.

• Cover or disguise (someone or something's true nature) with an attractive appearance

Answer 7

There's pretentious which means to put on appearances and/or act like you're better than you really are at one or more aspects: intelligence, skill, sophistication, class, fame, importance, wealth, power, charisma, street cred, etc.

attempting to impress by effecting greater importance, talent, culture, etc., than is actually possessed. "a pretentious literary device"

Answer 8

In the given context overhyped would apply.

Lexico gives the following definition of 'overhype'

Make exaggerated claims about (a product, idea, or event); publicize or promote excessively.

With the example

‘the film was overhyped by the press’

The example specifically mentions advertising and also describes the feeling of disappointment when visiting the establishment and finding that it is not glamorous as the hype claimed.

Answer 9

I don't know if it'll help, but decadent, although it's typically used as a positive, ("decadent chocolate cake", "decadent jewels", etc.) was originally a term that meant "decaying" or "declining" (M-W)

The feeling you're describing isn't exactly a feeling of decline or decay, but there is a bit of "not all there that could be" that is at least tangentially related to decay and decline.

Answer 10

There does not seem to exist a term that will convey your compounding of ideas properly; there are two ideas. The best you might do is try yourself at combining telling terms; your expression will thereby only be the more accurate; often, in problems of description the most profitable rule is "the more words, the better". Here is an example below that you might emulate so as to get more precisely still at what you want to say.

The term "window dressing" does communicate the idea of fake display, but doesn't insist on an underlying rottenness.

(Merriam-Webster) 2 a : the act or an instance of making something appear deceptively attractive or favorable b : something used to create a deceptively favorable or attractive impression

The term "faded glory", assuming that the idea of a rotting foundation refers to the lackadaisical attitude of those business owners in putting their money where their mouth is, will carry the idea of an unattended, oldish structure that nobody puts much faith in.

(urban Dictionary) The phenomena of once being great

So you might find that the following approximates sufficiently well what you experience.

• The whole business gives off an air of window dressing as a patching for faded glory.

Answer 11

anticlimax (anticlimactic)? (Apple Dictionary: “a disappointing end to an exciting or impressive series of events”. From “climax”, which is the exciting end of a story.)
(I shall mention the following while I am here. vacuous? spurious?)

Answer 12

Vain

From a Latin word meaning empty, implying that something appears to have substance, but is actually devoid of it.

There’s nothing specific one can single out to explain this feeling, but it just feels as though the surface-level extravagance is hiding something. Like the brilliance is only skin deep. Like pretty wallpaper covering a rotting wall.

Your description very accurately summarizes a feeling which English speaking writers in Christendom have used the words "vain" and "vanity" to describe for a few centuries.

For example, in an 1800s translation of Introduction to the Devout Life:

Everyone strives who shall carry most vanity to the ball; and vanity is so congenial, as well to evil affections as to dangerous familiarities, that both are easily engendered by dancing.

And again in the same place:

Alas! whilst you were there, time was passing away, and death was approaching nearer: behold how he mocks you, and invites you to his dance, in which the groans of your friends shall serve for the music, and where you shall make but one step from this life to the next. The dance of death is, alas! the true pastime of mortals, since by it we instantly pass from the vain amusements of this world to the eternal pleasures or pains of the next.

(Source: Immaculatalibrary)

Answer 13

What about meretricious (adj)

apparently attractive but having in reality no value or integrity. (Google Dictionary)

It originally was used to refer to prostitutes, so it might carry the nuance of "tainted by the reality of an economic exchange."

Answer 14

My suggestion is the word meretricious, meaning:

showy; gaudy; tawdry; based on pretense; false

If there is a better word to describe the superficial glitz and supposed "glamor" of Las Vegas's tourist mecca, I am not sure what it would be.

Answer 15

insincere came to mind, especially if you're looking for something to evoke more emotion, rather than just an objective description.

The definition of insincere often says 'not sincere' and I didn't find another great definition of it for you - so take the opposite of the following:

sincere means:

free from pretense or deceit; proceeding from genuine feelings.

marked by genuineness

free of dissimilation (where dissimulation means 'to hide under a false appearance')

Answer 16

chimera (n)

Vegas is a chimera - an illusion or fabrication of the mind

impalpable (adj)

Vegas has a sense of impalpability - lacking material substance

incorporeal (adj)

Vegas makes me feel incorporeal - not corporeal : having no material body or form