I posted this in the megathread then realized it would generate more discussion as its own post.
If you aren't familiar with WallStreetBets, it's a meme-ified edgy investment subreddit. If you check it out, CW: they use some slurs in their standard slang (r-word, homophobic slurs) that is really distasteful.
Their main thesis seems to be a rejection of the idea that capitalism is a stable system that will bring steady growth and instead a realization that money behaves irrationally and is completely dissociated from real material conditions. Upon this realization, disillusioned with any sentiment of a stable responsible retirement, they YOLO into meme stocks (toss large amounts of money into dumb companies that truly shouldn’t pay off) but due to the stupidity of the market, often come out on top. And despite all of the talk about lambos and other materialistic dreams, as a recent lurker I mostly see people excited that they’ve paid off their student loans or that they can quit their soul sucking jobs and do something they’re passionate about.
Sure there are a few people just trying to accumulate massive amounts of wealth, but my impression is that the majority of people are just trying to alleviate some of the crushing financial pressures of modern society.
The game of large returns has largely been gate kept behind institutional money, and it’s these people that are paying for much of WSBs success. Take the current meme stock: Gamestop. Basically large investment firms bet big that they would go bankrupt and WSB is betting otherwise and apparently winning. If they make $ from this, it will represent a transfer of wealth directly from a multi-billion dollar investment firm to tens of thousands of everyday people. And at the same time, keeping a company employing tens of thousands afloat.
Edit: the narrative of people vs institutions I bring up in the preceding paragraph draws some parallels to populist movements in politics. The rhetoric I see on WSB about institutional investors is very similar to the rhetoric I saw on Bernie Discords/subreddits during the primaries about the establishment. There’s an open recognition that the system is rigged in favor of pre-existing powerful players and disenfranchises everyday people. To be fair and balanced, you could also draw parallels to Trump in the 2016 primaries as an anti-establishment candidate, but I don’t think that helps my thesis.
Of course I’ve only just started lurking there and I recognize they’re in it for the money, not all fads fit that progressive-transfer-of-wealth narrative, and this is probably going to bring me some hate here. Plus they have some really problematic slang that I’m not even getting into. But fundamentally I think WSB is made up of people who are radicalized at the absurdity of modern capitalism. I’ve seen the question pop up here of people feeling guilty about investing into the market and profiting off an unjust system. More often than not, the responses can be paraphrased as " yes, the system sucks, but we all currently live under it. your own financial security should be prioritized." Us lefties often have to overcome moral reservations about investing while WSB is the jokerfied investor just waiting to become a leftist. Thoughts?
The only praxis value on WSB is propaganda. Anyone participating in that sub should be continually pointing out that
- the stock market is a playground for the rich to gamble money. Any pretentions that it is something more than this should be ridiculed
- The stock market is for rich people to get richer, not for your 401k to pay for your retirement
- The dividends earned by holding stocks come from the toil of workers at that company, and nothing else
- Hedge funds, investment firms, and other such jokers are not some smart intellectuals, they're doing the exact same thing WSB is doing, but doing it dressed in suits in nice offices, instead of shitposting on the internet.
Wallstreetbets is not ever going to be a robin hood, taking money from the rich. Even if there are some victories that can be classified as such, its like someone hitting the jackpot in a casino. The casino still made more money than it lost that day.
i dunno, it's not like they're saying capitalism should be abolished, they just want to be the ones on top instead
also there's a massive amount of elon musk cultists in there
its a pretty chaotic mass of various viewpoints but seems to me theres mainly a sort of nihilistic hedonistic attitude there, which i do kinda get
I think it's highly likely that for every post showing a successful payout, there are dozens of lurkers who have lost even more. Considering the fact that the majority of professional brokers/traders perform worse than index funds, I worry that it encourages desperate people to essentially gamble away what little they have and lose it to Capitalists.
rich people are painfully painfully stupid, like giving things to other rich people, and laundering their less-than-wholesome money through 'losses'.
take your pick.
It's basically a scam, but aimed at the very wealthy. For example, you set up ten different funds, and every year you retire the one that performed worst that year. After nine years you have one fund left that (randomly) outperformed the average index fund in the past. You advertise that you've beaten the market nine years in a row and rich folks who are gullible will buy into it, despite the fact that you basically gamed your stats.
Then there's the 'professional brokers' who are either expensive status symbols so you can boast at the golf club dinner about how your broker went to Harvard and Yale, or they're a way to keep your/your friends' failsons busy and out of the way.
there's an ideological war happening in WSB right now. basically a schism between the anti-capitalists and the old guard. the place will probalbly tear itself apart after the next few big stock memes wear off or pay off depending on what's happening. WSB is practically a decentralized stock market hacking collective at this point, driven by meme energy. it's going to be co-opted by capital (if it hasn't already) or steered by the anti-capitalists to break parts of the market and be shut down by the SEC.
it’s mainly gambling addiction
Well yeah that's all the stock market is
I find it funny that between the nearly two million users, there's enough money floating around for stocks that are memed hard enough to actually be affected. Fucking Gamestop should be dead in the water and their price is skyrocketing.
They're definitely getting taken over by capital though, the return on investment from buying a few hundred reddit bots to boost your stock must be insaneI've been watching wsb for a while. Because the stock market is in a massive bubble, wsb is now a meme version of actual investor behavior. Companies are not invested in due to fundamentals, instead investors are picking stocks based on what they think other investors will pick. Then it evolves to picking stocks based on what others will pick based on what you will pick.
In a reddit analogy: First everyone is trying to write and/or upvote good comments. Then everyone is trying to write and/or upvote comments they think other redditors will upvote because they are good. Then they are writing/upvoting comments, regardless of quality, that they believe other redditors will upvote. This type of last behavior is always present but it becomes the dominant mentality in bubbles. It affects actual capital allocation, so you will eventually end up with an economy that does not work. I wonder what that would be like.
I have noticed a decrease in DD posts recently. DD posts would discuss fundamentals, balance sheets, speculation about future earnings, etc. Like all subreddits, wsb is a circlejerk. They will not upvote posts contrary to the narrative.
They're very funny, but very much in the old 4chan tradition of "ironic" use of lots of slurs. I don't know about the praxis angle of taking money from rich capitalists, because it seems likely that they give their money to these people much more often than they take money away from them. I doubt WSB has, on average, made money off the stock market, certainly not compared to if they all just invested in index funds.
is WSB praxis?
I'd say they are accidentally doing praxis
This a very humanizing take. I appreciate the lack of cynicism that is common on ChaCha.
Definitely not praxis. But a spectacle. Idk if there are any leftists in waiting there.
Edit. Not saying you are incorrect in your assessment.
i lurk there sometimes. And i saved this quote. Warning there is one slur in here.
