About the only course of action many of us feel is left open to us, if we want to transcend our inherently insignificant selves and “be like Mike,” is to go out and acquire the identity props (a.k.a. “consumer products”) to which people like Michael Jordan have affixed their transcendent auras.

But of course, when we make such purchases, all we really do is cycle back into the same process of making choices based on manufactured symbolism and imagery that helped fuel the drives toward corporate gigantism and engulfing megamedia that brought about our diminishment in the first place.