6 ms·

The "memes" and talking points surrounding GME on reddit remind me a lot of the early days of the 2016 trump campaign on reddit. I would not be surprised if the

The "memes" and talking points surrounding GME on reddit remind me a lot of the early days of the 2016 trump campaign on reddit. I would not be surprised if there was a large overlap of "influencers" between the two.

TameAntelope 6y ago
To use the vernacular, I am very bullish on this take. In 2016, the Internet discovered they can mess with politics. In 2021, the Internet discovered they can mess with finance. There are other instances of this, but the general theme is people who traditionally only operate on the Internet occasionally discover ways to have an impact on the "real" world. They get so drunk with power, they do something stupid with it, and the rest of the world sighs as we get to work cleaning up the mess they've made after they get bored.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
- babyshake 6y ago
  For the last week, that Captain Phillips meme "Look at me. I'm the captain now." has been coming to mind.
- Apocryphon 6y ago
  It will be interesting to see if the Internet can discover how to mess with tech itself. Or to mess with startups.
rspeele 6y ago
Yeah. Copying my post from yesterday's thread -- which only looks more and more real today with increasing rationalization leading to explanations like that hedge funds are "short ladder attacking" GME. ------------------------------------------ The claims and the consequences are very different, but I definitely get the same sense I got reading Q stuff when I skim the current WSB page. - The media, government, and elites are conspiring against us. - Info that says short interest has decreased / shorts have covered is propaganda and should be ignored. - Info that says short interest is still sky-high is to be believed without question. - Parties who were on our side of the bet but are now advising caution (e.g. Burry or S3) must be malicious or compromised, can't possibly be genuine. - Mix of facts with misunderstood interpretations thereof: 140% short interest is very high (fact), 140% short interest should not be legally possible (misunderstanding). - The dark truth we are about to reveal (counterfeit stocks?) has been going on for a long time, but now the wool will be lifted from the eyes of the nonbelievers. - Your continued belief in "the plan" is important. You must keep the faith! - "The Event" will take place on X date, but when it doesn't, no problem: it was always going to be Y date that It Happens. - We all KNOW our version of the story is right. What particular pieces of evidence are so rock-solid and convincing? Oh, well, there's SO MUCH, but it's not my job to spoon feed you the facts. If you don't know, you clearly haven't been paying attention and should do your own research. - If somebody published something saying that we're wrong, it means that "They" are scared of us. We must be getting close. I don't know whether WSB's narrative is right or wrong, which is why I am on neither side of this trade and merely watching with interest from the sidelines. They could very well be correct about all of this. I also am not trying to allege that being a "GME to the moon" person makes you a "Q person". They are completely different sets of beliefs. All that I'm observing is that the marketing of the ideas is similar.
- wnevets 6y ago
  Thanks for laying that all out so I don't have to. Here are some other examples I noticed. "Memes" that are outright out of a WW2 propagandist playbook with phrases like "Hold the line" or the WSB kid with sunglasses seen taking out the enemy. People trying prove their devotion to the cause is so much higher than their fellow brethren. "For every upvote I'll donate to the campaign/I'll buy stock in GME"
  - hef19898 6y ago
    Stuff like that usually causes to walk away immediately from things. Still the overlap of methods is interesting.
  - sangnoir 6y ago
    Also, the WSB kid logo superficially looks like Trump (hair color, style and tie). I know /r/wsb disavows politics, but I found it an interesting coincidence.
    - esyir 6y ago
      Or a "suit" as per the typical wall street uniform, and blonde hair? I'd say you're heavily overfitting here.
- yters 6y ago
  The irony is these tropes have been used by the establishment forever.
  - wnevets 6y ago
    Maybe the establishment is still using them in this case.
    - yters 6y ago
      Hah! Great point. The bourgeoisie like to use us proles as a pretext for their shenanigans.
rcoveson 6y ago
I had the same thought. If I saw these posts 5 years ago I would have assumed that "diamond hands" and "to the moon" were slogans from r/The_Donald. The spirit of these meme cults seems to be, "Isn't it invigorating and hilarious how un-ironically obsessed with X we all are?"
tiziniano 6y ago
Why so much pearl-clutching? Who are you btw? Other than some self-assumed (got it?) not-influenced (yeah, right) whatever?
- wnevets 6y ago
  I am honestly not sure what you're trying to say. I simply find the similarities between the two interesting.
not_kurt_godel 6y ago
100% agree. Of course the connection is going to be very difficult to prove if it in fact exists, but I also got the same vibes. Large masses of people making an objectively bad decision on the basis of hyped up memes disseminated by grifters and other bad actors.
nromiun 6y ago
This is ironic. I don't know of 2016, but in the last election most of the comments were in favour of Joe Biden, not Trump.
- wnevets 6y ago
  I don't recall a whole lot of Biden the God Emperor memes on reddit during the 2020 election.
- rspeele 6y ago
  It depends on which echo chamber you look at. Reddit at large has long been libleft. If you read comments from posts that hit front page, you will find overwhelming support for left-leaning policies (exception: Reddit has a distinct pro-gun streak). You had to go to specific subreddits to see the type of exuberant, memespeak support for Trump. In 2016 that was r/The_Donald. By the time we got to the 2020 election that subreddit and any replacement that got too close to it was banned. But you could still find the same vibe on TheDonald.win, an independently hosted recreation of the subreddit. Or on the chan sites. The meme culture of The_Donald never constituted the mainstream image or talking points for Trump. it wasn't promoted or even referenced directly by the Trump campaign. But it was a weird world where you never knew exactly how serious people were about their love for Trump -- it was so obviously exaggerated as to look like satire, but the participants were at least somewhat serious: they really did want Trump to win.
  - unethical_ban 6y ago
    Gun ownership isn't left/right, it just happens that of the two private organizations that operate our republic, one of them defends gun ownership more than the other.
    - rspeele 6y ago
      I agree with you in principle, but in US politics gun rights have unfortunately been lumped on "the right" (see: lack of 2020 Democratic primary candidates not supporting an AWB), so I thought it was worth pointing out that particular blip.
paxys 6y ago
The front page of WSB could very well be a QAnon forum. Everything is a conspiracy. All the players in power are fully united against them. If you aren't 100% bought in to the cult, and do as much as advise people to be cautious, you will be silenced.
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]

TameAntelope 6y ago

To use the vernacular, I am very bullish on this take. In 2016, the Internet discovered they can mess with politics. In 2021, the Internet discovered they can mess with finance. There are other instances of this, but the general theme is people who traditionally only operate on the Internet occasionally discover ways to have an impact on the "real" world. They get so drunk with power, they do something stupid with it, and the rest of the world sighs as we get to work cleaning up the mess they've made after they get bored.

deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
babyshake 6y ago
For the last week, that Captain Phillips meme "Look at me. I'm the captain now." has been coming to mind.
Apocryphon 6y ago
It will be interesting to see if the Internet can discover how to mess with tech itself. Or to mess with startups.

rspeele 6y ago

Yeah. Copying my post from yesterday's thread -- which only looks more and more real today with increasing rationalization leading to explanations like that hedge funds are "short ladder attacking" GME. ------------------------------------------ The claims and the consequences are very different, but I definitely get the same sense I got reading Q stuff when I skim the current WSB page. - The media, government, and elites are conspiring against us. - Info that says short interest has decreased / shorts have covered is propaganda and should be ignored. - Info that says short interest is still sky-high is to be believed without question. - Parties who were on our side of the bet but are now advising caution (e.g. Burry or S3) must be malicious or compromised, can't possibly be genuine. - Mix of facts with misunderstood interpretations thereof: 140% short interest is very high (fact), 140% short interest should not be legally possible (misunderstanding). - The dark truth we are about to reveal (counterfeit stocks?) has been going on for a long time, but now the wool will be lifted from the eyes of the nonbelievers. - Your continued belief in "the plan" is important. You must keep the faith! - "The Event" will take place on X date, but when it doesn't, no problem: it was always going to be Y date that It Happens. - We all KNOW our version of the story is right. What particular pieces of evidence are so rock-solid and convincing? Oh, well, there's SO MUCH, but it's not my job to spoon feed you the facts. If you don't know, you clearly haven't been paying attention and should do your own research. - If somebody published something saying that we're wrong, it means that "They" are scared of us. We must be getting close. I don't know whether WSB's narrative is right or wrong, which is why I am on neither side of this trade and merely watching with interest from the sidelines. They could very well be correct about all of this. I also am not trying to allege that being a "GME to the moon" person makes you a "Q person". They are completely different sets of beliefs. All that I'm observing is that the marketing of the ideas is similar.

wnevets 6y ago
Thanks for laying that all out so I don't have to. Here are some other examples I noticed. "Memes" that are outright out of a WW2 propagandist playbook with phrases like "Hold the line" or the WSB kid with sunglasses seen taking out the enemy. People trying prove their devotion to the cause is so much higher than their fellow brethren. "For every upvote I'll donate to the campaign/I'll buy stock in GME"
- hef19898 6y ago
  Stuff like that usually causes to walk away immediately from things. Still the overlap of methods is interesting.
- sangnoir 6y ago
  Also, the WSB kid logo superficially looks like Trump (hair color, style and tie). I know /r/wsb disavows politics, but I found it an interesting coincidence.
  - esyir 6y ago
    Or a "suit" as per the typical wall street uniform, and blonde hair? I'd say you're heavily overfitting here.
yters 6y ago
The irony is these tropes have been used by the establishment forever.
- wnevets 6y ago
  Maybe the establishment is still using them in this case.
  - yters 6y ago
    Hah! Great point. The bourgeoisie like to use us proles as a pretext for their shenanigans.

rcoveson 6y ago

I had the same thought. If I saw these posts 5 years ago I would have assumed that "diamond hands" and "to the moon" were slogans from r/The_Donald. The spirit of these meme cults seems to be, "Isn't it invigorating and hilarious how un-ironically obsessed with X we all are?"

tiziniano 6y ago

Why so much pearl-clutching? Who are you btw? Other than some self-assumed (got it?) not-influenced (yeah, right) whatever?

wnevets 6y ago
I am honestly not sure what you're trying to say. I simply find the similarities between the two interesting.

not_kurt_godel 6y ago

100% agree. Of course the connection is going to be very difficult to prove if it in fact exists, but I also got the same vibes. Large masses of people making an objectively bad decision on the basis of hyped up memes disseminated by grifters and other bad actors.

nromiun 6y ago

This is ironic. I don't know of 2016, but in the last election most of the comments were in favour of Joe Biden, not Trump.

wnevets 6y ago
I don't recall a whole lot of Biden the God Emperor memes on reddit during the 2020 election.
rspeele 6y ago
It depends on which echo chamber you look at. Reddit at large has long been libleft. If you read comments from posts that hit front page, you will find overwhelming support for left-leaning policies (exception: Reddit has a distinct pro-gun streak). You had to go to specific subreddits to see the type of exuberant, memespeak support for Trump. In 2016 that was r/The_Donald. By the time we got to the 2020 election that subreddit and any replacement that got too close to it was banned. But you could still find the same vibe on TheDonald.win, an independently hosted recreation of the subreddit. Or on the chan sites. The meme culture of The_Donald never constituted the mainstream image or talking points for Trump. it wasn't promoted or even referenced directly by the Trump campaign. But it was a weird world where you never knew exactly how serious people were about their love for Trump -- it was so obviously exaggerated as to look like satire, but the participants were at least somewhat serious: they really did want Trump to win.
- unethical_ban 6y ago
  Gun ownership isn't left/right, it just happens that of the two private organizations that operate our republic, one of them defends gun ownership more than the other.
  - rspeele 6y ago
    I agree with you in principle, but in US politics gun rights have unfortunately been lumped on "the right" (see: lack of 2020 Democratic primary candidates not supporting an AWB), so I thought it was worth pointing out that particular blip.

paxys 6y ago

The front page of WSB could very well be a QAnon forum. Everything is a conspiracy. All the players in power are fully united against them. If you aren't 100% bought in to the cult, and do as much as advise people to be cautious, you will be silenced.

deleted 6y ago

[deleted]