The New Americans: Gaming a Revolution

I don't have anything new to add, so here is a great summary of some of the problems as summarized by Google Bard:

1. Information Overload: Some reviewers felt the film crammed too much information into a short runtime, leaving viewers overwhelmed and confused. The rapid-fire style and abundance of jargon could be disorienting, especially for those unfamiliar with the intricacies of finance and internet culture.

2. Unclear Stance: Critics questioned the film's overall message. Does it celebrate the democratization of finance or warn against the dangers of reckless speculation and online manipulation? The movie was seen as oscillating between portraying the retail traders as underdogs and irresponsible gamblers, lacking a clear perspective.

3. Lack of Scholarly Analysis: While presenting diverse voices, some reviewers missed in-depth expert analysis to contextualize the events and provide a broader understanding of the financial and societal implications. They felt the film relied heavily on personal anecdotes and interviews, hindering a deeper theoretical exploration.

4. Sensationalization: Some critics argued that the film played into the meme-driven, sensationalized aspects of online finance, neglecting the long-term consequences and potential harm it could inflict on individuals and markets. This concern arose from the fast-paced, energetic editing style, which resonated with the online frenzy it portrayed but risked trivializing the complex issues at hand.

5. Overlooked Connections: Certain reviewers felt the film missed or glossed over potentially crucial connections between the retail investor movement and larger societal issues like political extremism and misinformation. They argued that a more thorough investigation of these broader contexts would have enriched the narrative and offered a more comprehensive picture.

I am thinking that the makers of this mess never took Econ 101. General, industry specific, and commodity specific boom and bust of have been going on since the Bronze Age, and likely before. The most elementary econ courses start with the Bronze Age collapse, move to the Dutch tulip bulb boom and the 2008 housing credit market collapse brought upon by 1990's policies.

In this documentary these natural phenomena are somehow tied to the Jan 6, 2021 event, yet not tided to the much broader summer 2020 insurrection. In fact if you look at the digital currency boards on reddit there ae as many left wing/Antifa aligned major digital currency in those for quite a few years. And like the right winged ones they are trading in same idiocy, logical fallacy, poor understanding of banking or commodity history, and conspiracy theories about he government.

Somehow the makers of this jumble make Elon Musk a causal villain in the virtual currency disruptions, when anyone who understands that topic knows these disruptions and swings in a revolutionary new currency (with its good and bad aspects) would have occurred if Elon Musk did not exist. And contrary to what the film implies, this did not destroy a generation, it did what the Tulip craze, airline stocks, the Dot Com boom and bust, and other disruptions did: educate a generation that it is not all upside.

And why are we only seeing former Trump and Bush admin officials? The current major financial mess, he Silicon Valley Bank failure, where that banks board is 95% Democrat contributors and former administration members, and where the academics are already showing us that specific policies brought in under Democrat Banking committee head Barney Frank caused that issue, is germane in instructing this is a bipartisan phenomena (google: WSJ Barney Frank SVB)

There is an interesting and unintended irony in this documentary though. Politically partisan documentary makers are media, just as reddit is. There is no regulation of documentaries or old media either when they tell outright falsehoods, or systematic subtle falsehoods. All old media themselves, be they news media or film or documentary, engage in problematic and often false or deeply biased interpretations of events. I think this old media documentary maker is simply displaying the jealousy traditionally media has as it sunsets into irrelevance.

Really, reddit has some people trading and engaging in BS? People on twitter coalesce into left or right wing tribes and identarian groups? How shocking! CNN, Fox, NY Times -- and documentaries such as this trade in this nonsense, essentially a gigantic confirmation bias, all the time. If you go into it, without an agenda, and looking at the phenomena as it reflects all of our culture, you may produce an interesting documentary. If you go into it out of context , and with a goal for example of tying Jan 6 insurrection, but not mentioning equal or lets face it more broad and violent summer 2020 insurrection for the other side of poltical extremism, you will just find what you were looking for -- even if it is not accurate in the broader context.

Don't get me wrong, I happen to be a huge fan of Ondi Timoner. But this one is really unbearable to watch. The topic seems to be that the system that investors use is vulnerable to abuse, so why not abuse it? There is no moral to the story. It is just a long list of abusers telling all of us why they do it, what kind of a high they got by doing it and when they get their fix, how good it feels to get it again and again.

The high that the many subjects get from investing and pushing bogus stocks up and up is a strange form of psychosis -- they remove themselves from humanity, and even a mother of small children seems to get more emotional satisfaction out of referring to her endless streams of stock investments than she does from her kids playing somewhat ignored just a couple of feet away from her gigantic screens.

The odd thing that happens is that somehow the investors speed freakiness seems to permeate the storytelling so that the whole experience is one in which everything being displayed has to be shown in milliseconds and then suddenly vanishes before we have a second to grasp whatever it is we are watching.

The parallels between the structure of the film and the content of the interviews is such that one constantly seems to be trying to obscure the other, the visuals try to one-up the talking, and vice versa. Neither one is given even a moment to consider, to evaluate, to understand if there is any meaning to the process of investing in something regardless of how inane the product or company is -- as illustrated by the pumping up of GameStock, a totally insignificant dealer of video games, into the stratosphere, "just because we can."

As much as I wanted to enjoy this, I cannot recommend it, and so I have to caution anyone who thinks, as I do, that Ondi is a very competent and accomplished documentary filmmaker, but has utterly missed the mark on this one.

The New Americans was well-received at its world premiere at SXSW Film Festival. It attempts to explain the world of grassroots day trading among a subset of younger Americans. It explores their world on forums like Reddit and their efforts to compete with the big hedge funds - particularly around Gamestop and Cryptocurrency. It also links this to the dark world white supremacy and January 6. The film paints a well-edited story in which finance has become a game driven by memes and message boards. It is unclear if the participants are pioneers of new world, hucksters making a fast buck, or a completely lost generation.

The problem is that the argument is messy and unclear. It is unclear at times whether they are cheerleading or critiquing this world and the outcomes. Sometimes they seem to be portraying it is a heroic attempt to take down the big hedge funds traders. Sometimes they seem to be painting much of it a corrupt pyramid scheme. While it is entertaining to watch, it is often baffling. In order to present in an accessible manner there are way too many anecdotal interviews with participants and far too little scholarly analysis. The connections between the retail traders, white supremacists, cryptocurrency and going off the gold standard remain a bit mysterious. In the end, the argument is confusing and troubling. The directors are well-intentioned, but the result while entertaining, is a bit unsatisfying. There is the potential for a good film here, but this one doesn't feel like it is finished.

This documentary had me engaged for the first hour. Then they lost me. If you're really interested in the GameStop and AMC short squeeze and a little bit of the introduction to Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies, then this is a great documentary. Well, at least it started great. Then the documentary seems to go way too deep into pushing their political agenda, and it's safe to say that if you lean just a little bit right, you're going to be disappointed. The documentary tells the story of a great piece of history in the financial industry about the average investor taking on Big Wall Street which was in the description. But then, the last 30 minutes is all about January 6th. And just like that, I lost all interest.