Eat the Rich: Wie Die GameStop-Aktie Die Wallstreet Auf Den Kopf Stellte

The whole thing felt like some sort of low effort attempt to capitlize on the Gamestop craze. As someone who works in finance I was annoyed at the how many things were not entirely accurate, misleading, or just plain wrong. I watched this wanting to know more about the people involved and more about not only what happened during the short squeeze from January 2021 but wanting to know more about what is currently happening with Gamestop and was dissapointed on both fronts. There former was poorly explained and instead I had to suffer through memes that were shoehorned in for fan service and the latter non-existent. No mention of the direct registration movement, how a small group of investors currently own 55% of the free float (and growing) of a multi-billion dollar company, or any analysis into the realistic economic impact. I wish I hadn't wasted my time and am writing this in the hopes that it saves someone else hours of their life that would be better spent other ways. I honestly can't imagine who would get anything out of this series and struggle with identifying who the target audience even is because it sure isn't "people who want to know more about the Gamestop saga".

The makers missed the point of the whole movement and who is to blame for the current situation. No mention of the current driver behind the movement (Superstonk subreddit) or the never before seen move by retail investors to direct register their shares and pull them off the market to prevent abusive short selling by hedge funds. It's almost as if this documentary was made or influenced by those in power that have something to lose if the little man succeeds. Any authentic look at the GameStop saga must at it's heart center around the primary motivation to fight corruption in the system and take on these global financial powers, not the "Eat The Rich" mentality this documentary pitches. This story is far from over and will not end until people at the center of the corruption in the financial world are held accountable.

Listen, I know Netflix Documentaries are usually said to not be too good and/or biased. But to be fair I'm not here to get, like, all the details and information from only this source HOWEVER what I'm here fore is a basic understanding and rundown of things so I can see if it is worth my time to do my own research.

I didn't really watch the news around the time all of this went down so "GameStop" was only "that one American company that kinda crashed the Wallstreet or something" to me. This little documentary series was amazing to give me a quick overview of what happened, so that I now have a (admittedly probably very rough) picture of the whole thing.

It might have felt very subjective but I still appreciated the opportunity to save me a tremendous amout of time for research. Admittedly, this was the most comfortable option.

I have no horse in this race but I was active on the wsb and superstonk subreddits to know they didn't present the whole thing. First off I just hate when documentaries and movies like the big short assume that people would lose interest if they explained things like shorting, margin calls or any other things that are central to the story. I don't want a chef or Margot Robbie or some distraction to be fed the critical information that I need for understanding the documentary. Secondly the interviews in this 'documentary' in particular makes Liam Neeson's action scenes look like a one take cinematic masterpiece. They are so chopped up they are the equivalent of a ransom note. Like let the guy speak for a minute would you? Third even though I can't definitively say this documentary is biased to the one side, it sure seemed like they omitted or brushed past lots of relevant details especially surrounding Robinhood and the big banks. I don't know if they interviewed some people to represent the day traders and redditors and they chose the guy who would be a clear opposite in contrast to the Wall Street guys or what but I cringed watching that interview and thought this guy must be hired or the video highly edited.

I don't live in the US and have never participated in anything resembling a stock market and I could clearly see this needed a lot of input before airing. Don't watch this to know about the GameStop saga. The best thing about this documentary is that if you suffer from insomnia this really helps you get some good nap right infront of your tv. It also creates a conducive environment to just leave it on and have sex with your partner. In some ways this documentary is one step backward for documentary film making but one giant leap in therapy.

For all the people blasting the series with low ratings or one star I don't think they actually watched the entire series. This is worth a watch if you like documentaries or interested in investing or how markets work.

I had no bias going into the series. There may be more pieces to the puzzle but my takeaway was this was more about large hedge funds and big investment firms having a leg up on retail investors, these same companies can drive prices and fluctuate the market in a way retail investors can't, including actively betting on a company to fail, so retail investors are at a disadvantage, and then when retail investors push back collectively and gain traction, the rug is pulled out from under them by the platform they are using who would appear to be involved in a conflict of interest in the stock that's being pushed.

I never thought this painted retail investors as dumb. I thought this was more of a hit on the hedge fund managers and that big money will prevail and that the government doesn't seem equipped to handle or doesn't want to handle it. I thought it was commendable on what the retail investors and online users were able to achieve. The hedge funds have found "loopholes" for lack of a better term that to most of us would probably seem shady or manipulative. It even gets referenced that this is a classic David vs Goliath situation. I enjoyed it, thought it was compelling, and certainly not understanding of all the negativity in the reviews.