The still ongoing story behind the recent GameStop stock manipulation is continuing to grip onlookers due to the online narrative of the little guys on Reddit going up against massive hedge funds. However, there's been an interesting trend that has started to take off in the wake of the news of questionable stock trading practices by companies like Robinhood hitting mainstream media.
A result of the market manipulation of GameStop's stock has led to two movies from the last decade to gain newfound interest, since they show a stylized focus on the stock market and the hedge funds and big fish that exploit it. These would be The Big Short and The Wolf of Wall Street, which each took separate looks at classic stories of big money businesses taking advantage of market strategies and acts of fraud.
Of the two, The Big Short makes a poignant commentary on the current GameStop stock situation by focusing on a similar situation that happened during in 2006 and 2007. The movie itself follows the events that led up to the mortgage crisis that kicked off what has now been regarded as the Great Recession, which involved hedge funds betting against the US mortgage market. The whole situation itself is almost a one-to-one for what had been happening before r/Wallstreetbets stepped in to interfere with the stock shorting, only on a scale that affected the majority of the country.
On the other side of this coin is The Wolf of Wall Street, starring Leonardo DiCaprio, which goes through the life of real-life stock broker Jordan Belfort, who eventually fell from grace as a result of being caught for fraud. It's no wonder that both of these movies have taken off in the wake of the whole GameStop stock situation, thanks to how closely Belfort's business practices mirror the recent market manipulation that has been at the forefront of mainstream media. Some live metrics such as the iTunes movie charts have seen both of these movies jump to numbers 3 and 4 since the situation hit the news, being barely beat out by Tenet and Greenland.
This whole situation with stock shorting and betting against companies has really opened the eyes of a lot of Americans who previously hadn't really understood how this type of trading was organized. There are now disgruntled users review bombing the Robinhood trading app for having closed off buyers from participating in the market, and politicians in discussions about regulation. So, if trending metrics like the popularity of The Big Short or The Wolf of Wall Street mean anything, it's that people are paying attention, and it's going to be harder for these kind of practices to go on unnoticed in the future.
Source: GameSpot