The stock market has been a hot topic in the news as of late with Game Stop stock rising through the roof as well as other unsuspecting companies such as AMC. But what or who is behind all of this stock market drama? Surprisingly, all of this started because of an initially small Reddit community called “WallStreetBets.”

The story of WallStreetBets is significant because this is the first time in a while that average, everyday people like you and I have made a large impact on the stock market. Upon glancing at headlines many would expect that market manipulation on this big of a scale would have to be the doing of some large company but in reality it was a small reddit community that started largely for fun.

The hysteria surrounding WallStreetBets and current stock market drama is very current and fresh in people’s minds, but the Reddit community has been around since 2012. The notoriety of the group has seen growth when the pandemic started in early 2020 but did not skyrocket until the recent games top drama.

So what is all the fuss about WallStreetBets and game stop right now? While the Reddit group dabbles in many different stocks it’s most recent and successful endeavor was the short squeeze of game stop stock. To summarize it, investors had the intention of borrowing shares of Game stop to sell quickly with the intent to buy them back later at a low price and then return the shares they borrowed and profit off the difference. This is where Reddit comes in. The people of WallStreetBets bought lots of Game Stop stock causing the value of the stock to grow and this in turn forces the people trying to short the stock to buy even more to cover their losses driving the value up all around. After this initial incident the community tried to perform a similar feat with other stocks such as AMC and Nokia which were somewhat successful on a much smaller scale. What is more noteworthy than the squeeze itself is that it was the work of amateur investors and caused a lot of people to venture into this market than would normally. There is a downside to this, however. Many people jumping on the media-fueled hype train invested large sums of money after the initial jumps in value of these stocks and did nothing but lose money, people with families and mortgages putting essentially their way of living on the line and not always making a profit.

Regardless of whether or not you view these events as a good or bad thing, it is undeniable that change is occurring.