WEBVTT - The GameStop Stock Cult (ft. Folding Ideas) 0:00:01.800 --> 0:00:05.080 Also media. 0:00:08.560 --> 0:00:12.360 Ah, welcome back to behind Wait no, sorry, it could 0:00:12.400 --> 0:00:12.960 happen here. 0:00:13.160 --> 0:00:13.360 You know. 0:00:14.120 --> 0:00:17.560 We'll keep that in so that our audience, who I 0:00:17.600 --> 0:00:21.640 know is deeply tied to the myth of my own perfection, 0:00:22.000 --> 0:00:28.400 knows that I too, air speaking of perfect creatures who 0:00:28.400 --> 0:00:33.280 have never made a mistake. Our guest today is Dan Olsen. Hello, Welcome, 0:00:33.560 --> 0:00:34.000 Hi Dan. 0:00:34.120 --> 0:00:37.160 How you doing. I'm doing well, not making. 0:00:36.920 --> 0:00:41.000 Mistakes, exactly exactly that you are the Buddha I met 0:00:41.040 --> 0:00:43.800 on the road, and I'm going to say hello, teach 0:00:43.880 --> 0:00:45.240 me how to be flawless. 0:00:46.880 --> 0:00:49.360 So first, have you heard of gold? Yes? 0:00:49.520 --> 0:00:52.479 Yes, I was about to talk about gold the perfect 0:00:52.520 --> 0:00:53.479 investment Dan. 0:00:53.400 --> 0:00:55.920 Perfect investment vehicle never fails. 0:00:56.560 --> 0:01:01.080 So Dan, you are a YouTuber and investigator, one of 0:01:01.120 --> 0:01:04.960 my favorite researchers. We had you on recently to talk 0:01:05.040 --> 0:01:07.480 well a couple of months ago a donuple time flat 0:01:07.520 --> 0:01:10.680 circle etcheda but we had you wanted to talk about 0:01:10.760 --> 0:01:17.559 your work reporting on the NFT bubble bursting and on 0:01:17.600 --> 0:01:22.840 the metaverse bubble bursting, and more recently, you just published 0:01:22.840 --> 0:01:27.399 a two and a half hour documentary investigation into the 0:01:27.480 --> 0:01:31.520 game stop stock cult, which is a lot of people 0:01:31.560 --> 0:01:33.320 are aware of. The first part of this, which is 0:01:33.360 --> 0:01:36.520 that in January twenty twenty one, a bunch of folks 0:01:36.760 --> 0:01:41.760 started like buying you via some weird Reddit movement started 0:01:41.760 --> 0:01:44.760 buying huge amounts of game Stop stock, which, in a 0:01:45.000 --> 0:01:50.480 period of pretty exaggerated decline, caused it to briefly surge 0:01:50.600 --> 0:01:52.720 in value to absurd levels. 0:01:53.280 --> 0:01:54.480 And I think that's where. 0:01:54.240 --> 0:01:57.160 Most people kind of and then, you know, eventually it 0:01:57.200 --> 0:01:59.040 fell apart, and I think that's where most people kind 0:01:59.040 --> 0:01:59.960 of stopped paying attention. 0:02:00.520 --> 0:02:03.360 Yeah, they they remember that week where it was like 0:02:03.480 --> 0:02:05.720 in the news, and then they just kind of assumed 0:02:05.920 --> 0:02:06.960 like that was it. 0:02:07.400 --> 0:02:07.960 Yeah. 0:02:08.120 --> 0:02:12.000 So yeah, it's it's been a It's an interesting and 0:02:12.040 --> 0:02:17.040 weird ride because the evolution into like cult like behavior 0:02:17.400 --> 0:02:25.560 was it was a very strange journey. It happened surprisingly rapidly, 0:02:26.480 --> 0:02:30.480 but also not that surprisingly. Like once you fully unpack it, 0:02:30.960 --> 0:02:35.120 you know, you have this internet movement that is very 0:02:35.160 --> 0:02:38.440 nebulous in its origins or not in its origins, sorry, 0:02:38.480 --> 0:02:41.160 the origins are very straightforward, like Wall Street Bets is 0:02:41.200 --> 0:02:47.000 a gambling sub that had like it self describes as 0:02:47.600 --> 0:02:52.280 if four chan found a Bloomberg terminal, So sure, you 0:02:52.320 --> 0:02:58.400 know it's it's crass it's irony poisoned. You can get 0:02:58.440 --> 0:03:02.800 just as much social clout or losing thousands of dollars 0:03:02.800 --> 0:03:07.520 as you can for winning thousands of dollars. In fact, 0:03:07.680 --> 0:03:11.359 there's an argument that there's more clout for lost porn 0:03:11.440 --> 0:03:16.519 than there is for like actually posting big games. Obviously, 0:03:16.639 --> 0:03:23.640 like not like the healthiest or most wholesome community you 0:03:23.680 --> 0:03:30.639 could imagine. But you know, out of that plus COVID madness, 0:03:30.680 --> 0:03:39.520 plus stimulus checks and just general nihilism arose this kind 0:03:39.560 --> 0:03:48.120 of Frankenstein short squeeze play on game Stop that weirdly 0:03:48.160 --> 0:03:52.160 never actually happened, because the play just sort of turned 0:03:52.200 --> 0:03:55.760 into its its own self fulfilling thing that enough people 0:03:55.840 --> 0:04:00.720 believed in the idea of this short squeeze play that 0:04:01.360 --> 0:04:04.320 they just kept piling in and piling in, and suddenly, 0:04:04.360 --> 0:04:07.760 like the short squeeze doesn't actually matter at all because 0:04:07.760 --> 0:04:10.640 there's enough critical mass flooding in that you just get 0:04:10.640 --> 0:04:14.680 this massive pump anyway, which convinces people that, oh, the 0:04:14.680 --> 0:04:17.119 squeeze is going on. Because in the moment you don't 0:04:17.320 --> 0:04:20.960 actually know like what mechanisms are driving the price movement. 0:04:21.040 --> 0:04:24.600 You just see number going up, and so more people 0:04:24.680 --> 0:04:26.960 kept piling in piling in, piling in. I got a 0:04:27.000 --> 0:04:29.760 phone call from, you know, from a friend of mine 0:04:30.000 --> 0:04:32.080 who's like, hey, have you heard about the GameStop stuff? 0:04:32.120 --> 0:04:34.320 And I'm like, yes, I heard about it two days ago. 0:04:34.400 --> 0:04:37.520 So if you heard about it today, it's it's way 0:04:37.560 --> 0:04:42.000 too late. Do not. It's over. It's over. And sure enough, 0:04:42.160 --> 0:04:44.880 like I went back and reviewed our text messages and like, 0:04:44.960 --> 0:04:46.520 and if he had bought, he would have been a 0:04:46.640 --> 0:04:49.599 just massive bag holder. Like it it plummeted, you know, 0:04:49.720 --> 0:04:50.760 hours later. 0:04:50.640 --> 0:04:53.480 And like for people who are not finance people, which 0:04:53.560 --> 0:04:57.080 I certainly am not. This is like if you watched 0:04:57.120 --> 0:05:00.120 The Big Short that's kind of the tech I mean 0:05:00.200 --> 0:05:02.680 number one, that movie is seen as a blueprint by 0:05:02.720 --> 0:05:07.080 a lot of these guys. Obviously there's folks, knowledgeable financial 0:05:07.120 --> 0:05:09.040 folks who have critiques of that movie, but it is 0:05:09.200 --> 0:05:12.039 it is accepted as like almost kind of like a 0:05:12.080 --> 0:05:15.240 sacred text within the game Stop Stop ye. 0:05:15.800 --> 0:05:20.200 And and it's weird because like they're the game stop enemy, 0:05:21.600 --> 0:05:24.880 the the the ape. Okay, well i'll just use their lexicon. 0:05:24.960 --> 0:05:27.200 We'll go over it real quick. They call themselves apes 0:05:27.240 --> 0:05:33.440 for reasons that are not worth explaining. Their enemy are 0:05:33.560 --> 0:05:40.680 short sellers. But short sellers are like doctor Burry short 0:05:40.800 --> 0:05:45.200 sold the housing market, and Burry is that's Christian Bales character, right, 0:05:45.279 --> 0:05:48.480 Christian Bales character. Yeah, yeah, yeah, Like all of the 0:05:48.520 --> 0:05:53.080 main characters in that movie short sold the housing market 0:05:53.200 --> 0:05:55.520 like that. That was their play. That was the big 0:05:55.560 --> 0:05:58.320 short was. They're like, look, there's this bubble, We're going 0:05:58.400 --> 0:06:00.919 to short sell it. Then when the price goes down, 0:06:02.000 --> 0:06:08.960 we close our positions out and keep a tremendous amount 0:06:08.960 --> 0:06:09.680 of money. 0:06:09.560 --> 0:06:11.919 And I should we should go just because when I 0:06:12.000 --> 0:06:14.880 watched this with a friend, they did not know what 0:06:14.920 --> 0:06:18.640 short selling was. It's not I think, a normal It's 0:06:18.640 --> 0:06:20.320 not a thing normal people where it will ever be 0:06:20.360 --> 0:06:22.560 in a position to do. The basic idea and this 0:06:22.600 --> 0:06:24.960 is all occurring with like stocks and commodities, But the 0:06:25.000 --> 0:06:28.320 basic idea is you make an agreement with somebody to 0:06:28.920 --> 0:06:33.159 get basically a loan of a bunch of shares in something, right, 0:06:34.240 --> 0:06:37.040 and with the understanding that you will give those back 0:06:37.440 --> 0:06:40.280 at a point in the future. And then you take 0:06:40.320 --> 0:06:43.880 those and you immediately sell them for their their present value, right, 0:06:44.400 --> 0:06:49.280 and your hope, your play at like goal is that 0:06:49.720 --> 0:06:52.760 the value of that drops and then you are able 0:06:52.800 --> 0:06:55.520 to buy back an equivalent amount to repay the loan 0:06:55.720 --> 0:06:57.960 and have made a profit based on the gap between 0:06:58.000 --> 0:06:58.719 those two numbers. 0:06:58.800 --> 0:07:01.880 Right, that's the idea. That's that's the that's the idea. 0:07:02.080 --> 0:07:06.240 You you can as an individual like do this. You can, 0:07:06.400 --> 0:07:08.720 you can take out a short position with your broker, 0:07:08.880 --> 0:07:11.840 you can. You can do it through derivatives like puts. 0:07:12.840 --> 0:07:14.400 I wouldn't recommend it. 0:07:14.640 --> 0:07:18.360 Yeah, it's it's kind of normal people's stock stuff. 0:07:18.440 --> 0:07:21.480 Yeah, it's not normal people's stock stuff. Like you're there's 0:07:21.520 --> 0:07:24.320 nothing legally barring you from doing it, but it it 0:07:24.400 --> 0:07:26.640 really is kind of this like advanced play. You got 0:07:26.680 --> 0:07:29.800 to know what's going on, especially because like a thing 0:07:29.920 --> 0:07:32.000 that a lot of people in the description sort of 0:07:32.040 --> 0:07:34.560 skip over, is it. Well, you're borrowing it. You know, 0:07:34.600 --> 0:07:37.600 you're borrowing a thing, and thus there's the expectation that 0:07:37.640 --> 0:07:43.320 you'll pay some kind of like you know, borrower's fee 0:07:43.440 --> 0:07:46.200 akin to a kin to interest on like the value 0:07:46.200 --> 0:07:49.720 of the thing that you've borrowed. Uh, but like it's 0:07:49.840 --> 0:07:53.600 it's not interest on you know, like a housing loan 0:07:53.640 --> 0:07:56.840 where the interest and like where your payments all are 0:07:56.880 --> 0:07:59.320 geared towards paying off the loan. It's just kind of like, 0:07:59.360 --> 0:08:02.760 all right, you ow me five bucks every single month 0:08:02.800 --> 0:08:06.560 forever as long as you're holding this. And so you know, 0:08:06.640 --> 0:08:08.840 if you're not paying attention, like you need to be 0:08:08.960 --> 0:08:12.800 very actively managing these kinds of positions otherwise like your 0:08:12.840 --> 0:08:15.520 borrowing fees will just eat up all of your profit. 0:08:16.960 --> 0:08:19.280 Yeah, And it's the kind of thing where like today 0:08:19.520 --> 0:08:22.000 most of those kind of kinds of trades aren't even 0:08:22.040 --> 0:08:25.440 really made by people directly. They're made by massive banks 0:08:25.480 --> 0:08:30.480 of computers and algorithms and shit kind of yeah. Yeah, yeah, Anyway, 0:08:30.560 --> 0:08:33.319 I think that's that's enough background back to the kind 0:08:33.360 --> 0:08:35.319 of cult aspect of it, which is I think much 0:08:35.360 --> 0:08:38.800 more relevant for what we're talking about here. One of 0:08:38.840 --> 0:08:41.840 the points you made early on that I found really 0:08:41.880 --> 0:08:45.520 interesting is is that a significant amount of the initial 0:08:45.559 --> 0:08:48.640 game stock game stops I'm going to keep doing that 0:08:48.960 --> 0:08:53.880 hype was driven by influencers, right, and that there's evidence 0:08:53.920 --> 0:08:56.480 based on kind of the US government's analysis of this 0:08:56.559 --> 0:09:00.520 that got published that like regulators are paying additional tension 0:09:00.800 --> 0:09:05.200 increasing attention to the influences that or to the impact 0:09:05.240 --> 0:09:07.560 that influencers can have here because there's this concern that, 0:09:07.640 --> 0:09:11.200 especially working in groups, there's like an ability for people 0:09:11.280 --> 0:09:14.160 like this to disrupt the economy to a significant extent, 0:09:14.200 --> 0:09:16.600 to a way that would affect like normal people. 0:09:17.120 --> 0:09:20.240 Yeah, so one of the weird kind of so pump 0:09:20.240 --> 0:09:24.480 and dumps have existed forever, right. The thing was is 0:09:24.520 --> 0:09:27.280 that so the the memes stock run up, it wasn't 0:09:27.320 --> 0:09:31.400 just GameStop. It was about like fifteen twenty, like in 0:09:31.520 --> 0:09:34.440 January twenty twenty one, like so late twenty twenty, early 0:09:34.480 --> 0:09:38.440 twenty twenty one. It was about fifteen twenty different companies, 0:09:38.520 --> 0:09:42.200 you know, Nokia, BlackBerry, bed Bath and Beyond, like you know, 0:09:42.880 --> 0:09:46.040 just kind of a bunch of over the hill companies 0:09:46.679 --> 0:09:50.600 that were all sort of part of this this wave. 0:09:51.200 --> 0:09:56.520 And the issue was that in the game stop price 0:09:56.600 --> 0:09:59.680 run up. So the price went from at the end 0:09:59.720 --> 0:10:02.320 of tw twenty twenty as everybody like as sort of 0:10:02.320 --> 0:10:06.640 the meme wave like begins, and particularly once Ryan Cohen, 0:10:07.240 --> 0:10:12.880 billionaire Chewy founder Chewy the Cat treat or dog online 0:10:12.920 --> 0:10:16.120 dog food sales. Yeah. Yeah, when he buys in like 0:10:16.120 --> 0:10:18.280 that kind of like puts the stamp of approval on 0:10:18.320 --> 0:10:20.679 the whole thing. So it goes from like four and 0:10:20.720 --> 0:10:25.200 a half dollars up to nineteen something. And then at 0:10:25.200 --> 0:10:28.480 the end of January, it goes from nineteen twenty dollars 0:10:28.600 --> 0:10:32.080 up to four hundred and eighty, and so in that 0:10:32.280 --> 0:10:36.800 spread the short sales, so there was short interest in 0:10:36.880 --> 0:10:39.480 game Stop. There was, in fact a reckless amount of 0:10:39.480 --> 0:10:43.560 short interest in game Stop, but the price increase was 0:10:43.600 --> 0:10:48.160 so huge, the volume of participation was so big, so 0:10:48.440 --> 0:10:53.480 many people were jumping on this that the short interest 0:10:53.920 --> 0:10:57.880 closing their position. The actual like short squeeze portion of 0:10:57.920 --> 0:11:02.160 all of this is only like ten percent of the 0:11:02.200 --> 0:11:05.880 price movement. All the rest of it is just people 0:11:06.400 --> 0:11:09.600 fomoing in on like this thing that they heard about 0:11:09.679 --> 0:11:10.400 through their cousin. 0:11:10.880 --> 0:11:22.280 Yeah. 0:11:22.360 --> 0:11:24.600 I think another thing that's kind of interesting to me 0:11:24.679 --> 0:11:27.000 is like, as this thing has evolved, you know, you 0:11:27.080 --> 0:11:29.240 mentioned that the actual price got up to like close 0:11:29.280 --> 0:11:32.040 around five hundred dollars by the time this thing kind 0:11:32.080 --> 0:11:36.280 of transitions into being this millenarian kind of apocalypse cult, right, 0:11:36.400 --> 0:11:38.920 like not you know, nukes and stuff, end of days 0:11:38.960 --> 0:11:43.080 apocalypse generally, but like the entire economy is going to come. 0:11:43.280 --> 0:11:46.160 The belief that kind of has evolved broadly and that 0:11:46.240 --> 0:11:49.000 obviously there's different kind of factions is but is that 0:11:49.120 --> 0:11:51.440 like there is going to come a point where like 0:11:52.160 --> 0:11:55.920 the price of game Stop stock will increase to such 0:11:55.920 --> 0:11:58.600 an insane some people say hundreds of millions, billions of 0:11:58.600 --> 0:12:03.040 dollars per share, that it effectively allows all of these 0:12:03.120 --> 0:12:06.120 apes who have bought shares to hold the entire world 0:12:06.160 --> 0:12:12.079 economy hostage until they have there but increasingly arcane demands met. Right, Yeah, 0:12:12.080 --> 0:12:14.160 that is the belief, and that is the belief. 0:12:14.440 --> 0:12:16.920 So so out of that, like so okay, So the 0:12:16.960 --> 0:12:19.440 short's closing was only like about ten percent of the 0:12:19.840 --> 0:12:26.360 of the total movement. So that leads to the conclusion 0:12:27.160 --> 0:12:31.120 that you know that the events of January twenty twenty 0:12:31.120 --> 0:12:36.800 one weren't a short squeeze, which is actually kind of true, 0:12:36.840 --> 0:12:39.200 Like it wasn't it wasn't purely a short squeeze. It 0:12:39.240 --> 0:12:41.400 was actually very little of it was a short squeeze. 0:12:42.480 --> 0:12:45.840 But because it wasn't a short squeeze, like that term 0:12:46.120 --> 0:12:50.600 then allows the creative individual to fill in the gap 0:12:50.679 --> 0:12:53.080 and just say that it's like just say this, like, oh, 0:12:53.280 --> 0:12:59.280 the short squeeze never happened. Therefore it's still on the 0:12:59.360 --> 0:13:03.600 table the shorts like it the end. You know, it 0:13:03.640 --> 0:13:07.680 hasn't happened yet, therefore it can still potentially happen. And 0:13:07.880 --> 0:13:11.280 in fact, if we just like look at the trend line, 0:13:11.320 --> 0:13:14.679 like I bet since it hasn't happened, since it didn't happen, 0:13:14.880 --> 0:13:18.000 and the position that they held in December was so reckless, 0:13:18.320 --> 0:13:22.200 it's only gotten worse since, which means that they're getting 0:13:22.400 --> 0:13:25.080 which means that these short sellers must be getting desperate, 0:13:25.120 --> 0:13:27.360 which means they're going to be willing to engage in 0:13:27.720 --> 0:13:33.439 whatever level of depraved criminal activity is necessary to protect themselves. Therefore, 0:13:33.440 --> 0:13:37.240 it's just getting more and more and more and more extreme. Therefore, 0:13:37.640 --> 0:13:40.199 when this finally goes off, it's not just going to 0:13:40.240 --> 0:13:42.040 be like it's not just going to be a five 0:13:42.120 --> 0:13:44.120 hundred dollars price point. It's going to be a nuclear 0:13:44.120 --> 0:13:47.720 explosion that's going to topple the entire economy. Yeah, And 0:13:47.760 --> 0:13:51.120 that's this like train of logic and what they and 0:13:51.360 --> 0:13:53.920 it all comes from that, just like missing the fact 0:13:53.960 --> 0:13:57.040 that it's like, oh, it wasn't a short squeeze because 0:13:57.040 --> 0:13:59.559 it was mostly fomo. The short squeeze was buried under 0:13:59.600 --> 0:14:04.880 a mountain of of fomo. Yeah, but so it wasn't 0:14:04.880 --> 0:14:06.560 a short scool. It's like, yeah, it's all just like 0:14:06.600 --> 0:14:08.560 based in these like word games of like, ah, you 0:14:08.600 --> 0:14:11.080 said it was you know that the dumb and dumber. 0:14:11.360 --> 0:14:12.920 You know, it's like, what are the odds a one 0:14:12.920 --> 0:14:15.800 in million, So you're saying there's a chance it's well, yeah, 0:14:15.840 --> 0:14:17.160 that's not what I'm say. 0:14:18.480 --> 0:14:21.880 It's interesting because of the impossibility of the things they're 0:14:21.880 --> 0:14:25.160 actually hoping for, but also their fundamental belief that like 0:14:25.280 --> 0:14:28.160 it's inevitable, in part because you know, this is this 0:14:28.320 --> 0:14:32.120 is not wildly different from the psychology of like needing 0:14:32.160 --> 0:14:35.600 to believe in uh that you are going to paradise 0:14:35.640 --> 0:14:36.280 in the after. 0:14:36.200 --> 0:14:37.720 Yeah, hallmarks of millennarians. 0:14:37.920 --> 0:14:41.960 Yeah, yeah, because of that, what you get is a 0:14:42.000 --> 0:14:44.920 lot of people who think that they are thinking scientifically, 0:14:45.200 --> 0:14:47.000 but what they're doing is taking an endpoint. And the 0:14:47.120 --> 0:14:49.720 endpoint is that you know this specific you know, the 0:14:49.720 --> 0:14:53.560 these hedge funds or whatever are are evil and you know, 0:14:54.080 --> 0:14:57.800 illegally bribing or whatever the government to stop us from succeeding, 0:14:57.960 --> 0:15:01.280 or there's this other conspiracy. You're starting with this endpoint 0:15:01.560 --> 0:15:04.680 and then working backwards and like finding ways to explain 0:15:04.760 --> 0:15:07.520 the things that have happened within that framework. 0:15:07.680 --> 0:15:09.760 Like the things that would need to be true in 0:15:09.960 --> 0:15:11.320 order for the yeah thing. 0:15:11.200 --> 0:15:13.600 To happen, like the thing that like Citadel must have 0:15:13.800 --> 0:15:16.840 ordered robin Hood to stop letting people buy and share 0:15:17.120 --> 0:15:20.640 game stock stocks rather than like, you know what what 0:15:20.840 --> 0:15:24.720 actually happened, which is that robin Hood simply like could 0:15:24.720 --> 0:15:28.760 not exist if they allowed this to continue. Yeah, and 0:15:28.840 --> 0:15:31.400 you know, legally, I don't believe there's anything that was 0:15:31.440 --> 0:15:36.880 stopping them from doing that. It's medieval peasant brain kind 0:15:36.920 --> 0:15:38.800 of stuff, is what I initially like. That's how when 0:15:38.840 --> 0:15:40.680 I was watching your documentary, I was like, oh, it's 0:15:40.720 --> 0:15:43.520 this you know, this need to find this kind of 0:15:43.560 --> 0:15:46.400 like magical answer to the problem. And then I like 0:15:46.920 --> 0:15:50.240 interrogated that conclusion and was like, well, no, it's not. 0:15:50.320 --> 0:15:52.600 This is just the way people's brains work, right, Yeah, 0:15:52.640 --> 0:15:55.400 like we're pattern making. This isn't medieval peasant shit. They're 0:15:55.400 --> 0:15:59.200 no dumber than we are. Like, yeah, that's what this shows. 0:15:59.680 --> 0:16:01.280 Yeah. And one of the things that I love just 0:16:01.360 --> 0:16:03.280 kind of on that is that, like you if you 0:16:03.320 --> 0:16:05.200 had a time machine and you went back one hundred 0:16:05.240 --> 0:16:09.280 thousand years and and found a bunch of you know, 0:16:09.640 --> 0:16:14.600 homoliteral literal cavemen, yeah, actual apes more or less, you know, 0:16:15.240 --> 0:16:18.480 like hundred thousand years ago. That's that's modern humans. Like 0:16:19.040 --> 0:16:23.480 genetically that's genetically modern humans. You could just like implant 0:16:23.520 --> 0:16:26.920 yourself in their tribe and teach them calculus and you know. 0:16:28.400 --> 0:16:33.720 Yeah suh that it's like like we're like things don't 0:16:33.760 --> 0:16:34.240 change it. 0:16:34.240 --> 0:16:36.160 It's like it's like, yeah, no, we've been We've been 0:16:36.160 --> 0:16:39.320 doing this ever since we were you know, this pattern 0:16:39.400 --> 0:16:43.080 seeking doesn't change. It's almost like it is basically endemic 0:16:43.160 --> 0:16:48.680 to the human psyche. There's a really good question that 0:16:48.680 --> 0:16:51.240 that I've gotten in response to this is just like 0:16:51.760 --> 0:16:55.400 is this just secular religion? Like is this just are 0:16:55.440 --> 0:17:01.480 we just like wired to need faith in some shape 0:17:01.560 --> 0:17:05.840 or form and if that is not provided by some institution, 0:17:05.960 --> 0:17:09.280 we will just invent it. And it's like I don't 0:17:09.320 --> 0:17:14.560 have the answer to that, but sign's point to yes. Yeah. 0:17:14.760 --> 0:17:17.960 Now, So I wanted to talk a little bit about 0:17:18.000 --> 0:17:19.760 one of the other things that you brought up that 0:17:19.800 --> 0:17:23.480 I thought was interesting is the way you've got this 0:17:23.480 --> 0:17:27.680 this cast of and these are you know, the influencers. 0:17:27.680 --> 0:17:29.680 These are the people who make a lot of these 0:17:29.800 --> 0:17:33.480 like arcane videos or put out these publish these prospectuses 0:17:33.520 --> 0:17:36.920 with there are dozens or hundreds of pages laying out 0:17:37.040 --> 0:17:39.399 you know, the arcana of how these different sort of 0:17:40.640 --> 0:17:46.440 anticipated apocalyptic financial moves are going to go out, right, Yeah, 0:17:46.480 --> 0:17:49.439 a lot of these people the belief is that that 0:17:49.480 --> 0:17:51.080 I think is accurate at least this is what I 0:17:51.119 --> 0:17:53.320 got from your documentary. Maybe I was interpreting you wrong, 0:17:53.400 --> 0:17:55.760 is that most of these or many of these people 0:17:55.840 --> 0:17:59.560 are not believers. They're manipulating a group of people because 0:17:59.600 --> 0:18:03.399 there's in it. And one of the tactics that you 0:18:03.440 --> 0:18:06.280 see used a lot is kind of faux humility. Right, 0:18:06.640 --> 0:18:08.800 I'm just a dumb ape. You shouldn't trust me. I'm 0:18:08.840 --> 0:18:11.240 not qualified to give financial advice. But here's the secret 0:18:11.280 --> 0:18:13.520 history of the universe. To invest your money here now. 0:18:14.720 --> 0:18:17.000 So, I mean you've seen this a lot with Yeah, 0:18:17.080 --> 0:18:20.320 with various like cult leaders and pseudo cult leaders and 0:18:20.440 --> 0:18:23.720 just general like grift fluencers. You know, there's always this 0:18:23.800 --> 0:18:27.400 question of like how much of their own how much 0:18:27.400 --> 0:18:29.679 of their own hype do they believe? How much did 0:18:29.720 --> 0:18:32.959 they believe when they started, how much did they eventually 0:18:33.040 --> 0:18:37.800 just like convince themselves of as people you know, follow them, 0:18:37.840 --> 0:18:40.399 And I think it's it's very much like kind of 0:18:40.400 --> 0:18:43.840 a an individual case by case basis. Some of them 0:18:43.840 --> 0:18:47.840 are absolutely true believers. Like from the get go, some 0:18:47.920 --> 0:18:51.480 of them, like a lot of them are like soft believers, 0:18:51.960 --> 0:18:56.760 you know, you know where it's like they're not hardcore 0:18:56.880 --> 0:18:59.600 into it, you know, if you really pressed them, Like 0:18:59.640 --> 0:19:03.879 it's not motivating their their daily decisions. But what they're 0:19:03.920 --> 0:19:07.560 taking from it is like social reinforcement. That they've found 0:19:07.640 --> 0:19:11.159 a group of people who respond to them, who like 0:19:11.280 --> 0:19:14.400 their posts, who leave messages. It's like, oh man, this 0:19:14.440 --> 0:19:17.479 blew my mind. I can't believe the system is like 0:19:17.560 --> 0:19:22.840 this fragile. You know, my tits are jacked, lighting the 0:19:22.880 --> 0:19:25.960 fuse on the rocket ship, buying more moon tickets, you know. 0:19:26.040 --> 0:19:29.840 And they and they respond to that very socially, and 0:19:29.840 --> 0:19:32.679 and and out of that sort of soup of like 0:19:33.520 --> 0:19:39.760 reinforcing messages, it's really easy for people in those influencer 0:19:39.800 --> 0:19:44.880 positions to just kind of like hold conflicting like hold 0:19:44.920 --> 0:19:48.440 the conflicting beliefs of like, I know that this is impossible, 0:19:48.520 --> 0:19:53.200 but also it is like fulfilling me socially to say 0:19:53.240 --> 0:19:57.200 these things. I'll just I'll just juggle that inconsistency. 0:19:57.960 --> 0:20:01.919 Yeah, And the way the panics of social media, and 0:20:01.920 --> 0:20:04.280 particularly in this case, it's the mechanics largely of Reddit. 0:20:04.320 --> 0:20:06.320 That's not the only place this occurs, but Reddit is 0:20:06.359 --> 0:20:10.919 certainly like the homeland. You could say, the way in 0:20:10.960 --> 0:20:12.840 which up votes and down votes work, and the way 0:20:12.840 --> 0:20:16.159 in which upvotes and down votes take you know, critical 0:20:16.359 --> 0:20:20.240 content people who are trying to induce some accuracy or 0:20:20.280 --> 0:20:23.120 you might even say sanity in the discussion, and that 0:20:23.119 --> 0:20:26.880 that gets pushed down and hidden after a certain point 0:20:26.880 --> 0:20:29.080 of time with enough down votes, as opposed to like 0:20:29.840 --> 0:20:34.439 the stuff that is fundamentally unhinged but is like utopian 0:20:34.920 --> 0:20:38.679 gets upvoted. It's it's the the physical, like the actual 0:20:38.720 --> 0:20:41.920 mechanics of how the site is structured to work enforce 0:20:42.040 --> 0:20:44.880 fund at a fundamental level, enforced group think consensus. 0:20:45.119 --> 0:20:48.000 Absolutely. Oh and I mean in the best part about it, 0:20:48.080 --> 0:20:51.160 and we see this across like all across Reddit communities, 0:20:51.560 --> 0:20:54.240 which is this like it is it it's the social 0:20:54.320 --> 0:20:58.119 enforcement of truth that that people will take this social 0:20:58.160 --> 0:21:01.600 mechanism of up votes and down votes and use it 0:21:01.760 --> 0:21:05.560 as proof against the claim that it's like, oh, well, 0:21:05.640 --> 0:21:10.639 if if your negative sentiment were true, it would have 0:21:10.680 --> 0:21:14.720 been up voted. Yeah, because like there's this underline, there's 0:21:14.760 --> 0:21:18.960 this kind of just like implicit belief that people will 0:21:19.080 --> 0:21:23.879 recognize truth and will upvote truth, and thus up votes 0:21:23.920 --> 0:21:28.440 and down votes are are an accurate filter on reality 0:21:29.600 --> 0:21:35.320 which is demonstrably not true. So yeah, that's intensely at 0:21:35.320 --> 0:21:37.480 play here because you'll see apes who will then like 0:21:37.640 --> 0:21:41.080 reference the fact that like that, you know that. It's like, 0:21:41.240 --> 0:21:47.040 if this insane theory were false, why did it get 0:21:47.119 --> 0:21:51.879 so many up votes? And it's like, well, because it it. 0:21:52.160 --> 0:21:56.280 It hypes you up. It makes you. People are irrational. 0:21:56.320 --> 0:21:58.480 You got a tingly feeling in your tummy when you 0:21:58.600 --> 0:22:00.680 read it and the person told you that you were 0:22:00.720 --> 0:22:03.800 going to be a millionaire. Yeah, that's why. 0:22:03.440 --> 0:22:06.080 It's like asking why do we like magicians? 0:22:07.400 --> 0:22:08.800 Of course we like magicians. 0:22:09.160 --> 0:22:11.400 It's it looks nice, it's fun, it makes us feel 0:22:11.440 --> 0:22:12.280 a sense of wonder. 0:22:12.680 --> 0:22:23.160 Yeah. 0:22:23.240 --> 0:22:25.560 I want to discuss one of the terms that you 0:22:25.720 --> 0:22:27.560 use a lot that I missed the first couple of 0:22:27.640 --> 0:22:29.159 times because I'm not I'm not. This is not a 0:22:29.160 --> 0:22:32.000 community I had studied. I thought you misspoke at first 0:22:32.080 --> 0:22:35.840 when you described like someone reached achieving a financial wind 0:22:36.080 --> 0:22:38.720 fall as wife changing money. I just thought you, like, 0:22:38.760 --> 0:22:40.680 I do that all the time. That show it's delivererate. 0:22:40.920 --> 0:22:45.560 That's yes, yeah, no, no, and I was like, oh, okay, 0:22:45.680 --> 0:22:47.720 this is a thing they say. Yeah, a lot of 0:22:47.760 --> 0:22:49.600 people are like, I thought you misspoke. I'm like, no, 0:22:49.680 --> 0:22:51.719 that's because I was tricking you. Like I was. I 0:22:51.760 --> 0:22:54.800 was deliberately like very light in this term, like because 0:22:54.880 --> 0:22:57.159 like because they use it like obviously as a as 0:22:57.200 --> 0:23:00.240 an entendre. And I was just like okay, like I'll 0:23:00.280 --> 0:23:03.640 just use it straight faced with no explanation three four 0:23:03.680 --> 0:23:06.879 times and then finally explain it at the end and 0:23:07.040 --> 0:23:11.480 make a lot of people angry when they realize that, like, no, 0:23:11.840 --> 0:23:15.720 they weren't just mishearing me. Yeah. So that's one of 0:23:15.760 --> 0:23:17.280 those things like that goes to sort of the four 0:23:17.359 --> 0:23:20.840 Chan roots of all of this, which is, you know, 0:23:20.960 --> 0:23:26.960 the sort of like crass irreverence slash misogyny of of 0:23:27.480 --> 0:23:33.040 chan speak and just this you know, Wall Street bets 0:23:33.080 --> 0:23:36.720 will use this kind of like celebration of making so 0:23:36.840 --> 0:23:41.359