Over the past 24 hours, Wall Street and the Mobile Traders of the world have seen a brand new phenomenon. The question kept arising: are that many people playing video games today? People kept scratching their heads. People on the surface couldn’t seem to crack the code. There was no direct code. Just a lot of small voices from a single reddit thread heard around the entire world in the form of memes and market modifications.
The Meme Machine
As we have seen, there is something wild going on in the stock market. Wall Street execs are running around crazy trying to figure it out. The media is wondering who is in charge. But, there is not just one person behind all of this. It’s a group of people – a small community online. They’re not just buying stocks normally, they’re buying into the idea of the stocks and utilizing memes to convince millions of people worldwide to do the same thing.
No one truly knew what was happening with GameStop’s stock and why it rose a mere 600% in a day. It had nothing to do with natural movements of ‘the stock market’ at all. It had to do with the niche micro-influencers and the power of their voices pumping the market from the inside out.
This Dennis Rodman Meme pretty much sums up how this story works:
Explaining how a subreddit named WallStreetBets has turned GameStop from a $17 stock to a $300 stock
— Barstool Sports (@barstoolsports) January 27, 2021
The Reddit page r/WallStreetBets also known as the “WSB” crew had just reached a million subscribers and contributors as of last week. Since the GameStop saga began, the page has tripled in follower count reaching over 3 Million viewers as of last night.
The WSB page is a place where people go to talk about what stocks they want to ‘short’ and what companies they don’t particularly like. By ‘shorting’ these stocks, the advantage of the market goes from the hedge funds to the people – as this results in the ‘general people’ own more shares than Wall Street of a specific stock.
They had decided that they wanted to do a little test to see how big their impact was. With some of their largest and most respected members of the community coming together, they set a target out for GameStop. By flooding the Reddit thread with posts about how everyone “Needed To Buy GameStop For The Community” and how they wanted to “Save GameStop For Ever”, they completely shifted the market.
An important set of Tweets by here show how the Meme Machine is ramping up to pump sales of AMC in order to shift the market like they had with GameStop. The following Tweet is a post by a user in WSB that portrays the feelings of community members following their impact on the market.
For any people/journalists trying to understand the $GME situation, read this top post from /r/WallStreetBets. It explains, very well, what is happening & why. pic.twitter.com/xfZKMuRL5L
— LeGate (@williamlegate) January 26, 2021
The Impact on the Market
This rather small community teamed up together and opened their Robinhood apps and bought in. From that point on, the Meme Machine began pumping. As word began to circulate about the intended ‘Pump Of GameStop’, hundreds of thousands of people followed. By the end of the day there had been over 500 Million Shares Of GameStop Traded. Most of which were traded on Robinhood.
One Wall Street Bets user created the post “GME YOLO Update” (which means Game Stop Stock, you only live once) to show his earnings. This user had turned his meme investing into a $22 Million Profit over the course of the day.
GME YOLO update — Jan 26 2021
byu/DeepFuckingValue inwallstreetbets
Throughout the day there were thousands of tweets, reddit posts, and chat rooms filled with GameStop memes. It was the #1 Trending Topic on Twitter for 3 hours mid-day Monday. The more people knew about it, the more people bought in. With more people buying in means more power in the hands of the people. As more people bought in the stock began to rise, making the initial Reddit thread members who bought into the meme early… well… making them rich.
The Meme Tipping Point
As the stock neared the $80 mark people were torn between being in a state of awe or speculation. Many said it would pop like a bubble. Many said they were going to hold through the night to see where it went. Then came the gas on top of the fire.
Gamestonk!! https://t.co/RZtkDzAewJ
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) January 26, 2021
A link to Wall Street Bets tweeted by Elon Musk himself. Said to be a man who can move the market with a single one word tweet, he lived up to his name. Within 30 minutes the stock had doubled, soaring it into record breaking numbers for… no reason at all besides the memes.
Time to #SaveAMC
Like we said before, the Meme Machine wasn’t stopping here. Overnight the Wall Street Bet community reconvened online, but this time with a lot more members. More members meant more buying power and ability to shift the market, so the next Meme Machine attack was set to be big.
Overnight the community set its’ eyes out on something we all can say we enjoy – the AMC Movie Theaters. Though there are no movies playing right now, the hashtag #SaveAMC is the #1 Trending Topic on Twitter. The memes are hilarious. No one loved AMC that much.
https://twitter.com/reddittrading/status/1354423171617878019
The stock nearly quadrupled in value over night – all due to the buzz caused by the micro-influencers that move and shake the Wall Street Bets Reddit community. But, we’re all watching to see if this stock can rise to the heights like GameStop. If so, then GameStop was not a one-time-thing and we are beginning to see a trend.
Key Takeaway Here
We are seeing something that has never happened before. I truly believe there is something very important to note under the surface of this wild tale.
We are so encapsulated in the digital era that sometimes we forget the power we have. In the past two days a single Reddit thread has overthrown the way the stock market moves. The Stock Market.
Members of the WSB page teamed together to increase their voice. With more voice came more influence. With more influence became belief. From there they expanded. From Reddit to Twitter. Twitter to Robinhood. People invested. The stock soared. People won. The memes won. The internet won. But all thanks to the micro-influencers of the community who pioneered this effort to storm the stock castle.
Robinhood finally becomes Robinhood. The simulation is complete. We don’t do stocks we do STONKS $amc #SaveAMC
— Reed Jones (@reedmalcolmj) January 27, 2021