Robinhood Mania
Unless you’ve been hiding under a rock with spotty internet coverage, I’m guessing you’ve heard about the twisty, turny story of Reddit, Gamestop and the stock market by now. Admittedly, my only real stock market experience involves playing a simulation stock market game in the sixth grade, but I can still recognize that what’s happening right now is extremely unique. If you need a quick download on what’s going on in layman's terms, I found this and this explanation helpful. And for more advanced deep dive into how this could end, try this one.
In a nutshell: Redditors got excited about Gamestock (and later AMC) stock and also got annoyed about hedge funds betting against those businesses by shorting the stock. They (and likely other hedge funds and institutional investors as well) bought a bunch of the stock and drove up the price. This week, the stock price has been ping-ponging all over the place in a completely unpredictable way that has nothing to do with the value of the company and a few hedge funds lost a lot of money in the process. The situation escalated on Wednesday when Robinhood and other brokerages stopped allowing individuals to buy Gamestop and AMC stock on Thursday, only allowing them to sell. The story is evolving by the minute, and the saga briefly brought figures like AOC and Ted Cruz on the same side of the issue–although she quickly clapped back at his offer to collaborate, and it was everything the internet hoped and dreamed it would be. Things are still evolving, and it’s not totally clear how this will end. But I don’t think anyone will underestimate the power of a Redditor again. Michael Lewis, if you’re reading this, I hope you’re already hard at work on your next-next book.
In non-Gamestop news, Pepsi is blurring the lines between content and advertising even further, and co-creating a TV show. That’s right, co-creating, not sponsoring. It’s a branded six-episode game show on Fox, called CHERRIES WILD. The show will be hosted by Jason Biggs, the actor best known for AMERICAN PIE, and will premiere on Valentine’s Day. It sounds like the show concept is similar to a typical game show, and contestants will compete for cash by answering pop-culture questions. Viewers are able to join in the action as well, by downloading an app that allows them to play along and compete for money—during the ad break. This is definitely out-of-the-box thinking, and I for one am very curious to see if viewers watch and love it, or skeptically skip it.
Don’t worry, though. It’s not all transactional news this week. I also found myself obsessively refreshing Humans of New York’s Instagram these past 48 hours, for the latest on Sidra, a woman who grew up in Pakistan with dreams of creating something for herself. Sidra shares a sweeping but deeply relatable tale of pushing back on her parents’ plans for her future, leaving home, finding forbidden love, struggling with failure, and relentlessly pursuing her dreams—which might just involve building a brand you already know about. All 11 chapters are up now, so read through the whole story for a heartwarming start to your weekend!
And finally, two of my favorite TikToks this week: this video, in which a grandson takes viewers through the one-of-a-kind book his grandmother made to depict her life, and this video of falling snow that will make you instantly forget the stress of the workweek.
—Darlene Kenney, Marketing Assistant
