VIDEO: The Reddit Revolution, GameStop and Melvin Capital

A remarkable series of events culminated in at least one major Wall Street hedge fund on the verge of insolvency and widespread anxiety and even panic from the titans of the financial system. It was all initiated on a sub-group of Reddit known for its heterodox interest in stock markets, video games, and vaguely populist politics. 

Subscribe now

Purposely targeting the stock of a company that had long been written off by Wall Street and which short sellers had decided to ravage — the video game retailer GameStop — these small investors, many apparently working class or debt-ridden, banded together to drive up the stock price of that company into the stratosphere, abruptly leaving the hedge fund short-sellers with billions of dollars in losses.

Although it may be more complex than this once all the facts are all known, this is being treated — by those excited by it and those aghast — as a type of populist uprising, a David v. Goliath tale in which ordinary people united to brilliantly beat Wall Street at its own game, thereby transferring plutocratic wealth back to the public. Oligarchs and their media spokespeople spent all day on CNBC and other pro-Wall-Street outlets expressing outrage and demanding government intervention to protect them from what they regard as this grave injustice.

And the sub-Reddit has now been banned by at least one platform, on the highly suspicious ground that it was due to “hate speech” and not the use of this group to sabotage Wall Street billionaires (what a remarkable coincidence of timing that this sub-Reddit’s “hate speech” suddenly crossed a line exactly as hedge fund managers were demanding their heads; the page continues, however, to appear on Reddit itself).

Share

In the video below, I discuss what happened and what the implications are. One note about the video: though I do discuss the amorphous and trans-ideological politics driving both the Reddit uprising and the reaction to it, that topic in particular merits much more consideration. Liberal journalists and pundits love to mock the idea that “economic anxiety” drives anything remotely adjacent to right-wing populism — the primary drivers are racism and other types of bigotry, they insist in unison — yet all one has to do is spend any non-trivial amount of time in that sub-Reddit to see genuine and significant levels of rational economic anger often quite untethered, even hostile, to left-liberal cultural pieties and political niceties. Given their recent noble success, everyone now wants to claim these Redditors as their own, but their politics, like many people’s, defy the clean left-right dichotomy on which the professional media and punditry classes depend, the only prism through which they can understand the world.

Subscribe now

This is one of the most interesting and potentially significant events — not just financially but culturally and politically — to happen in some time, and I try here to explain the key components and highlight some of the most consequential implications [note that this video was filmed late last night before the banning of the sub-Reddit by Discord on obviously specious grounds and, far worse, the corrupted banning this morning by major trading platforms, including RobinHood, of any attempts to buy GameStop and other targeted stocks while still allowing them to be sold: the ultimate expression of what should be illegal market manipulation to protect hedge funds]:

Skip The Scoop | Seek Understanding

Bannon’s War Room | Morning Edition Hour 2 | Recorded June 28, 2021 | Video: 48 Minutes 13 Seconds

Show Me

Bannon’s War Room | Evening Edition | Recorded June 28, 2021 | Video: 48 Minutes 13 Seconds

Show Me

“In That Rasmussen Poll 41% Of The American People, and All American People, Think He’s (Biden) Illegitimate, He Got In Because Of Massive Fraud. . . I’m Telling You, There’s Going To Be An Earthquake Coming Out Of Arizona (Election Audit).” | Steve Bannon, War Room Pandemic | Video: 48 Minutes 18 Seconds

Show Me

Bannon’s War Room | Saturday Edition Hour 1 | Recorded June 25, 2021 | Video: 48 Minutes 25 Seconds

Show Me

Bannon’s War Room | Morning Edition Hour 1 | Recorded June 25, 2021 | Video: 48 Minutes 32 Seconds

Show Me

Bannon’s War Room | Morning Edition Hour 2 | Recorded June 25, 2021 | Video: 48 Minutes 32 Seconds

Show Me

Bannon’s War Room | Saturday Edition Hour 2 | Recorded June 25, 2021 | Video: 48 Minutes 29 Seconds

Show Me

Bannon’s War Room | Evening Edition | Recorded June 25, 2021 | Video: 48 Minutes 32 Seconds

Show Me

June 24, 2021 | Nightly News Rebroadcast | Video: 47 Minutes 55 Seconds

Show Me

Bannon’s War Room | Morning Edition Hour 1 | Recorded June 24, 2021 | Video: 48 Minutes 36 Seconds

Show Me

Bannon’s War Room | Morning Edition Hour 2 | Recorded June 24, 2021 | Video: 48 Minutes 34 Seconds

Show Me

Bannon’s War Room | Evening Edition | Recorded June 24, 2021 | Video: 48 Minutes 58 Seconds

Show Me

John McAfee on Clinton: The FBI is either incompetent or corrupt in dealing with Hillary’s emails

Show Me

John McAfee, The Big Tech Magnate & Cryptocurrency Advocate, Praised Trump and Exposed Big Media, Big Tech and Hilary Clinton, Found Dead ‘ala Jeffrey Epstein’ In Spanish Prison Cell

Show Me

John McAfee referenced Jeffrey Epstein in suicide tweet last year

Show Me

Antivirus pioneer John McAfee found dead in prison after extradition ruling

Show Me

Founder of Papa John’s Headlines Cryptocurrency Event

Show Me

FLASHBACK: John McAfee Called FBI ‘Corrupt’ Or ‘Incompetent’ Over Hillary’s Emails In 2016 Op-Ed

Show Me

Biden Targets Crypto Tax Evaders in Global Data-Sharing Pitch

Show Me

Hacking group Anonymous issues warning to Elon Musk claiming too much power influence Bitcoin prices

Show Me

Sotheby’s will take cryptocurrency for 100-carat diamond

Show Me

Why China’s kicking out the crypto miners

Show Me

PayPal to Allow Users to Withdraw Cryptocurrency to Third Party Wallets

Show Me

El Salvador Becomes First Country to Adopt Bitcoin as Legal Tender

Show Me

BREAKING: SEC Asks Judge to Quash Deposition from a Former SEC Official in Crypto Case – Former SEC Chairman Clayton Initiated Case Hours Before He Resigned

Show Me

John McAfee In His Own Words On Cryptocurrency and Charges Against Him

Show Me

Letter ‘Q’ Posted to John McAfee’s Instagram Account, Hours After His Death

Show Me

‘Worst Cover Up in Human History’: House Republicans Launch Campaign to Hold CCP Accountable Over Pandemic

Show Me

China Cuts Deal with Hilton to Build Hotel Over Bulldozed Uyghur Mosque

Show Me

Bannon’s War Room | Morning Edition Hour 1 | Recorded June 23, 2021 | Video: 48 Minutes 30 Seconds

Show Me

Bannon’s War Room | Morning Edition Hour 2 | Recorded June 23, 2021 | Video: 48 Minutes 25 Seconds

Show Me

Bannon’s War Room | Evening Edition | Recorded June 23, 2021 | Video: 48 Minutes 58 Seconds

Show Me

June 22, 2021 | Nightly News Rebroadcast | Video: 49 Minutes 47 Seconds

Show Me

Bannon’s War Room | Morning Edition Hour 1 | Recorded June 22, 2021 | Video: 48 Minutes 45 Seconds

Show Me

Bannon’s War Room | Morning Edition Hour 2 | Recorded June 22, 2021 | Video: 48 Minutes 49 Seconds

Show Me

Bannon’s War Room | Evening Edition | Recorded June 22, 2021 | Video: 48 Minutes 58 Seconds

Show Me

Tucker Carlson AGAIN Slams FBI Over Jan. 6th & Roasts Twitter For Accidentally Confirming His Reporting

Show Me

NTD Business News Rebroadcast | June 21, 2021

Show Me

This Is What Is Meant By Coordination | “Compilation Of States Ordering Premature Stops To Vote Counts In 2020 Presidential Election”

Show Me

Local CBS Anchor Criticizes Network Live on Air Over ‘Discrimination,’ Will Go to Project Veritas

Show Me