Something in the essence of perceived reality is lost in the commercialization of culture. Perception loses its richness, depth and periphery. Consumerism disenfranchises subjectivity. While capitalism is linked to the origin of consciousness, consumerism and advertising duplicity have become potential threats to consciousness and the individuation process.

The affectiveness of the sociocultural symbol diminishes as its exploitation in the media siphons ineffable content to attract the consumer. As the power of the symbol is depleted by parasitic deconstruction, the sign's tentative bond with being is broken. Advertising deceit corrupts the illusion of a timeless ideal. By falsifying the framing experiences, advertising robs the symbol of its meaning, and the ideal of its sense of truth.

When the Beatles' anthems of the 1960s started showing up as background music in Nike shoe commercials, they lost their value as symbols for the ideological struggles of the era. While the sneakers were temporarily graced with the aura of the famous recordings, the songs were drained of transcendent value in the process. The references to running shoes and advertising overshadow the associations with the cultural flourish of the 1960s.

Extensive exposure to the duplicity of media advertising weakens the grasp of consciousness on subjective knowledge of being. As advertising duplicity invades the ideal realm and appropriates subjective value for product enhancement, established conventions lose their ability to inspire metaphysical truth. This debilitation of the symbol is undermining the ontological ground of Western culture. The commercial exploitation of culture is widening the rift between ideal and being, and between word and truth. With the defamation of the sociocultural (aesthetic, psychoanalytic) symbol, the substantiating experiences of culture recede into the shadow.