The Rise of "Cyberbulling" — what AMC and GameStop have in common

2003 Nokia camera phone... Now that's nostalgic. Yesterday, we covered GameStop's "cyberbulling" stock surge. Cyberbulling: when people who are "bullish" on a stock stoke massive buying campaigns of that stock on social media (especially: Reddit, Discord, TikTok). One of the earliest cyberbulling episodes happened back in June, when bankruptcy-bound Hertz saw its shares inexplicably soar 900%. But...

• Cyberbulling has never been as prominent as it has been this week: While the broader market plunged yesterday, throwback stocks like GameStop, AMC, Nokia, and even Tootsie Roll, soared thanks to cyberbulls.
• This headline pretty much sums it up: "Nokia not aware of any reason for share surge." The stock popped 39% yesterday.
• Cue the trading halts: Shares of GameStop, BlackBerry, and AMC were temporarily paused from trading by the NYSE because of their stocks' volatility. GameStop was halted nine times.

1M+ "degenerates"... One wild stat shows what an unprecedented week it was for cyberbulling. The number of subscribers (self-described "degenerates") to the r/wallstreetbets subreddit jumped from 2.4M on Tuesday to 3.9M on Wednesday. But the group's Discord server was banned yesterday (for allowing hate speech). A few factors driving the cyberbull surge:

• “Little guy vs. big guy” mentality: Some cyberbulls feel they're shifting the power dynamic by betting against Wall Street — after feeling historically wronged by big shots like banks and hedge funds. Funds that were betting GameStock would fall — like Melvin Capital and Maplelane — lost billions after cyberbulls pumped up the stock.
• Community: Cyberbulling is also fueled by a strong sense of (cyber) community. Like: people posting screenshots of gains, thanking the "community" for helping pay off student loans and hospital bills.