Cecilia Diaz

Critical/Cultural Methods

Dr. Bob Bednar

4/8//21

Research Project Draft

Protests in the name of social reform have recently undergone drastic transformations in how they are founded and manifested. The ascension of use in the early 2000s gave rise to streamlined instant communication between people that otherwise may have never communicated organically. History has proven that we gather together in times of hardship and join forces when those hardships necessitate change and reform. The eliminates the practical issue of distance and facilitates the possibility of an infinite number of formed communities. In the case of protest, it facilitates the ability to organize and gather to demand social and political change. Sebastián Valenzuela suggests that one explanation for use of social networks and political protest may be online expression as a foundation for action. It is stated,

“In addition to cognitive preparation, the expression of opinions can be facilitators of political protest” (Valenzuela, 2014). Research has shown that when individuals talk about political subjects publicly, they are more likely to mobilize and engage in political activities. The expression “allows people to face their ideas, make arguments, and reflect on the information obtained” (Schmitt-Beck, 2008). Platforms like and have acted as multiplexes for the expression of political views and serve as the foundation for many modern protests such as the Black Lives Matter movement, #MeToo, Arab Spring, and the Sunflower Student

Movement.

The protest this study will focus on is unique in that it was not founded as a politically driven protest but became one, or perhaps more accurately, was received as one as it gained popularity in mainstream media publics. The movement I refer to is the recent and ongoing confrontation of professional investors by online activist investors from ’s forum, r/wallstreetbets (WSB). In the month of January, a stand was taken by a virtual community of amateur investors against the obvious profiteering happening in the market, albeit as somewhat of a joke. I make the argument that a transformation occurred in the subreddit’s narrative and motive as it gained recognition online and created a more widespread movement aided by its diffusion and encouragement from the public.

My intention in this study is to explore the relationship between the online discourses about the stock surge and WSB’s transformation into an activist-minded movement against economic disparity and dishonesty in the stock market. In my research, I seek to answer the questions: How was the online Reddit community formed and maintained as a counterpublic, specifically in the context of acting as a rebellious force within the stock market? What is the discursive relationship between the Reddit community’s communicative practices and the resulting media (news, popular, and social) that followed the stock surge? How did the shift to a more activist-minded movement happen?

Using the theoretical concepts of self-categorization, connective action, opinion leaders, and the protest paradigm, I aim to understand how this movement functioned and made its impacts. Calling upon the studies from Bennett and Segerberg’s examination of the logic of connective action, I intend to apply this to the “flash mobilization” of WSB’s distinct mode of protest. In addition to this, my analysis will unfold with the guidance of Douglas McLeod’s study of the protest/public nuisance paradigm. McLeod employs this concept to the patterns of

news reporting of various protests, making the argument that the selective coverage exacerbates social conflict. This supports the claim that the framing of WSB as delinquent criminals contributed to their anger at a “rigged system” and drove them further into interpellating as an activist movement. I also believe that the pre-formed community bonds of WallStreetBets aided their formation as a vigilante-type group. My proposal is that this combination of circumstances and internal virtual communication ultimately supported the movement’s persistence and growth.

On the 13th of January, a subreddit forum known as r/wallstreetbets (WSB) collectively bought stock in the failing brick and mortar game retailer GameStop. The buying trend started in an effort to halt hedge fund investors from shorting the GameStop . Shorting is an investment strategy used in the stock market in which stocks are borrowed at a high value, sold immediately, bought back at a lower price, and returned to the lender so that a profit is made.

When done in high volumes, this strategy can earn profits into the millions. This strategy is most effective when the buyer predicts there will be a drop in stock prices. Therefore, struggling companies are targeted for shorting, as their stocks are predicted to drop considerably.

Essentially, hedge fund investors make absurd amounts of money from betting against a company. In the case of GameStop, sellers were borrowing more shares than were even available to buy at the beginning of January.

The flagrant shorting activity was detected by members of WSB, and from it, a discourse was produced around the ethics of capitalizing on a company’s collapse—especially in the middle of 2020’s global health crisis. The Reddit forum’s collective buying of GME

(GameStop’s ) caused the stock prices to shoot up, much to the surprise of hedge fund firms like and short-seller of Citron Research. This resulted in

the following “squeeze” that required hedge funds to buy their owed stocks back at a financially disastrous price.

The Reddit investors received significant criticism from those investment companies, from news media, and from the general public. However, the online investors were also met with encouragement from others within those same spheres. Discourses online pointed out the hypocrisy of professional investors who benefit from but criticize when the same methods are used against them. The increased publicity received by WSB made for their subsequent formation into a kind of vigilante movement against the economic elite. The result is that the GameStop has been likened, on some levels, to the Occupy

(OWS) movement of 2011. Although, it is essential to note that, unlike OWS, the Reddit investors did not initially present themselves as social activists. Rather, I suggest that a social movement was formed as the activity gained momentum online.

Reddit’s subforum for amateur but risky stock traders, WallStreetBets, describes themselves in their bio, “Like 4chan found a Bloomberg terminal”. The community is primarily made up of male users aged 18-29 (Pew Research Center). The subreddit was born out of

Reddit’s older stock exchange subreddits that rejected certain users for their riskier, “all or nothing” attitudes towards buying. According to Jake Davidson from Money.com, the forum has become more than just a space for risky betting. “It is a fusion of memes, bragging, bullying, hoodwinking, and the exuberant overconfidence of (mostly) young men” (Davidson). Within a few moments of browsing the subreddit, it’s easy to see the culture that has been built in this domain. It has its own atmosphere and jargon—much of it sexist, homophobic, and ableist.

Additionally, the subreddit refers to themselves in male-gendered language like “boys” and

“brothers,” which communicates the typical gender stereotype about interest in financial

markets. In a way, the forum feels somewhat like a fraternity. Knowing this, one can understand how a kind of camaraderie existed even before the GameStop short squeeze was enacted on hedge funds. This kind of homosocial bonding happens on many platforms that harbor communities. Users might consider this forum a “safe space” or even a family-like team of investing mentors and mentees.

Studies of online anonymity and community formation, such as those done by Jillian

Code and Nick Zaparyniuk, show that there is a connection between a person’s self-curation into a community and their readiness to assimilate with that community (2010). They propose that

“self-categorization accentuates attitudinal, emotional, and behavioral similarity to a group prototype” (p. 1351). In the context of the formation of WSB, the application of these conceptions can be noted in the initial formation of the forum as a space for stock market enthusiasts. At the moment a person subscribes to this forum, they are submerged into a very specific way of doing their membership of WSB. Anonymity is a vital part of the openness of communities. Reddit appoints you a randomly generated username that you can then change. No one uses their real name. Rather, users choose simple handles or more brazen ones such as

DeepF*ckingValue (the unofficial driver of the GameStop short squeeze). This confidentiality may make it more comfortable for users to fall into a group prototype and become a follower of the culture—especially a culture as problematic and cancellable as WSB’s.

With the of a new name, the user can subscribe or join the forums they have interests in, self-categorizing themselves for instance as a fellow investor in the case of r/wallstreetbets. Few other subreddits have a culture as specific and niche as r/wallstreetbets. As mentioned above, the subreddit has its own jargon that presumably would be initially unintelligible to an outsider. For example, “yoloing” a stock means an individual has put in a

significant amount of their investment into that stonk (intentional misspelling of “stock”) in hopes of acquiring “tendies”, or a successful profit. The specific slang and meme references are inherent to the forum’s style of engagement. A study by Tran and Ostendorf demonstrates that language in online communities is not only utilitarian but acts as a strong identifier of the community. “Experiments with several Reddit forums show that style is a better indicator of community identity than topic, even for communities organized around specific topics” (Tran and Ostendorf, 2016). In this way, it is reasonable to conclude that there is a powerful impulse for new members to conform to this tribal-like community so that they may 1) understand and participate in the conversation threads, and 2) fit in with the community identity. I would claim that we see a very clear example of this tribalism when the online investors joined forces to invest collectively in GME as well as other businesses targeted for shorting like AMC

Entertainment and Koss Corporation.

Using The Wayback Machine, a digital archive of the internet, I was able to view some of the internal conversations happening days before the initial surge. Archives show the churning interest in news about GameStop and its recent push towards e-commerce as well as the acknowledgment of the heavy shorting done by professional investment firms. On November

30th, user Jeffamazon posted a “comprehensive GME overview for all new and returning WSB- monkeys” that explained how profitable a short squeeze would be and the community actions needed to make it happen. Buzz about the possibility of a short squeeze kept in circulation on the site. Days before the spike in GME price, an article was posted, titled “GameStop Announces

Additional Board Refreshment to Accelerate Transformation.” Below the post, comments from the users project their hopes for GameStop’s success by noting their increase in GME shares and

preparedness to send GME “to the moon”—a metaphorical phrase denoting the rocketing of

GameStop’s stock value.

It is important to note that many of the WSB community members expressed an emotional attachment to the gaming company, so the focus on GME was not random. Matei

Psatta, a WSB user, notes that “GameStop’s an iconic memory for a lot of people who used to buy video games there, who used to have their childhood linked to the brand. That combined with a general feeling of…discomfort with the one percent…brought a lot of people in” (ABC).

Of course, this invocation of “the one percent” is a reference to the movement and their stance on the nation’s one percent of the ultra-rich. I will discuss the parallels between these events later in this analysis.

On January 13th, enough of the users bought shares in GME so that the stock value jumped 50%, throwing a financial curveball to the short-sellers. The initial launch was celebrated in WallStreetBets and the conversations shifted into a frenzy of how to retain this market power.

Communications scholars Nisbet and Kotcher make a case for the influence of opinion leaders across communities and social groups “that can serve as vital go-betweens and information , passing on messages…that speak directly to their otherwise inattentive peers, coworkers, and friends'' (p.329). They propose that “opinion leaders [do] not necessarily hold formal positions of power or prestige in communities but rather [serve] as the connective communication tissue that alerted their peers to what mattered among political events, social issues, etc.” This alerting happens for WSB through posts stating opinions and giving advice on how the group must proceed in order to be successful. On the day of the first jump in price, one user reminded fellow investors of the importance of holding their shares; “This is where we make it or break it, this is where your diamond hands [an investor’s holding of shares] are tested,

DO NOT think of selling, we are only getting started” (Reddit). Calling upon the group’s collective strength was a recurring pattern in the WSB threads that generated allegiance visible in the high amount of upvotes, Reddit’s liking system. Posts such as these continued throughout the entire phenomenon—notifying other users of increases in GME’s price and criticizing others for paper handing or cashing out.

At this point, there is a noticeable addition of discussion focusing on the ethics of the underhanded shorting happening in the market. A day after the first surge, one user posted their outlook on Melvin Capital’s excessive shorting strategy. The post has since been taken down by a WSB moderator, but the archive was able to capture a piece of the critique. Notably, the user mentions the influence the global coronavirus pandemic has had on businesses like GameStop.

Video games are primarily purchased through download which can be done at home on a console. Therefore, GameStop’s survival as a company was reliant on consumers coming into the store for physical purchases. This decreased significantly as the stay-at-home orders took effect in 2020. The user suggests that hedge funds like Melvin Capital “tried to capitalize on a global pandemic as the final nail in the coffin for yet another retail company that wouldn't change [its business model]” (Reddit). Here, I’d argue that we see a shift happening in the community narrative of WSB. There is a distinct pushback against the thriving professional investment firms who have been using the market to their outrageous advantage. WSB’s contempt is fueled as these very investors, now in an embarrassing and uncomfortable position, chime in on the surge in stock value.

Andrew Left, a professional short-seller and editor for Citron Research, publicly parried against the Reddit investors’ celebration on his Twitter account. On January 19th, Left tweeted an announcement for a live stream where he would explain “The 5 Reasons GameStop $GME

Buyers at These Levels Are the Suckers at This Poker Game.” The retort created even more tension between the two investor groups. On a WSB thread titled “GME Thread: The

Wreckoning”, Redditors used the thread to express their “GME hopes, prayers, and stupidity” as well as their collective disdain for the condescension coming from forces like Left. User

Cre8or_1 observes the humor in professional investors having to “have some intern go through

WSB every day because we have become relevant.”

Their new relevance was not lost on the public, either. News of the GameStop short squeeze was being circulated on nearly every platform in some way, which likely contributed to the movement's growth outside of Reddit. This is reflected in the surge in download rates of popular trading apps like , which was later bashed for their choice to stand with institutional wealth by limiting the ability for users to buy GME, AMC, and other shorted stocks

(Egkolfopoulou et al.).

The culture within WSB is heavily influenced by the circulation of in-house memes.

Originally coined by Dawkins, in a different context, of course, the meme is a cultural replicator or gene that transmits information and ideas (Dawkins, 1976). Although the current usage of the term has been appropriated into popular culture, the modern meme is still very much a vessel for information and expression of ideas. Eric Jenkins examines the expressive function of the meme frame Fail/Win and concludes that the mode is “an event, a collective emergence, an expression rather than a representation.” The meme asks the viewer to use the logic of the binary structure in their interpretation of the meme. The memes that were produced from the stock market phenomenon function under their specific logics that are informed by the context of the situation.

Drawing from Jenkin’s conclusion of meme expression, the GME memes serve as an expression of group sentiment rather than a representation of reality. Drawing from Ryan Milner’s study of

image memes as used in Occupy Wall Street, the circulation of image memes is essential to polyvocal public participation (Milner, 2012). He finds that through the creation of discourse through memes, one of the core goals of OWS was realized and that members had the opportunity to engage in a broader sphere of polyvocal public conversation.

In connection to the polyvocality in WSB, the pre-constructed culture of the subreddit was stamped onto the scenario in the form of shareable memes, which expressed joviality at their progress as well as their scornful sense of humor at the backlash they were receiving. The memes bled out into other social media spheres, as most viral phenomena do, and even garnered attention from popular public figures who began engaging with the scenario through tweets and posts. Entrepreneurial personality , whom Reddit already holds in high regard for his extravagance and unique unprofessional aura, posted the single-worded tweet, “Gamestonk!!” with a link to the subreddit’s page. The use of the forum’s coded jargon combined with the encouragement from a Reddit-admired celebrity spurred excitement within the movement.

As the phenomenon’s popularity grew and started making significant waves in the market, WSB garnered mostly negative attention from news sources, CNBC in particular. The protest paradigm and public nuisance paradigm, as termed by Chan and Lee, describe the media’s tendency to purposefully overlook core concerns raised by social protests and demonstrations by framing them as criminal or frivolous (Chan and Lee, 1989). Scott Wapner, a host at CNBC, interviewed CEO following his purchase of GME shares.

Wapner questions the “integrity of the system” if a stock as low as GME can be shot up by a group of activist investors. Palihapitiya is quick to deconstruct the dismissive framing by pointing out the core issue that WSB exposed; “the lack of integrity in the system is the precursor that caused GameStop to be sold short at 136% and for people to try and pile on and

destroy a company in front of our eyes.” I find it significant that this section of the interview had to be retrieved from a tweet, as CNBC did not include it in any of their archived broadcasts.

More of the same framing strategies were used to villainize the GameStop short squeeze across multiple networks. This dismissal and refusal to acknowledge the internal issues of hypocrisy within professional investment spheres stoked the anger within this now vast online community of investors. The pattern of unjust framing leading to group resentment within protesters is discussed in protest studies conducted by journalism scholar, Douglas McLeod.

McLeod breaks the protest paradigm into five separate characteristics; 1. news frames, 2. reliance on official sources, 3. the invocation of public opinion, 4. “delegitimization”, and 5.

“demonization” (McLeod, p. 2-3). The protest and public nuisance paradigms function to frame protests in a fashion that excludes legitimate acknowledgment of motivation—leading to a dismissive delegitimization of the context of the protests and their intended message. He posits that, “the protest paradigm contributes to an escalation in tensions when activist groups feel that their voices are not being heard.” This pattern is made apparent in the online discussions from the subreddit expressing exasperation about the media. On the 28th of January, one WSB user posted an “open letter to CNBC” that ridicules the network for siding so brazenly with hedge funds and “then [having] the nerve to turn us into public enemy #1 just because we believe in an underdog company getting a second chance.” This shared feeling of demonization is seen repeatedly in posts and memes made throughout the duration of the squeeze—contributing to the

“little guy” versus “the man” dynamic that WSB and the extended movement have built their progress on.

This dynamic is similar, in some capacities, to the 2011 #OccupyWallStreet movement that brought attention to the economic disparity between the 1% of the population that is

extremely wealthy and the remaining 99%. As seen earlier in the quote from Matei Psatta, WSB members were quick to recycle and repurpose the rhetoric used in the to fit the narrative and goals of the GameStop surge. WSB conversations have used Occupy’s “we are the one percent” as well as phrases like “Occupy GameStop'' in an effort, I presume, to both deflect the charge that they are criminals and lean farther into the activist portrayal as a “populist uprising” against America’s class war (CNN). The GameStop surge even caused a resurgence in physical demonstrations that harkened back to the worldwide protests of 2011. A post was made on r/PublicFreakout, a pop-culture news subreddit, that credited WSB for protesters marching on

Wall Street once again. The featured video shows a group of masked protesters chanting, “what’s fair is fair, now pay your ” while holding letters spelling the phrase ''TAX WALL ST

TRADES.'' In the comments below the video, Reddit users discuss in agreeance the hypocrisy that the GameStop surge spotlighted by commenting sayings like “Privatise profits, socialize losses that’s how the rigged game works'' and “Freedom for me but not for thee extends to here as well.”

In its shift into a morality tale, WSB users began to post personal accounts of the life- changing ability to pay off student loans and provide financial relief to family members. This was met with internal criticism from some of the WSB community as it goes against the group desire to hold GME “to the moon”; however, the stories still contribute to the idea of the everyman besting “the man” for once. Similarly, multiple Reddit investors posted receipts of their donations to charitable organizations. One investor posted his donation of ten Nintendo

Switch consoles purchased from GameStops in the Dallas area to a local children’s hospital. The user claims to “bring glory to WSB,” again reinforcing WSB’s message that this movement is inherently good and in line with the ethics of a movement like Occupy Wall Street.

The ethical drive of this movement is directly troubled by other users claiming that the

GameStock surge, initially, was never politically driven. Under a post about the altruistic groundings of WSB investments, one user expresses their anger about “people [that] keep giving interviews about activism.” He claims the short squeeze was a “value play from the beginning” and that “this was never about a political movement. Only bright side to that is the support we gain from the public.” This is a recurring confusion within the threads discussing the impacts of the GameStop phenomenon. The lack of cohesion in motive and ethical standing creates tension in the online community. Burke would suggest that without fundamental communal identity and categorical dignity (1973), the group risks losing power. In a study on the “ethically driven modes of action” or social poiesis of Occupy Wall Street, Peter Zhang makes the claim that the uncertainty about the group’s goals may have been detrimental to the overall power of the movement (2016). Similar cases can be made for other social movements generated by virtual communities such as the #MeToo and Black Lives Matter campaigns. Because there is no formal leader to speak for the entirety of the group, consensus in motive, goals, and ethics are difficult to attain. However, the argument could be made that the movement’s diffusion and lack of formal leadership actually aided in its durability. There was no way to regulate conversations about the short squeeze or halt the movement’s growth.

Although it’s certain that the GameStop event does not bear the same level of gravity as the previous social movements, a similar problem of conflicting motives occurs internally. The investors seem to be in agreeance over the injustice happening within the not-so-free market, yet some feel their initial plan for profit has been taken and molded into a political and liberal shove against capitalism, whether that be good or bad. Comparing this again to Occupy Wall Street, their movement was criticized for their “lack of concrete objectives” (Atlantic, 2011). Zhang

concludes, however, that although OWS “failed” in terms of creating tangible change, it kick- started important conversations about economic disparity and the struggles of the working class.

Activism and what performing it looks like has changed rapidly within the past 20 years of the world’s digital revolution. Social media act as organizing agents for collective action

(Bennett and Segerberg, 2012), and we can see its effectiveness in the organizations and coalitions that are formed basically overnight. The Black Lives Matter movement mentioned earlier, began online in 2013 and has only gained steam since its formation. The same is true for many other leaderless movements with a prominent presence online. I make the claim that the

GameStop short squeeze produced a result similar to OWS by adding to the conversation about the unequal distribution of wealth. The movement was started by a group of young, profit- hungry, and problematic people making a meme out of the smug institutional powers in our nation’s casino of a market. In many respects, the argument could be made that this quasi-social protest does not have the necessary ethical foundation or rationale to be considered valid or for the betterment of humankind. After all, contributing to the buying and selling of stocks is contributing to an institution of capitalism that supports economic inequality. However, in its escalation, the GameStop short squeeze produced significant ripples in the ongoing discussion about the problems in the U.S. class system and will likely lead to much-needed congressional action and policy reform in the market. I feel this gets to the crux of why the nuances of this momentary grab at concentrated wealth from a virtually constructed community is worth observing and understanding.

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I have acted with honesty and integrity in producing this work and am unaware of anyone who has not.