KYM Insights: The GameStop Short Squeeze And Impact Of WallStreetBets Around The Web By The Numbers

Before last week, very few were following the story of the GameStop short squeeze, and even fewer were members of the /r/WallStreetBets subreddit, let alone even knew about it. Now that we’ve reached the end of the second week of hype, it seems like essentially every major media outlet, social media platform and message board is enveloped in all things WallStreetBets and GameStonks.

As the story’s developed in the last two weeks, many threw around buzzwords like “historic” and “unprecedented,” but how much of that is actually true vs. merely hype? In order to find out, the best way to look at this whole debacle is to analyze some of the growth, search interest and overall attention the scale of this online discussion has seen so far.

To do so, let’s first take a closer look at GameStop’s short squeeze and its impact on Reddit, then how it spread to other platforms and beyond through the numbers, as well as how people generally feel about it all.

Reddit Impact

Since Reddit is where this whole thing started, particularly on the /r/WallStreetBets (WSB) subreddit, this is the best place to start. Using the site Subreddit Stats to delve deeper into the immense growth experienced on WSB, we see that back in December last year the sub hovered around 1.6 million members in total.

As January progressed and people began taking notice of the GME craze, WSB was around 1.7 million earlier in the month, sharply spiking to 6.1 million later in the month as the media began reporting on it, and now up to a whopping 8.6 million in early February. That’s a growth percentage increase of 405 percent between December and February, which is essentially unheard of aside from new subs popping up in response to a trending topic.

Now ranked as the 52nd most popular subreddit in terms of total subscribers (excluding NSFW subs), there are over 168,000 comments per day on WSB and 9,200 total posts. Currently, these stats make it the single most active subreddit on the entire platform with more posts and comments per day than any other. The most commonly seen keywords on the sub include “4:20,” “stonk” and “wallstreetbets.” Additionally, the top five posts from the past year were all posted within the last two weeks, averaging around 270,000 upvotes.

Last Friday, YouTuber Abacaba uploaded a video on the most commented subreddits taking a look at how rapidly /r/WallStreetBets reached this top spot. As shown below, the clip offers a beautifully succinct visualization of the data and rise of WSB in the wake of the story.

Elsewhere on Reddit, posts discussing the GameStop stock surge and WSB spread to a number of outside subreddits, reaching the top of places like /r/OutOfTheLoop or bleeding into memes on subs like /r/dankmemes and /r/IASIP (It’s Always Sunny In Philidelphia). Since last week, the WSB sub has also been prominently featured in Reddit’s “Top Growing Communities” section, but even more interesting is how this event has caused other finance or investing related subs to see similar spikes in their own communities.

Next, we’ll take a look outside of Reddit to see how this has broken out of the original platform and spread elsewhere on the internet to gauge interest.

Google Impact

Although much of the early discussion surrounding GameStop (GME) and WSB was contained to Reddit, we can see via Google Trends how interest spread outside to the broader public over the last two weeks.

Beginning with last Friday, interest over time in the U.S. for searches of “gamestop” were fairly low until January 24th, raising higher on the 26th, peaking on the 28th, and then slowly tapering off until the beginning of this week where it’s shifted slightly up or down. The top three related queries on Google searches included “gamestop stock,” “amc” and “amc gamestop.”

Taking a look at the same data but worldwide instead of just the U.S. during the same time period, we see that the graph for interest over time almost exactly matches it except for a slower drop-off after the peak last Thursday. Other countries apart from the U.S. where the search was highest included Canada, Singapore, Ireland and Sweden. Similarly, the top three related queries were “stock gamestop,” “gamestop price” and “gamestop amc.”

Public Sentiments

In addition to this data, we also polled a range of users from around the web using CivicScience to learn more about their behavior with GameStop and their response to seeing such memes.

Between early November 2019 to Tuesday, participants were asked how often they visited a physical GameStop or GameStop’s website in the last six months. In total, 73 percent said they have not visited a physical GameStop store, 21 percent one or two times, 5 percent three to four and just 2 percent five or more. For GameStop’s website, 72 percent haven’t visited it in the last six months, 17 percent one to two times, 8 percent three to four and 3 percent five or more.

Specifically regarding memes on the recent event, we then asked users how frequently they saw a meme about the GameStop stock surge and short squeeze in the last two weeks. In total, 53 percent responded “Often,” 37 percent “Never,” 7 percent “Somewhat” and just 3 percent “Rarely.”

As far as their response to seeing these memes, we also asked what their typical reaction was. Here, 55 percent responded “Neutral,” 38 percent “Mostly positive” and 7 percent “Mostly negative.” Based on these results, it seems that most are generally unopinionated on the matter, but positive sentiments far outweigh the negative.

We also polled users on if they think the GameStop controversy will have a long-term effect on the way stock trading is conducted. In total, 41 percent said they think it will, 38 percent said “Maybe” but that they were unsure and 22 percent said they don’t think it will at all.

Lastly, we then asked respondents for their thoughts on how they viewed the group of traders who drove up the value of GameStop stock via retail trading platforms. Here, at over half, 52 percent viewed them as “Heroes,” 38 percent “Somewhere in between” and only 10 percent as “Villains.” From this, it seems the general consensus is that most people side with WallStreetBets and retail investors over hedge funds.

So, what can we gather from all of this? Undeniably, WallStreetBets and the GameStop short squeeze has dominated the web in late January and early February, from Reddit, Google searches and, of course, memes. The /r/WallStreetBets subreddit growth and stats alone is also staggering and easily one of the biggest since various coronavirus-related subs began popping up and accumulating members early last year.

Additionally, it seems like most people still view WallStreetBets and other retail traders as the “good guys” here and hedge funds as the “bad guys,” even if many are still unsure whether or not this whole thing will result in any lasting impact or change on the stock market in the years ahead. With multiple investigations now underway, looking into market manipulation stemming from either side, we’ll just have to wait and see how this all plays out in the near future.