If there’s one thing the pandemic has illuminated, it’s that celebrities really aren’t just like us, and people are growing sick and tired of the rich and famous trying to pretend otherwise. Just take your tubloads of money and chill in your mansions and sit this one out. Well, perhaps the only thing worse than, say, a celebrity lamenting how they got bamboozled into buying a $13,000 bottle of wine (when they are worth about $75 million) is a celebrity trying on life as a regular person for sport—which Kylie Jenner and Travis Scott did as a fun little family bonding activity, when they got Stormi a yellow school bus for her birthday.
On Tuesday, Kylie Jenner shared some pictures of Stormi to her IG Story (as she does). In the first slide, Stormi seems to be hugging a yellow school bus—yes, a regular ol’ yellow school bus, like the ones we took to school. Not a euphemism or anything. Not even a school bus that’s been modified by Xzibit. Anyway, Kylie wrote over the picture, “All Stormi has been talking about is riding a big yellow bus. Daddy surprised her.”
The next few images show Stormi walking, alone, down the aisle of the bus. I would like to reiterate again that this bus has those big maroon leather seats we were all tortured with on hot days, where you and 1-2 friends would cram yourselves in (because the seats were not separated), legs sticking to the fake leather. Why am I explaining this, we all remember what school buses were like! Kylie isn’t reading this.
We don’t know if Travis bought or rented the bus (although I’m hoping he rented it, because what the hell would they do with a school bus after this photo opp—donate it to a school maybe?), but the appropriately named website bus.com cites that renting a school bus can cost from $389-850 per day. Buying a bus can range from $90,000-290,000. I already broke my brain trying to figure out what a $13,000 bottle of wine is worth in layman’s money to a person worth $75 million, so there is absolutely no way I am going to sit here and figure out how many fractions of a penny it would be like for Travis Scott (who is worth $50 million) to buy or rent a school bus—but just know that it was probably worth less to them than the gum stuck underneath the seats of the bus.
Now, you can’t put a price tag on a child’s happiness, but what’s truly priceless is this entire situation, which I can’t decide between being deeply hilarious or profoundly sad. Probably a little bit of both.
First, as many Twitter users have pointed out, it’s absurd that Kylie and Travis would spend any amount of money to get their child an experience most of us peasants got for free (minus the cost of property taxes, I guess). And the experience they bought for fun was a largely unpleasant one, no less!
Also, seeing Stormi wander down that big, yellow bus alone is kind of just sad. They couldn’t rent invite along any friends for her to sit with? Did she go anywhere in the bus or just take pictures, the way wannabe influencers can pay a small sum to pose in front of private jets?
Also, was it ever about the physical vehicle of the bus, or was it more about what the bus represents? I clearly don’t live in that house (a fact I am reminded of via court order… just kidding) but, seeing as Stormi has evidently never been on a school bus before, she probably learned about it from TV and movies. I kind of have a feeling it’s not about the bus, but about the regular-person experience of going to school. You know, waiting at the stop with your friends. Sitting next to your friends. Chatting about the day ahead with your friends. Having friends to whom you are not related by blood. The fact that her parents heard this desire and interpreted it in the most rich-person way possible is like a discarded plotline on Arrested Development, or Marie Antoinette building a fake village at Versailles so she could “escape from the drudgery of royalty.”
I guess it’s true that the grass is always greener, something I will whisper to myself when I’m crammed into a stranger’s armpit on the M60. Now have Stormi cosplay that she woke up late and needs to ask her mom, who is still in pajamas and hasn’t had her coffee yet, to drive her to school.
Images: kyliejenner / Instagram (2)
