How Reddit Found the Center of Capitalism
The GameStop stock play finds accountability in a system that has none
For the past few days GameStop, the beleaguered retailer that’s seen its share price skyrocket under the influence of a Reddit mob attempting the mother of all short squeezes, has dominated the text group I have with a handful of high school friends. Not usually a crew for deep-dives into finance, we’re suddenly following every twist of the saga. I suspect we’re not alone. While a slice of the world is dissecting the logic of r/WallStreetBets or analyzing the deeper meaning of it all (of which there is plenty and also none), the rest of us who aren’t foolishly joining the pile-on are just giddy spectators.
Who wouldn’t be? Well, other than the hedge funds, like Melvin Capital, which lost billions. And while it’s likely a mistake to draw too close a connection between Reddit’s invasion of the stock market and Occupy Wall Street — the last smart mob to flood the financial corner of the world — at least part of the Redditors’ motivation seems to align. They want Wall Street to eat it.
“I think that what you’re seeing is essentially a pushback against the establishment in a really important way,” Social Capital CEO Chamath Palihapitiya explained during an interview on CNBC Wednesday. Among the Reddit crowd, he…
