Right, it's the same thing only more complete and extreme. Creating a figment of the thing instead of the thing itself, until eventually the figment grew stronger and stronger and then the thing itself vanished into nothing.

I think it's more of a Society of the Spectacle thing than commodity fetishism. The idea of being able to live a better life or be a better person by buying this shit that doesn't actually help you, and it's a natural extension of it not actually helping you while simultaneously being a lifeline to a fantasy of self-actualization that you tuck it away somewhere, because all that's logically left of how it "makes things better" is the buying and the ownership and not any conventional use value.

I really want to know what bond repair treatment they used on that horse hair, because that motherfucker is like diamond filament at this point.

...and I could kinda use some because strand breakage is the bane of my existence lately

I need a Khatami emoji, or an Iranian Lego emoji. For this one - the latter.