GameStop Mania Is Delivering a Dangerous Rush to the Reddit Mob
The absurdist morality tale over the unalienable right of Redditors to pump up meme stocks and punish Wall Street has obscured a more reckless impulse.
Much has been made about the deeper meanings of GameStop and this week’s market mania: How it reflects the profound inequalities festering in American society, how it’s a clarion call against the Wall Street establishment, or how it’s even the beginnings of an extremely online populist movement ready to take down the powers that be.
But what’s been obscured of late by the morality tale over the unalienable right of Redditors to pump up meme stocks as a way to redistribute wealth is this: that many of these mostly young men, cooped up with little else to do during the pandemic, have banded together for the pure, unadulterated rush of gambling and hitting it big, again and again.