Gaming Wall Street Review: HBO Max’s GameStop Stock and Reddit Doc Is Mostly in the Red

One of many craziest tales of the previous couple of years (which is fairly astonishing given all the pieces that has occurred), is 2021’s GameStop inventory (GME) story — which noticed retail buyers combat cash-flush monetary establishments on Wall Road at their very own sport (CNET has a full explanation) — was solely overshadowed by the coronavirus pandemic and a worldwide civil rights revolution, but it contained most of the similar themes: class disparity, company greed, disastrous makes an attempt at PR injury management. HBO Max’s Gaming Wall Road, a two-part, two-hour documentary, makes an attempt to clarify what occurred and the way it occurred, and provides voice to these it occurred to. It is loads of advanced concepts to cowl in such a brief period of time — you can spend two hours explaining what a “quick squeeze” is and beginner merchants would nonetheless be confused — and as an exhaustive report of all of it, Gaming Wall Road comes up quick, but it surely tries.

The very first thing it’s best to find out about Gaming Wall Road is that the 2 episodes, which each hit HBO Max on Thursday, March 3, are wildly completely different. The primary episode is for the apes at r/wallstreetbets, the subreddit celebrating high-risk inventory buying and selling the place the GameStop revolution was born, because it covers the growth in retail buyers, warts and all. Gaming Wall Road briskly blankets completely different buyers concerned within the scenario, from a divorced dad who misplaced a lot within the 2008 monetary disaster and YOLO’d cash into GME to a homeless couple who confronted discrimination from wallstreetbets for being poor and acquired on the high of the GME rise, to grasp the psyche and tradition that turned a meme- and money-making machine. Everybody had the identical thought; it was time to stay it to Wall Road by making an attempt to screw over hedge funds since hedge funds had been screwing them over, and if they may make a couple of bucks on the similar time, why not?

It is lighthearted and largely entertaining, plumbing the depths of one of the vital insane locations on the web, populated by the neatest and dumbest folks (typically each on the similar time) on the web, in addition to how its affect spilled over into the true world as buyers tried to tip the scales. Veterans of Wall Road and monetary specialists are additionally interviewed, including each hope that retail buyers can degree the taking part in subject and despair that it is all futile as a result of Wall Road has a lot cash that its shady dealings are impenetrable.

It is a unusual lead-in for the second episode, which ditches nearly all perception into the retail investor tradition in favor of the questions round funding app Robinhood’s determination to kill GameStop inventory by greying out its “purchase” button, and the way bare shorts (one other monetary subject that may very well be its personal doc) are an epidemic of criminal activity on Wall Road. There’s nothing right here that anybody who has adopted the story does not know — it is largely a recap of occasions and a proof of some phrases peppered with folks saying what may need been happening behind the scenes — however it can as soon as once more piss you off how these monetary establishments get away with all the pieces whereas bizarre folks pay the value. “There is not any conspiracy concept in right here. All of it simply occurred. They gained,” hedge fund vet John Fichthorn says, placing the nail within the coffin. And whereas Gaming Wall Road ends by saying that an informed investor is one of the best weapon towards Wall Road corruption, the general tone is certainly one of defeat.

Entry may have actually made Gaming Wall Road higher. The attitude is all from one facet — the retail investor facet — making a one-way narrative. Clearly, the evildoers on this narrative, like Robinhood, Melvin Capital, and Citadel, stated no to taking part, which by no means gave director Tobias Deml an opportunity to catch them in a lie. Extra devastatingly, the absence of wallstreetbets folks hero Keith “I’m not a cat” Gill, higher generally known as DeepF*ckingValue, is obtrusive. He is nonetheless featured prominently by way of clips of his YouTube movies, however to not get his perspective on the whole debacle chips away on the authority of the entire documentary. The perfect factor about Gaming Wall Road is who it did get: Kieran Culkin, Roman Roy himself, narrates the docuseries, and he is the right mouthpiece. Culkin, spouting expletives and speaking sh– as if he is recording ADR for Succession Season 4, seems like what the wallstreetbets guy would sound like.

Gaming Wall Road might have been hurried to our screens — one other documentary, GameStop: Rise of the Gamers, was launched in January 2022 — that means the story wasn’t instructed because it ought to have been. It is uncommon to say this about something on streaming lately, but it surely most likely may have been longer to go additional into the myriad subjects concerned. Or at the least, it ought to have been both a enjoyable have a look at wallstreetbets’ tradition, a captivating mind-set with a touch of all the pieces from future activism to on-line mob justice, or a stark publicity of the alleged crimes of the monetary establishments. As it’s, the 2 episodes grate towards one another, not telling one story however two very completely different ones. If the primary episode is the loud and obnoxious kegger, the second episode is the neighbors calling the cops. This can be a story that deserved extra.

Premieres: Thursday, March 3 on HBO Max
Who’s behind it: Tobias Deml (director)
For followers of: Rocket emojis, wallstreetbets
What number of episodes we watched: 2 out of two

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