Who could have predicted that, in 2021, GameStop—a chain of brick-and-mortar video game stores—would make headlines for its soaring stock prices? Or that the self-described degenerates on the investing subreddit r/WallStreetBets would initiate a wave of direct action that many have compared to Occupy Wall Street?
The GameStop wave crested at the end of January, triggering a flurry of interest and comparisons to social movements that lasted about a week. Now that the hype is over, most analyses are walking back these lofty comparisons; in hindsight, the phenomenon looks more like an internet meme than a movement.
But, in today’s world, the line between meme and movement is not always clear. Memes are cultural products, after all. They carry messages which, as they are shared, bring people together—if only for a moment. Internet memes are often silly and absurd, but more substantial topics are also frequently meme-ified. Think hashtag movements like #MeToo or #SayHerName, which carry political weight and call for important real-world change. Their lifetimes are brief, but they can have lasting effects on the public’s responses to social justice causes.
The case of GameStop is fascinating not only because it falls in this liminal space between meme and movement—it is fascinating because it fully embraces this ambiguity.
Unlike #MeToo and #SayHerName, for example, r/WallStreetBets is itself silly and absurd. The subreddit describes itself as “like 4chan found a Bloomberg terminal,” and it thrives on the ridiculous and the offensive. It is also, at least according to its moderators, aggressively apolitical.
Nevertheless, when the hedge fund Melvin Capital lost 53% in January as a result of the rally on GameStop shares, r/WallStreetBets users declared, “It’s working!” and encouraged others to keep holding. The subreddit took up the slogan, “We can remain r*****s longer than they can remain solvent!” In comments, many echoed “HOLD” or “GO TO HELL WE WON’T SELL,” even as the price of the stock began to fall rapidly.
For some, GameStop was always a crazy get-rich-quick scheme. Making money is what trading stock is all about. But, for many others, the message to buy and hold GameStop shares was explicitly about taking down the hedge funds, protesting wealth inequality, or at least sending financial institutions a message. Some users talked about how their families lost their homes or savings in the Great Recession. Others made donations to hospitals and food banks using their GameStop gains. Many, especially in the weeks following the initial excitement, said they had found friendship and community in the brief coming-together—a coming-together that characterizes a meme, a mob, or a movement.
Occupying the liminal space between meme and movement, we might instead call this coming-together the GameStop “moment.” And, while this moment may have passed, others will surely follow. r/WallStreetBets may not have substantially “changed the game,” as many hoped it would—but it could have a meaningful impact on some of the players.
Photo via William Tung on Flickr, CC BY-SA 2.0
