IS BELLE DELPHINE BATH WATER WORTH 30$ A BOTTLE?

Matt Nagin
2 min readJul 15, 2019

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Belle Delphine, an IG Influencer, is selling her bath water at 30$ a bottle. Some kids are using it as bong water. Others are claiming it gave them herpes. The internet is a literally awash in a tidal wave of absurdity. Proof of this came when, days later, her website started offering a full tub of bath of water for 10,000$.

P.T. Barnum said ‘a sucker is born every minute.’ This is as true today as 100 years ago…maybe moreso. But, more to the point, are those buying her bath water necessarily suckers?

Maybe not. After all, Delphine’s bath water is not the only commodity without any intrinsic value. Bitcoin trades at around 12k, but it is essentially a madeup currency. It’s only possible value is as a store of value, a secure way of buying and selling. In and of itself it certainly is not worth what people pay for it. Same goes for litecoin, ethereum, gold, and wide array of collectibles.

Belle Delphine is popular enough and people are zany enough today that her customers might even be getting a good deal (for her bath water, in a few months, may sell for far more on EBAY, become limited edition etc.). It’s The Emperors New Clothes. As long as no one notices the emperor is naked the so-called clothes he wears are going to seem increasingly attractive. That’s just how markets work.

Anyway, I’m looking forward to what she sells next to “thirsty gamers.” She could pretty much pedal anything. Pages out of a phone book. A dead mouse on a glue trap. Rocks from her backyard.

This is celebrity in 2019. Don’t bother getting annoyed. Just shake your head and admit that the paradigms have shifted.

It’s absurd. But not nearly as absurd as millennials ingesting tide pods or believing the Fyre Festival would be just like the glossy ads. So maybe Belle Delphine should charge more for bath water. Maybe this is the product America needs.

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Matt Nagin

Matt Nagin is a writer, comedian, actor, and educator. His latest book, “Do Not Feed The Clown,” is available on Amazon. More at mattnagin.com.