2022 ‧ Neflix Documentary ‧ 1 season ; 3 episodes
My girlfriend turned this on yesterday and I was subsequently forced to stop what I was doing and watch it. How rude amirite? There was no way I could just stand idle while one of the most degenerate short squeezes in history was being explained in detail.
For the most part there wasn't a ton of new information for me personally, as most of us were on the front lines of that debacle even if we weren't personally invested in the entire ordeal. Actually the beginning was a sobering reminder of how niche and ridiculous my own blog can be.
Imagine if every time I wrote a post I had to explain basic financial stuff like what "shorting" means or what crypto keys are or what a hedge fund is or... That's exactly what a documentary like this has to do because they have to assume that their audience is completely clueless. They spent like 5 minutes just trying to explain shorting, and honestly I wouldn't say they did a great job either.
It's funny how complicated betting on number go down can be and how intrinsically different that is than betting on number go up (leverage vs spot). They didn't even mention that when you short you have to pay and interest rate, but then again I'm sure it wasn't pertinent to the content so there's a very good reason for not being 100% accurate.
Weirdest ensemble of characters
This posse is a rapper and his two sidekicks.
They are just as cringe as you think they'd be.
Definitely give Heather “Razzlekhan” Morgan a run for her money.
It's funny do because the "lead singer" (middle) actually seems pretty smart and says some really insightful stuff randomly but then dials it back like "nah I'm just a lowly pleb what do I know". Such a weird guy.
This was definitely my favorite little turd.
Going by the moniker of "Jess Amazon" (a play on Trump saying Tim Apple)... soon as this kid popped up on the screen both me and my girlfriend laughed from the sheer vibes he's putting off. He's like the hooded figure on the right side of the IQ bell-curve meme. Kid had it all figured out and bought in when Gamestop was still $5 a share. In fact a lot of the people they found bought in that $5-$10 range before the entire thing just exploded to the moon.
CEO of Chewy?
I actually order all my cat food from Chewy so I was surprised to find out that the CEO bought 10% of GME stock at the legit bottom before it all went down (up). He even scooped up 3 board seats in the process, which was the narrative for turning the company around because he was able to survive and even thrive in the face of Amazon eating up the entire world's logistic services. Also did you know that Chewy sends you flowers or a card if your pet dies? Crazy... people really remember stuff like that.
We also have a Taylor Lorenz
The bane of the right-wing's existence apparently. It was interesting to see here again in this one because we had just watched another documentary in which she was chiming in. Everything she said here was fairly insightful and I didn't have any problems with it.
One thing she and a few others noted is that perhaps there are way more degenerate gamblers out there because no one has any faith in the future or even the opportunities being offered in the present. This seem to ring true as my girlfriend seemed to think that's why I'm in crypto as well. Maybe that's true, but that's a story for another post.
LoL wut?
I don't know who this guy is but he was posing as some extravagantly rich degen that lost a bunch of money at the top. Both me and my girlfriend were instantly like, "This guy is a fed lol." This is not a real person I swear. It's like what boomers and finance bros think degens are. Such a weird character.
Ha
Cramer makes several appearances... although I don't think he directly comments within the documentary but still gets a lot of footage used during the squeeze and such. Of course this was before inverse Cramer existed... and it's wild to see how it looks like he's aged 20 years in the last 4 years. Truly wonder what has him so stressed out all the time (or not).
Stuffy Hedge fund managers
Guys like this are littered throughout the documentary justifying their shitty actions of naked short selling Gamestop 140% as if it was a legitimately good idea. Spoiler alert: if you are a hedge fund manager and you can bankrupt yourself on a single trade... then you suck at your job. That's the opposite of what HEDGE means. Hedge means hedge. It means you have your money in so many places that it's impossible to go bankrupt if this or that thing happens. It's crazy to see all these professional pop up on the scene to justify the actions of Melvin Capital and friends. Get wrecked, Wall Street.
The crazy thing is that when I see these boring bastards blab their mouth about finance I'm like, "Wow I understood 100% of everything that guy said... I might even know more than this guy." It made me realize that if push really came to shove I could probably be a finance bro... hell I live an hour away from New York City which is crazy (especially because I still haven't visited).
And of course Roaring Kitty
This is a character that I didn't know existed until AFTER everyone was trying to blame him for market manipulation instead of rightfully putting the blame on Robbin Hood when they halted trading (well rather halted buying but not selling; so even worse than a full halt). Or better yet blame yourself for buying the top and losing all that money. Number was going to go down sooner or later, and that halt was as good a time as any to catapult the price back down. Of course price today is still over $25 (and that's with an x4 stock split) so anyone who bought before the squeeze is still up quite a lot (x20).
In any case Roaring Kitty got a lot of shit because he got out when the getting was good (aka he could see the writing on the wall when Robinhood froze trading and he bailed), and then people realized that his professional job was in finance and assumed there was a conflict of interest. As if this one dude could have manipulated the market all by himself and it had nothing to do with hedge funds playing their whale games. In the end all the charges again him were dropped, which was nice to hear. They had nothing on him, just a bunch of clueless politicians trying to shift blame away from the establishment and onto a scapegoat.
Conclusion
Well I definitely haven't done this docuseries justice but that's just as well because I'd say if you have any interest in the topic you should watch it yourself and see the cringe rapping in person. If anything it's a good reminder for how irrational the markets can be and how we tell ourselves a story about how securities (stock) should act but really it's just numbers on a screen that have a mind of their own (and the companies that mint the stock can just print more anytime). I'd say that's the main reason why I Bitcoin (21M and all that).