Remember those great cameos in "The Big Short," when the likes of Selena Gomez, Margot Robbie, and the late Anthony Bourdain broke the fourth wall to explain arcane terminology like synthetic collateralized debt obligation? Netflix's three-part docuseries "Eat the Rich: The GameStop Saga" takes a similar approach in explaining the GameStop stock phenomenon, not through flashy celebrity cameos, but with a straightforward, clear, and entertaining approach. following the rebound in stocks. prices in one of the strangest financial stories of our time.
As Denzel Washington's Joe Miller would say in "Philadelphia," they explain it to us like we're 6-year-olds, and somehow make sense of the David vs. Goliath battle pitting a group of smart, subversive, and driven Reddits against each other. users against the giants of Wall Street. Through an entertaining mix of interviews with hedge fund managers, journalists, and retail investors explaining the phenomenon from different sides, augmented by a steady stream of clear, concise charts and often hilariously witty viral video clips, "Eat the Rich" walks us through the insanity of GameStop history, and we come out the other side understanding what happened. Okay. Most of what happened.
GameStop's story has been told in a couple of previous documentaries and will be given the fictional treatment in the upcoming film "Dumb Money" starring Seth Rogen, Pete Davidson, Sebastian Stan and Paul Dano. In this entry, director Theo Love takes us through the timeline and across the country to tell the story, which begins in 2020, when Jim Cramer of TV fame wakes up after being sidelined for a week after back surgery and finds to his amazement that GameStop was flying by and jumping on the phone to proclaim on CNBC, “There is no one involved with GameStop who would accept the fact that this company should be at $338. Take the home run, don't go for the grand slam! You have already won! You have won the game!”
Cramer thought he was doing investors a favor, but he quickly became the target of thousands of memes and a million trolling comments. "I don't even understand what I did," says Cramer. "What did I do? What is your mission? What are they determined to do, change the face of capitalism?”
This is a common theme throughout the series: the older establishment, including hedge fund managers, traditional wealthy investors, TV commentators, and eventually Congress, didn't understand what they were up against, i.e. , a group of retail investors aka day traders who congregated on Reddit and used the Robinhood app to make their investments. In the eyes of heavy hitters like Gabe Plotkin, the founder of Melvin Capital Management, who had made a $400 million short bet on Nintendo, the creaky old GameStop would become the next Blockbuster or Sam Goody. The short sale was underway. What the giants did not imagine was some kind of attack by an army of Reddit users who had other plans.
We met with retail investors like Eddie Koo of Englewood, New Jersey, a family man trying to earn a few extra bucks during the pandemic; Mikey Guggenheim, a retail investor who looks a bit like Will Ferrell's character in "Zoolander" and does a rap number about GameStop's history, and Alvan Chow, an amateur speculator who couldn't get a job on Wall Street but turned his $25,000 investment in GameStop at $8 million
How did GameStop become such a phenomenon? It's not like their business model suddenly changed and the company started making huge profits. It was more of a confluence of events. A legendary and hugely popular retail investor known as "DeepF—Value" on Reddit and "Roaring Kitty" on YouTube posted a video saying he was making a big bet on GameStop. Ryan Cohen, co-founder of Chewy.com, announced that he would buy 9% of the company. Billionaire venture capitalist Chamath Palihapitiya tweeted asking what he should buy next, and hundreds of users on the subreddit known as wallstreetbets suggested GameStop. Elon Musk joined in on the fun, tweeting: "Gamestonk!" The "short squeeze" was real, and it was spectacular.
At times, the move seemed to have little to do with GameStop, though many were beginning to believe the company was undervalued. Aside from some viral videos in Episode One chronicling the disappearance of a couple of GameStop outlets, we never actually visit a GameStop store or hear from its employees or board members.