“All of the Megalines offer the same basic product—not a service or a set of services but more like a feeling: a blend of relaxation and stimulation, stressless indulgence and frantic tourism, that special mix of servility and condescension that’s marketed under configurations of the verb ‘to pamper.’ This very positively studs the Megalines’ various brochures: ‘…as you’ve never been pampered before,’ ‘…to pamper yourself in our Jacuzzis and saunas,’ ‘Let us pamper you,’ ‘Pamper yourself in the warm zephyrs of the Bahamas.’ The fact that adult Americans tend to associate the word ‘pamper’ with a certain other consumer product is not an accident, I think, and the connotation is not lost on the mass-market Megalines and their advertisers.”
[David Foster Wallace, “A Supposedly Fun Thing I’ll Never Do Again”, via DM]
