As an ex hedge fund / HFT options guy, I would be intrigued to know who is lending their stock out to be shorted. You'd think they have some incentive to stop lending them out, especially if the options are pushing the gamma so short that the sellers need to cover. If the options guys are needing to buy but nobody can sell, that would seem to be quite good for someone who is holding the stock.

I'm not so sure about the soccer moms thing. The FT has a chart of how many small players there are, and although it's shot up it doesn't look huge to me. Seems to me the WSB crowd IS making money, but there's probably more institutions jumping on for a piece of meat too.