Fifties icons of cool such as Miles Davis, James Dean and Jack Kerouac are being used in commercials to promote various products. “Sure, nothing’s sacred. And certainly there’s more to the enduring appeal of ‘cool’ – an attitude that says, ‘I know who I am, whether you know it or not, and I really don’t care if you do’ – than the marketing strategies that threaten to cheapen its legacy. But there’s a bitter irony in the fact that Davis, Dean and Kerouac were anything but unquestioning, lock-step consumers.”