What I like about New Vegas is that out of all the Fallout games, it feels like it's the most aware of the fact that everyone is doing a bit of some kind from the fifties and is much more attentive and thoughtful than some of the other games to the implications of the fact that everyone is doing some kind of bit from the fifties.
The Kings are a salient example of this. The surface level gag, of course, is that they're a militant gang of Elvis impersonators, having adopted the aesthetic after their leader mistook a training facility for Elvis impersonators as some kind of religious site. Stock Future-imperfect stuff, oh-those-silly-wastelanders, elevating our pop-culture to the level of organizing-societal-principle.
Until, of course, you take into account the (singular) King's actual project- the fact that his gang is the defacto governing body of Freeside, the accompanying fact that he's got his anarchist predilections and thus would like to maintain that governing position without having to constantly kick people around to get them to listen. And here you've come across a guy from before the war who was apparently so incredibly charismatic that people came from all over the country to see him, so charismatic that they built an entire school to train people how to imitate his mannerisms. No shit they're gonna check if there's any gas left in that can! There might be some real practical power on the table if they can walk that walk! Even if the quick-and-dirty pitch for the gang is "Elvis Cult," there isn't really a spiritual component, they aren't morons who're mistaking this guy for a literal god, they just recognize that there might be some unreclaimed social capital here for them to tap into. And there absolutely is, in-universe and out- have you ever encountered a Fallout fan who didn't love The Kings?
Compare this, by the way, with the Three Families, who aren't in a situation where they're scrambling for a symbol they can rally populist support around. These guys are on top of the world. They aren't doing a bit because they're pursuing the social power that bit would provide them- there ultimately is some, but that's not why they started doing it and it isn't strictly something that they needed to do, given their combined force of arms. They're doing their respective bits because the guy with the robot army told them to. They're theme-park employees, working to brute-force back into existence the halcyon youth of a guy who can't even go outside to enjoy it.
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