It was a crisp, cool January morning in New York and everything on Wall Street was as it should be. That is until an angry mob of Redditors decided to make a mess of one of America’s most sacred and beloved institutions.
Reddit user u/stonks420 said, “We just decided to buy a bunch of GME stock lmao. Everyone else was doing and it seemed like a good idea to me lol.”
Though ordinary people buying and selling stocks is, unfortunately, still legal, the actions of Stonks420 and many others like them would prove to have a devastating effect on Melvin Capital, a thirteen billion dollar hedge fund.
“I can’t believe something like this can happen. Short selling must be made illegal. Even though we all do it, they shouldn’t be able to,” said one representative from Melvin Capital (when asked who “they” was referring to, the representative declined to comment).
According to the representative we talked to, what was most upsetting was the larger discourse about how random and arbitrary Wall Street and the stock market can seem. “What we do is perfectly logical. On the third Tuesday of every month, we look through a telescope to check if Mercury is in retrograde. If it is, we do a little dance and the NASDAQ goes up by five points. If it isn’t, we sacrifice a lamb and the S&P 500 goes down seven points. I really don’t see why one could make the claim that the stock market is not an accurate reflection of the U.S. economy,” said the representative.
Redditor u/ancapBro69 has a different take on the situation. He told us, “Look, there’s just something very satisfying about beating the rich guys at their own game. Like, you know, taking them down a peg, redistributing some of that wealth and power. But, just to clarify, I’m like, totally pro-capitalism. Stocks are poggers.”
As the words of AncapBro69 show, it clearly is a scary time to be a hedge fund manager in the U.S. right now. These poor souls have to live in constant fear that their entire livelihood will be threatened by an angry mob of internet vigilantes at any moment. I, personally, cannot think of any group that might feel more scared to be living in the U.S. right now. Resources to help hedge fund managers affected by the Reddit debacle are linked below, including Beff Jezo’s “We are the 1%” non-profit. Please consider contributing—now more than ever, we must stand in solidarity.
