What WSB daytraders are trying to do is to bleed out these hedge funds by buying in and holding. The stock doesn't even have to increase and the damage to the big hedge funds is already happening, see the situation that Melvin Capital is in. To those who participate it is a david vs. goliath situation.
The thing is, what they are trying to do is not that dumb and actually quite interesting, but they won't get anywhere by remaining "civil". They need this to spread and be on the frontpage of Reddit constantly. Negative or positive press helps, because more regular people want to participate if they hear about it.
I think that this will go down in history. Constant timeouts, organised selling at certain intervals, unnatural spikes, we've yet to hear about the shady stuff that keeps this stock from surging even faster considering the current "virality".
While Billions is one of the more realistic shows about finance, it is far from accurate enough to be compared to real life.
Where Congress (legislative branch) has been unwilling to pass any new regulations upon social media, the SEC (executive branch) is going to shut down these sorts of forums when they become disruptive.
Having worked in this field, while the SEC can sometimes be slow to act, the fact that it made the front page of the WSJ, it is only a matter of time before that hammer comes down.
...and Reddit isn't going to fight for this form (or any form) of Free Speech.
The asset bubble is an unintended consequence, it's the "lesser evil". But it's again the rich get richer.
Revolving door doing what it does best.
It's like the show Billions, actual wallstreet does what wsb is doing ALL THE TIME. You make money when someone else loses money, it's simple.
Except this time, the money isn't staying in the fraternity, it's being distributed out to the common folks.
Can't have that it seems.