It has captivated even those who don’t know or care what a share of stock is. It has caused the abrupt and widespread shutdowns of e-tools originally designed to democratize participation in the stock market. The company’s stock rise, as well as the similar trajectories of a few other stocks that have become contrarian online darlings, has highlighted the mainstreaming of absurdity, the power of scrappy community, and the banhammer of institutional heft. What stands out about so much of this discussion is that it isn’t even actually about GameStop qua GameStop it’s about all the other things in its orbit that have upended and enlivened the financial markets in equal measure.
That would be the meteoric rise of GameStop stock, which cost just over $4 a year ago, reached $17 at the start of this month, and closed Thursday at $193.60-which is, somehow, way down from its high this week of $483!-thanks in part to the efforts and enthusiasm of a loosely organized but passionately collaborative Reddit community of trading (and chicken tender) enthusiasts. It’s true: Over this past week, a great deal of the chatter taking place everywhere from a shellshocked CNBC to my giddy group texts has focused on essentially one topic. “The problem right now with the $GME story,” tweeted Yahoo Finance anchor and analyst Myles Udland in reference to the stock market ticker symbol for the video game retailer GameStop, “is it’s too long to summarize so you’re forced into an infinitely-expanding-brain take to get involved.”