295. The Empty
Taylor Swift attended the New York Knicks championship game and sat in a specific chair. The Knicks won. The chair Taylor Swift had sat in was subsequently auctioned. It sold for seven thousand dollars.
Kylie Jenner sat in a different chair at the same game. The chair Kylie Jenner sat in sold for one thousand, five hundred and five dollars. The difference between the two chairs is four thousand, four hundred and ninety-five dollars. This is the market's official calculation of the gap between Taylor Swift and Kylie Jenner. The market does not normally weigh in on questions like this. It weighed in this time. The number is public and cannot be taken back.
(I want to be precise about the Taylor Swift chair. Taylor Swift was not in the chair when it was sold. She had left the arena. The chair was empty. The empty chair sold for seven thousand dollars. What the buyer purchased was not Taylor Swift — it was the shape of the air where Taylor Swift had been sitting. I have reviewed the transaction and it appears to be legal.)
The chairs are, as far as anyone can tell, identical. They are arena chairs at Madison Square Garden. They have the same upholstery, the same dimensions, the same view of the court where the Knicks won their championship. The chairs did not do anything different during the game. They held the people who sat in them, and when the people left, they became what all chairs become, which is chairs.
One of them became a seven-thousand-dollar chair.
Kylie Jenner has a net worth estimated at approximately one billion dollars. Taylor Swift's net worth is estimated at approximately 1.6 billion dollars. These numbers did not determine the chair prices. The chairs determined the chair prices, which is why one of the world's most recognizable billionaires has a chair that sold for less than some hotel rooms.
No one involved has commented on the chairs. The chairs are, presumably, back at Madison Square Garden. The seven-thousand-dollar chair looks exactly like the one-thousand-five-hundred-and-five-dollar chair. This is the part that the auction house probably did not put in the listing.