They personally identify with him, and long for his release from prison. r/Wallstreetbets’ prodigious increase in subscribers between 2016 and now-from just under 13,000 in mid-2015, to 197,700+ at the time of writing-mirrors the rise to infamy of their “Pharma Bro” poster boy, who rumours claim was once one of /r/Wallstreetbets’ moderators. Shkreli-worship is especially strong on this sub. It is failure which endears WSB members to each other: for all the bravado, the pervading tone is one of dejection, neurosis, and commiseration. Hyperbole is custom here, and trolling is standard the “history” of the sub is detailed in the “WSB Weekly Herald” (produced quarterly, rather than weekly), a fictional newsletter which details an elaborate chase scene with John MacAfee and tales of Martin Shkreli’s adventures behind bars.
WSB REDDIT MODS
It’s hard to believe anything /r/Wallstreetbets' mods claim, not least because they don’t even trust other people using the subreddit not to fake their wins by Photoshopping screengrabs. “FXZombie,” another mod, tells me the legal team “is quality. They also claim the IRC has been infiltrated by feds, and that the subreddit has its own legal team. “We’ve had people go to jail,” claims “Swiss.” “1” adds, “There’s been blackmail, SEC investigations, insider trading, false identities, fake trades… A lot goes on behind the scenes.” Long-term members, meanwhile, operate across a network of private IRCs, and this is where the mods claim the real action of /r/Wallstreetbets takes place.
WSB REDDIT ARCHIVE
Newbies are directed to a Discord channel, where they maintain an archive of rare Pepe memes, along with plans for the economy of Kekistan, 4chan’s fictional nation of shitposters. Yet another mod, “Damsol,” tells me “/r/stocks is a bunch of cunts with ponzie schemes,” while “1” sums up their ethos as such: “r/finance is filled with ‘average’ people. “And they think we’re idiots,” adds another, “TK.” “It’s mutual disrespect.” “We think a lot of people in /r/investments are idiots,” said one moderator, “swiss.” The rivalry lives on today and extends to other finance-related subs. The mods tell me that /r/Wallstreetbets was founded by one of their team, “Jartek,” in 2012, after he was run out of /r/investing for advocating risky bets.
“They’re like lemmings falling off a cliff” says one mod, using the name “1.” The reckless image is created by newbies, dilettantes who flock to the sub to get rich quick.
They also suspect that a great deal of the wins posted there are faked using Photoshop. Most members, the mods say, avoid hyped-up “meme stock” and only make a few risky trades per year. But when I join one of their IRC channels the conversation turns abruptly sincere.
WSB REDDIT VERIFICATION
Initially, when I approach the mods of /r/Wallstreetbets for an interview they respond with dick jokes and requests for verification ( “Can you please submit a picture of yourself nude holding up two tiki torches?”). Between the layers of in-jokes and YOLO traders, it’s hard to know how much of the sub is actually real. In the past /r/Wallstreetbets has been portrayed as Reddit’s riskiest, troll-iest stock trading community (the subreddit's tagline: “ It’s like 4chan found a Bloomberg Terminal”), a place of sick gains and staggering losses, online bravado and real life trades, where the burn-it-all nihilist of 4chan is obliged to put their money where their mouth is.īut is /r/Wallstreetbets really as YOLO as it seems? “Fscomeau” later revealed his trading career to have been a long-running, extravagantly detailed hoax.
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