There seems to be something about modern art specifically where collectors value something more highly when it's palpably inane--the $58M for Jeff Koons' balloo

There seems to be something about modern art specifically where collectors value something more highly when it's palpably inane--the $58M for Jeff Koons' balloon dog springs to mind. It puts more focus on the fact that the collector not only had that much money, but could throw it away on something visibly and obviously "worthless" to almost anyone else. I think a lot of the attraction to NFTs is this "flex"--they're totally arbitrary and the only thing "original" about them is that someone, somewhere on a blockchain minted one (rather than the artist themselves creating only one original, for example).