Best of 2021: Inside the Subreddit That Blew Up GameStop
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Slate Podcasts
4.5 • 6K Ratings
🗓️ 26 November 2021
⏱️ 21 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
This episode originally aired in January 2021
The story of how GameStop went from the verge of a bankruptcy to a $15 billion market value isn’t an easy one to wrap your head around. But it helps to go back to the beginning; almost three years ago, in a subreddit called r/wallstreetbets.
Guests:
Brandon Kochkodin, reporter at Bloomberg
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | This week, we're revisiting one of my favorite episodes of the year. It's a story that somehow |
| 0:05.9 | feels very true to this year's DNA. It's chaotic, it's weird, there are memes. And it might not |
| 0:13.5 | have happened if a bunch of people weren't working from home. This story is about how GameStop, |
| 0:19.7 | the video game store, became both a hot stock and a cultural |
| 0:24.0 | shorthand for systems that don't make sense anymore. We made this episode back in January |
| 0:29.2 | when GameStop stock was on a crazy ride thanks to a bunch of investors on Reddit. It seemed |
| 0:34.9 | like it couldn't last, but now it's November, and the ride is still going. |
| 0:40.1 | And a quick heads up. There is some swearing in this episode. |
| 0:48.1 | Well, tell me a little bit about yourself, I guess, as much as you're comfortable telling me. |
| 0:54.0 | Sure. I'm a software engineer in the Southwest. |
| 0:57.8 | This guy, we're going to call him Jason. He's a 36-year-old dad. |
| 1:02.9 | Jason is not his real name, but we agreed to give him a pseudonym because we're talking |
| 1:07.6 | about a subreddit he's on called Wall Street Betts, |
| 1:15.9 | a subreddit that is at the center of the chaotic last few days in the stock market. |
| 1:19.0 | And he didn't really want his employer to know about all of this. |
| 1:23.4 | I asked him what he thought the first time he went on Wall Street Betts. |
| 1:28.9 | My impression was that these guys are absolute duffices and it's hilarious. |
| 1:33.7 | It's difficult to describe without swearing because they swear about themselves so much. |
| 1:34.1 | It's okay. |
| 1:34.8 | It's a podcast. |
| 1:35.3 | You can swear. |
| 1:40.6 | Wall Street Betts is like a lot of Reddit in that there are a bunch of people with screen names like Dr. Blunt or my mom looks at this. |
... |
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