A New Era

Now, before going any further, it’s important to know exactly what community Gill belonged to and where his message was first received. On Reddit, communities are organized into discussion groups called subreddits and labeled with r/[topic], in this case, r/wallstreetbets, widely referred to as WSB. But that name is more than a little misleading, as a vast majority of the community consists of self-proclaimed autistic retards and degenerates. Generally speaking, prior to the events of late January, even other Reddit users recognized the discussion group as a place one went when they wished to lose money poor investment choices.

But all that changed with Keith Gill. By the end of 2019, his investment had already reached 20 times its initial value, which in turn, began to grow his audience. So, by 2021, as Vox reported it, when other users on the subreddit pointed out how GameStop and a handful of other companies had stocks that were being heavily shorted, users who had grown up during the ‘08 financial crisis and seen large financial firms get bailed out by the government, saw a way to get back at the hedge funds and make a lot of money.

Essentially, when you short a stock, you’re betting its price will decrease, so you can make money, but if it increases, then you will lose money, and if it increases by a lot, well let’s just say you’re not going to have such a great day.

Soon, Redditors began posting about how they were going to take AMC and GME (GameStop’s stock symbol) to the figurative moon and urged other WSB members to do the same. And it looks like the message was even more well-received than anticipated, as Nokia, BlackBerry, and the makers of the Tootsie Roll all saw their companies’ respective stocks rise at least 50%. As for Gill, he posted an image of his investment portfolio showing a valuation of around $50,000,000. And according to the Wall Street Journal, Melvin Capital alone, the hedge fund with the largest short position against GameStop, had to receive around $2.75 billion in emergency funds to stay operating.

But it is perhaps the aftermath of this GameStop short squeeze, as it’s been named, that truly speaks volumes to its actual unifying effect. For example, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, a Democratic socialist, and Ted Cruz, a staunch Trump-loyalist in the Republican party, both tweeted out support for the retail investors and denounced the decisions of various firms to halt the purchasing of GameStop shares. Hosts on Fox News, generally considered conservative media, and CNN, generally considered liberal media, praised the retail investors for their actions against the Wall Street elites. That’s why this short squeeze is really so much more than just the little man sticking it to hedge funds and billionaires. It was unity at a time when we needed it the most, and that is something truly no amount of money can buy.