3/ The opportunity wasn't just that $GME was undervalued.
It was that short interest was > 100%
What u/DeepFuckingValue and Michael Burry were betting on wasn't just that $GME was going to go back up, but that it was going to "squeeze" short sellers.
Between Apr & July, 2020, u/DeepFuckingValue's portfolio went down.
$300k back to $100k.
But he keeps holding.
Meanwhile, attention on Reddit begins to build.
"Maybe there's an opportunity here for the REST of us."
7/ Then, in August, 2020 🚀🚀🚀
u/DeepFuckingValue was up $600,000.
With his original $50k investment (which had fallen as low as $6k at one point), he had continued doubling down on $GME, leveraging The Big Short Squeeze.
13/ January, 2021, on the heels of a tumultuous year filled with civil unrest, political upheaval, blatant racism, a pandemic, and an L-shaped recovery "rebranded" as a K-recovery, /wallstreetbets saw a way to fight back.
14/ This is the most important moment in the story.
It's also the moment the main character of our story is no longer u/DeepFuckingValue, but the entire community of retail investors & everyday people who have never benefitted from the financial system as it stands.
War.
15/ As u/DeepFuckingValue's portfolio continues to skyrocket, momentum builds on /wallstreetbets that the hedge funds who shorted $GME are hurting.
18/ What nobody on CNBC seems to realize, however, is that "WE LIKE THE STOCK" is an ironic diss.
It's a phrase repeated endlessly by "professionals" who (everyone knows) invest based on personal/insider information.
/wallstreetbets, as a forum, is that same unfair advantage.
19/ If this wasn't enough, Jan 28 is when hell breaks loose.
$GME is up to $400/share, the hedge funds who had been shorting it (driving the company into the ground) are bleeding billions, and /wallstreetbets has gone from 2.5 million subs to 5M+ in 48 hours.
Get ready 👇👇👇
20/ Some shady behavior starts going down:
Robinhood, TD Ameritrade, and more, all start restricting people's ability to buy $GME (as well as other "meme-stonks" like $AMC, $BB, $NOK, and more).
This pours gasoline on what is already a raging viral fire 🔥
21/ Suddenly, this narrative is no longer confined to the walls of Wall Street—hedge funds vs retail investors.
It's yet another example of inequality in America (and the entire world).
And Buying or Selling $GME is a signal as to which side of the fence you're on.
22/ Hedge funds, brokerages, etc., all start saying, "We care about you. We want to educate you. You don't know what you're doing."
Reddit + retail is saying: "That's what you said last time. And you lied. So guess what? We're not selling.
We're buying more."
23/ The longer Redditors and retail investors hold, the harder and harder it is for the hedge funds (who were originally driving $GME into the ground) to exit their short positions.
[THREAD]: Here are 10 (painful) lessons I've learned writing 3,000+ articles on the internet over the past 7 years.
On writing advice, growth hacks, going viral, and feeling fulfilled in the process 👇
1/ There is only 1 secret to online writing.
Volume wins.
There isn't a writing platform on the internet where this ISN'T the case. Social platforms. Major publications. Every growth period of my writing career happened during months/years of consistent volume.
Period.
2/ Growth hacks are overrated.
In my early 20s, I spent a LOT of time reading digital marketing blogs about how to get 50% more views here, or 20% more subscribers there.
A lot of it is mental masturbation.
You're far better off just consistently creating new content.
🚢 Atomic Essay #21: “Find Your Niche” Is Terrible Advice
Creators who stand out don’t “find” their niche.
The reason why is hidden in the phrase above. 👆
Finding your niche is another way of saying “figuring out where you fit in.” And people who stand out don’t fit anywhere. Which is the whole reason why they capture and keep people’s attention.
🚢 Atomic Essay #18: “Nobody Makes A Living As A Writer”
My very last week of college, all my teachers ran through the same speech:
“Writing is thankless work. It’s hard. It doesn’t pay very well. When you do the math on the hours you spend writing and what you end up earning in the end, you’re making pennies on the dollar. Nobody makes a living as a writer.”
My name is Nicolas Cole, and I'm a writer, ghostwriter, and entrepreneur.
Want the full story? Start here 👇
I started writing online early on.
At 17 years old, I was one of the highest-ranked World of Warcraft players in North America, and one of the first e-famous gaming bloggers on the internet.
I wrote a book about it, called Confessions of a Teenage Gamer. amzn.to/3p7ffYc
After HS, I spent a year at University of Missouri studying journalism. Wasn't my thing.
My sophomore year, I transferred to @ColumbiaChi and studied Poetry, then Music Production, then Piano Performance, before finally settling in Fiction Writing.
- How to create new categories and redesign existing categories.
- Why "Product-Market Fit" is flawed & dangerous thinking, and what you should be focused on instead.
- Why category creators generate outsized returns for investors.
Through our research, we found that 21% of the 600ish companies on the Fortune 100 list are category creators. For 79% of fast-growing companies, $1.00 of revenue growth = $1.77 in market cap growth.
For the 21% category creators, $1.00 of revenue growth = $4.82—nearly 3x more