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The nihilism of r/wallstreetbets

jeromysonne.com

131–140 of 277 posts

Re: The nihilism of r/wallstreetbets

#131
post #54

WSB is hilarious. It’s also such a place of sadness. Taking credit card advances to YOLO into short-dated OTM call options is drug-addict level desperation. People joke about YOLOing their inheritance - and I suspect there’s some reality to it. Their parents’ entire life’s wealth can’t dig them out of whatever hole their in. The CNBC guys freaking out is incredible. Their Cramer feud is gold. But... this trend is dif…

I like going to /r/wallstreetbets. I'm not even sure if those YOLO posts are real. Maybe some are. But it seems a lot of people are there just to have fun. I want to think that someone who posts about YOLOing on GME is really someone just invested in ETFs. Every now and then, there's actually really good advice on /r/wallstreetbets. It's one of the rare subreddits where you can just let loose joining in on the fun an…

The problem is, at least now, that you have to have a pretty good understanding already to determine if the answer you get is good advice or complete BS. There are countless comments that fundamentally don't understand the basics of a stock exchange. These are often comments that get voted up because they support a stock currently being pumped on /r/wsb.

Re: The nihilism of r/wallstreetbets

#132
post #122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Degenerate gamblers Well, they apparently do move markets. Whether that's good or bad remains to be seen and there's no telling what sort of action the SEC will take to curtail this. IMO all it will take is one bad day to have something happen. But wsb does understand one thing: the barriers to entry are artificially there - it doesn't take a quant with an MIT education to make and lose money.

> Well, they apparently do move markets. Seems unlikely. More likely that wsb is a sampling of common knowledge among people who invest in markets, and markets also move based on common knowledge. What is the evidence for this?

The movement of stocks they are talking about, like GME recently, defy traditional analysis. There is no reason for GME to be where it is, in a traditional analysis sense, other than WSB talking about them.

At some point they move the needle just enough for the algorithmic trading, and FOMO of others to take over. But it still started there. Although now there is probably some level of watching WSB to see what their next move is and just trying to ride that wave.

Re: The nihilism of r/wallstreetbets

#133

WSB is hilarious. It’s also such a place of sadness. Taking credit card advances to YOLO into short-dated OTM call options is drug-addict level desperation. People joke about YOLOing their inheritance - and I suspect there’s some reality to it. Their parents’ entire life’s wealth can’t dig them out of whatever hole their in. The CNBC guys freaking out is incredible. Their Cramer feud is gold. But... this trend is dif…

I highly suspect the reason for this is because there is less income security for the young generation in 2021 compared to 1999. In 1999, people under 40 were gambling large sums that, if lost, could be made back through x months of work. In 2021, people under 40 are gambling any random ad hoc payment they receive in the attempt of calling it a career. The reason? 10% of our country have great jobs, and the rest have…

You think we have 90% unemployment?

Re: The nihilism of r/wallstreetbets

#134
post #94

This post is a great tutorial in why we shouldn't derive meaning from expressed language. Imagine if you sat in a room of software engineers and tried to make conclusions about their life views based on their jargon: "I think what they're saying is you just need to form a single value store and react to it, dividing life into small composable micro components that are DRY. We can really comprehend how this minimalism…

>Language like WSB uses is meant to frustrate outsiders and limit posers. This is true, but WSB is also fundamentally nihilistic. 4Chan started as teenage boys from middle class families saying bad things for and fun trolling for fun. "haha lol normies take it seriously" Typical teenage nihilism that is normally not very harmful. Then it gradually escalated into really hurting people and crazy people joining. https:/…

4chan is still mostly teenagers and 20-somethings from middle class families shitposting for fun

Re: The nihilism of r/wallstreetbets

#135
post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"I also don't agree with the Wallstreetbets culture. I'm just trying to explain it."

You can explain it without calling people "autistic losers". Just "losers" is sufficient.

It's not sufficient, because the culture of WSB is such that they refer to themselves as autists. To not use the term would be an inaccurate description

Re: The nihilism of r/wallstreetbets

#136
post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I like going to /r/wallstreetbets. I'm not even sure if those YOLO posts are real. Maybe some are. But it seems a lot of people are there just to have fun. I want to think that someone who posts about YOLOing on GME is really someone just invested in ETFs. Every now and then, there's actually really good advice on /r/wallstreetbets. It's one of the rare subreddits where you can just let loose joining in on the fun an…

I posted a quarter million GME YOLO on WSB over a week ago and it was real (ended up making around $300k and I only have 1000 shares left, so even if it went to $0 right now I'd still have a nice profit)

I saw posts yesterday asking if it's still worth buying GME at market open. I was sure these people are crazy and about to lose their asses. I just checked price action a few minutes ago and it went from $60 to $144 before selling off back to $70s. Crazy.

Re: The nihilism of r/wallstreetbets

#137
post #99
post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, you can't really change the odds or outcome of fantasy footballs or casinos. But at WSB, with enough retards (WSB terms), they can change the outcome.

Is it necessary to replicate the insensitive language here? I suppose the point could have come across without adopting the WSB usage in the same way.

It's on a post directly referencing the /r/WSB board. I don't think it's out of character to use their language.

Re: The nihilism of r/wallstreetbets

#138
post #48

It just doesn't add up to me. If you take Gamestop (GME) today's hot item, it's trading 170M shares back and forth, at say, $70. That's $11B sloshing back and forth. You're telling me 10,000 (if even?) guys sitting at home doing retail trading have $1M each in positions driving this? 100,000 people with $100,000 each, during the day? I think it's quant and algorithmic trading. I would love to hear from an expert thou…

> I think it's quant and algorithmic trading. Yeah, I wonder if ML-driven investing is being tricked by reddit into buying stock in failing companies and causing a runaway effect. If so, it makes me nervous that lots of stocks might be massively over-inflated right now.

Just wait until someone combines this with a GPT-3 bot trained on Wallstreebets... that being said how many bots are on Wallstreetbets?

Re: The nihilism of r/wallstreetbets

#139
post #94

This post is a great tutorial in why we shouldn't derive meaning from expressed language. Imagine if you sat in a room of software engineers and tried to make conclusions about their life views based on their jargon: "I think what they're saying is you just need to form a single value store and react to it, dividing life into small composable micro components that are DRY. We can really comprehend how this minimalism…

>Language like WSB uses is meant to frustrate outsiders and limit posers. This is true, but WSB is also fundamentally nihilistic. 4Chan started as teenage boys from middle class families saying bad things for and fun trolling for fun. "haha lol normies take it seriously" Typical teenage nihilism that is normally not very harmful. Then it gradually escalated into really hurting people and crazy people joining. https:/…

I don't think you can make specific philosophical assertions about a very large group based off a hobby. Just like we can't say that all react developers are minimalists, we can't say all WSBer's are nihilists or anything else.

I think you have some very fundamental misunderstandings about 4chan, including who it was composed of and what both their stated and achieved goals were. As a hint, remember that 4chan is a chan made up of several sub-boards with different user niches across boards. Even if we narrow it down to /b/ or /pol/, you still have competing internal factions and different movements across time.

Nor is your quote an example of nihilism, even in context. Nihilism is a rejection of perceived realities and the certainties tied to those realities - someone who believes truth doesn't really exist is engaging in a form of nihilism. You seem to want to say something like "they're attacking social norms" as best as I can understand.

Re: The nihilism of r/wallstreetbets

#140
post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I like going to /r/wallstreetbets. I'm not even sure if those YOLO posts are real. Maybe some are. But it seems a lot of people are there just to have fun. I want to think that someone who posts about YOLOing on GME is really someone just invested in ETFs. Every now and then, there's actually really good advice on /r/wallstreetbets. It's one of the rare subreddits where you can just let loose joining in on the fun an…

I posted a quarter million GME YOLO on WSB over a week ago and it was real (ended up making around $300k and I only have 1000 shares left, so even if it went to $0 right now I'd still have a nice profit)

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