Read This: One dad’s sad, expensive, and brief encounter with Ron Weasley

Malcolm McDowell is $74, as are Jeri Ryan and Danny Trejo. Ming Na Wen, Jeffrey Combs, and Zach Galligan are only $63 apiece. And poor Billy Dee Williams is priced to move at an embarrassingly low $57, a paltry sum for an actor associated with the Star Wars franchise. But Rupert Grint, beloved by millions for his role as Ron Weasley in the Harry Potter films, stands above them all at an impressive $142. These are the kinds of cold equations that Canadian journalist Jonathan Kay encountered when he recently took his daughters to the 2015 Fan Expo Canada, a large convention devoted to video games, comic books, anime, science fiction, and other nerdy pursuits. He wrote all about his experiences in a fascinating, web-exclusive article for The Walrus tellingly titled “Ron Weasley Made Me Sad.” The prices quoted above are what it costs to have one’s picture taken with said celebrities, described by Kay as “stars and quasi-stars.” The more in-demand a celebrity is, the more expensive his or her image. This is, the writer says, a “process that any commodities trader would recognize.” Kay’s article includes a heartbreaking shot of a board with the names of celebrities and their respective prices. Kay explains that he didn’t necessarily want to plunk down a sizable chunk of change to pose with Rupert Grint, but his daughters were die-hard Harry Potter fans, and he didn’t want to be a bad dad. At least, he says, he could easily afford it. The same could not apply to other convention attendees. “Most of the money being spent here, I’d wager, had been earned at minimum wage,” he writes.