“GameStopped” Review

Story posted March 19, 2021 in CommRadio, Arts & Entertainment by Emily McGlynn

GameStop was a company that was slowly deteriorating, and many factors were contributing to its downfall. That all changed in January 2021 thanks to stock market watchers and trolls.

The new ABC News and Hulu documentary “GameStopped” precisely explains what the GameStop situation is, how it happened, and why it happened. It is brilliantly raw, controversial and American.

“The rollercoaster continues,” says ABC. Hedge fund this, short sell that. Hold onto your seatbelts, folks. This information will come at you at 100 miles per hour.

American citizens of various races, genders, ages and economic status have bonded over investing into the stock market. In this documentary, people from these different backgrounds were brought on to tell their story. It adds a lot of insight into the strange case of how GameStop suddenly became a hot stock-trading commodity.

One of the many effects of the coronavirus pandemic is that many people abruptly had a lot of time on their hands. Americans were bored, became wiser of their hobbies, and created something out of nothing.

And Stuff like this seems to happen all the time. The unexpected part is the amount of anger it brought.

This quarrel has affected more than one community. Now more than ever, social media has brought people closer together and has pulled people apart. At a time when just about everyone is on their devices using social media, Redditors, YouTubers and Twitter users are paying each other through the stock market.

In a nutshell, amateur investors watched stock numbers and bought shares of almost-failed companies (like GameStop). They thought that if they were to get thousands, maybe millions of people to hop on the bandwagon, they could make lots and lots of money from short-selling brokers, and that is what they did.

Just about everyone used the new investment app Robinhood, created by Vladimir Tenev. Big names like Dave Portnoy, Mark Cuban, Keith Gill (AKA “Roaring Kitty” on YouTube), the Winklevoss twins and even Elon Musk were encouraging consumers to buy, buy, buy.

What’s the problem with this? Wealthy investors were losing money. So how did the problem resolve?
You’re going to have to watch the documentary to find out.

This film gives a lot of insight into how the stock market works (especially if you do not understand it) and how complicated it all is. In the day and age of social media and need for money, everyone should be watching this right now.

Rating: 5/5 Stars

 

Emily McGlynn is a freshman majoring in broadcast journalism. To contact her, email esm5378@psu.edu.