GameStop: the mob that broke Wall Street

January 2021. A dying mall retailer, a subreddit full of degenerates with rocket emojis, and hedge funds so confident GameStop was finished that they'd shorted more shares than actually existed — over 100% of the float. That last part is the whole story: if shorts ever had to buy back in, there weren't enough shares to go around. Retail noticed. Retail bought. And kept buying.

The squeeze was mechanical, not magical: shorts bleeding, forced to buy shares to close, pushing the price higher, forcing more shorts to buy. A stock that started the month around $17 printed roughly $483 at the peak. A hedge fund needed a multi-billion-dollar bailout. For one week, a leaderless internet mob genuinely out-traded Wall Street at its own game.

Then the other half of the story. Brokers restricted buying at the exact moment momentum peaked — you could sell but not buy, and the chart did what charts do when only sellers remain. Within weeks the price sat near $40. The people who bought at $300+ because "it's going to $1,000, apes together strong" were holding the bag the legend gets remembered without. Coordinated conviction is real power. Timing decided who ate and who got eaten — it always does.