The GameStop saga of 2021 was born in Reddit’s WallStreetBets forum, a message board where users convene to discuss investment ideas. In 2019, user DeepFuckingValue started posting screenshots and research saying the shares of retailer GameStop were — to him — undervalued. Over time, his posts gained attention and popularity among the self-described “apes” of the WSB community.

As the COVID-19 pandemic shut down the physical world, more and more homebound people started day-trading stocks and joined WSB. Momentum grew around GameStop: It was heavily shorted by hedge funds, which means fancy finance professionals were betting against it, in a way that left a technical opening. Using the magic and mechanics of financial markets, WSB decided to foment a revolution: to stick it to the hedgies and Wall Street banks, send the stock “to the moon” and make a ton of money. 

Like any insular community, the forum has its own lingo. In celebration of the brand-new docuseries Eat the Rich: The GameStop Saga, we parsed some key phrases to help you on your journey to the moon.

ape: The preferred term for WallStreetBets traders. “Apes together strong,” a quote from Planet of the Apes (War for the Planet of the Apes, Rise of the Planet of the Apes), became a common refrain and rallying cry. So much so that, in March 2021, WSB donated more than $350,000 to a gorilla charity.

“As for me, I like the stock”: A quote from WSB ringleader and (unofficial) chief GameStop research officer Keith Gill’s testimony before the US House Committee on Financial Services, reiterating his commitment to GameStop stock and his optimistic view of its future.

blind spot: Missed information, context or risks to a company’s stock. A trader should consider all possible scenarios and how they’d affect the stock price. Blind spots are any angles or risks they haven’t thought of. 

Bloomberg Terminal: The $30,000/year computer software system on which all of Wall Street runs. 

bullish: Feeling optimistic that something (a stock, a bond, a market) will go up in price, improve or increase. The opposite of bearish. 

buy and hold: Investing strategy wherein one purchases a security, like a stock, and instead of trading it for another thing simply holds it forever.

Cameron Winklevoss: One-half of the Winklevoss twins, who famously co-founded the Facebook progenitor and less famously tweeted about the WSB silver squeeze a few times.

capital: Money, as in money invested or traded or lost. Often the second word of a hedge fund’s name.

cigar butt investing: An investing strategy named by billionaire Warren Buffett in which one sees value in deeply unloved and unappreciated — i.e., cheap — stocks, if they are sufficiently undervalued. “A cigar butt found on the street that has only one puff left in it may not offer much of a smoke, but the ‘bargain purchase’ will make that puff all profit,” Buffett wrote in 1989 (before disavowing the strategy in the next line). 

Citadel: Two financial companies founded by billionaire Ken Griffin, which are related (annoyingly) only in name and Ken Griffin-ness: a hedge fund, Citadel LLC, one of the biggest; and a market maker, Citadel Securities, which executes trades.  

Citron: A research shop run by Andrew Left that looks for companies that might be in trouble or doing something illegal; they would, therefore, be profitable to bet against in the stock market.

David vs. Goliath: WSB reclaimed the biblical story of a normal guy fighting a giant. In this case, WSB is David, and hedge funds and Wall Street are Goliath. 

DD: Due diligence, meaning research into a company and its business prospects. This forms the basis of an argument for why a company’s share price will go up or down.

DeepFuckingValue: A pseudonym for Keith Gill, aka Roaring Kitty. The original GameStop booster whose bet was over $50,000 in mid-2019. His identity was unknown until the GameStop drama, and he was revealed to be “a 34-year-old financial advisor from Massachusetts [who] until recently worked for insurance giant MassMutual.” 

diamond hands: If you have diamond hands, you’re strong and hold — you don’t sell, especially when things look bleak. 

Elon Musk: The Tesla CEO who tweeted in January 2021 about “Gamestonk,” sending GameStop shares soaring as much as 157%. He’s called “big papa” on WSB for his shitposting and intermittent support of memestock and WSB initiatives; he’s tweeted in support of Dogecoin, and also Tesla is kind of a memestock. 

finfluencer: Social media influencers who make content about finance, such as tips on budgeting, saving and investing. 

foreclosure: The forced sale of an asset bought with borrowed money (like a house) when the borrower fails to make the promised payments to their lender.

Gabe Plotkin: Founder and manager of hedge fund Melvin Capital Management, which shorted gaming companies including GameStop. He became the target of WSB’s ire. He announced in May 2022 that he was shutting the fund — seen as a victory on WSB (“1 down, many more to go 🚀🚀🚀”).

go ape: To lose composure and become wild, often in concert with other apes. 

Grand Theft Auto: A very popular video game, available for purchase at GameStop.

hedge fund: An investment vehicle that pools and invests money from high-net-worth individuals and institutional investors like pension funds, endowments, sovereign wealth funds, etc. Because you must be this rich to ride, hedge funds are less bound by regulations meant to protect regular people from losing their savings in risky market plays. They often charge high fees — the apocryphal 2% management fee and 20% cut of profits — for what are supposed to be higher returns... though they don’t always deliver those.

hedgie: One who manages or works for a hedge fund. A professional investor who uses a Bloomberg Terminal and may frequently wear a suit.

HODL: Originally a typo of “hold,” and now generally used. It has the same meaning as “hold,” but with a little more insouciance. It also stands for “hold on for dear life,” particularly in crypto due to the wild price volatility.

Jim Cramer: The longtime host of CNBC’s Mad Money show. Cramer has a robust following of mostly retail investors who often buy stocks based on his recommendations. He’s famous for (correctly) flying off the handle in 2007 about the severity of the impending financial crisis, and also for many of his recommendations being “wrong.” 

late to the party: Buying something (i.e., stocks) after most of the profits have already been made.

LTCM: Long-Term Capital Management, a major hedge fund in the late ’90s run by a group of people who were believed to be the smartest. The fund was supposed to be “vacuuming nickels that others couldn’t see,” as one partner put it, but its strategy is now described as “picking up nickels in front of a steamroller.” Its implosion was a seismic event that threatened the stability of the entire financial system; eventually, the New York Fed helped to facilitate a $3.6 billion bailout.

market maker: A company that “provides liquidity,” aka “stands ready” (per the SEC’s definition) to buy or sell at the most recent price. They try to make money off the difference between the buyer’s and seller’s prices, which can be very, very small. 

market manipulation: When someone intentionally interferes with a market price to mislead, or to make the price go up or down with fake demand, supply or information. Coordinating with other buyers could be construed as collusion or price-rigging. Market manipulation isn’t legal, but is often difficult to prove.

Maxine Waters: The congresswoman from California and Committee on Financial Services chair, who convened hearings to “get to the facts” on the “Meme Stock Market Event.”  

memestock: Stocks that caught WSB’s attention and favor, for reasons that struck other investors as not quite tied to fundamental business prospects, like buying shares of a company for nostalgia, or just for lolz.  

(2008) mortgage crisis/recession: The sharp downturn in the markets and the economy, triggered by over-leveraging across the financial system and stemming from a way overheated housing market. In 2008 and 2009, some 170,000 small businesses closed, and about 14.9 million people were unemployed. In 2008 alone, 2.3 million homes were in foreclosure.  

Occupy Wall Street: The 2011 decentralized, leaderless reaction to the 2008 financial crisis. Protestors and revelers camped out in Zuccotti Park in Manhattan to decry economic inequality and the outsize corporate influence in American politics and society. Police broke up the encampment, but the movement had enormous and lasting cultural impact.

paper hands: The opposite of diamond hands. Those with paper hands wimp out and sell as soon as things go a little wrong.

payment for order flow (PFOF): Some market makers pay brokers to route customer’s stock orders to them, in order for the market maker to attract more “flow,” more business. PFOF is what “enables commission-free trading,” Robinhood co-founder Vlad Tenev told the Committee on Financial Services.

profits/gains and losses: The amount of money a trader (or their portfolio) made or lost over a given time.

pump the stock: To make the stock go up or inflate its value by adding more buying pressure. 

Roaring Kitty: Another pseudonym for Keith Gill, aka DeepFuckingValue.

Robinhood: A privately held fintech company founded by Vlad Tenev and Baiju Bhatt that was, until January 2021, the favored trading platform of WallStreetBets. It launched commission-free brokerage trading in 2015 with a mission to democratize investing. When people were stuck at home in the pandemic, its popularity and trading volume surged. In the midst of the GameStop frenzy, it restricted trading in memestocks, shocking members of WSB who (lost money and momentum and) felt betrayed, as though a crooked ref had called the game for the other team.

retail investor: Nonprofessional investors who are generally advised to buy stocks they think will do well and to leave them alone. This is to avoid poor market timing or prolific trading that could rack up fees.  

rocket to the moon: The trajectory and destination for memestocks. There’s no cap on how high a stock’s price can go, so why not to infinity — why not to the moon?  

Ryan Cohen: The co-founder of online pet supply retailer Chewy, who was quietly buying up shares of GameStop, which caught the attention of retail investors. He snagged three seats on the GameStop board in January 2021 (causing the stock to surge) and later became chairman.

shares: Units of stock ownership in a company. 

short position/short sell/short seller: If someone wants to bet against a stock — to bet that the stock’s price will go down — they can “short” the stock. They’d borrow shares and sell them in the market. If the price goes down, they buy the shares back at that new, lower price, and keep the difference; if the price goes up, they have to buy the stock back at the new, higher price — losing money.

short interest: The number of shares of a given company’s stock that have been borrowed. It’s a measure of how aggressively people are betting against it. Shares can be re-lent and re-sold, so short interest can exceed 100%.

short squeeze: When a stock price rises, those who are short (betting against it) must “cover” their position, meaning they must buy the stock at this higher price. If there are a lot of people scrambling to buy the stock, the price can shoot higher — that’s a short squeeze.

smooth brain: Not smart. If intelligence is linked to the surface area of a brain, then the fewer wrinkles and creases, the less surface area, the dumber the brain-haver.  

stonks: The word “stocks” misspelled on purpose. It’s best to HODL stonks. These typos generally arise from spending too much time on the internet and failing to go outside and “touch grass,” etc. 

stop the bleeding: Close out a money-losing position.

taking on water: Also losing money, going down. If you’ve bet on a company, you’d be taking on water when the share price is sinking. 

tendies: Profits, or money in excess of the cost of the trade, with which you can purchase delicious chicken tenders, among other things. 

Tim Apple: Tim Cook, the Apple CEO, after Donald Trump mistakenly referred to him by his first name plus company name. 

Toys “R” Us: The toy retailer, another dying and beloved mall brand, which hedge funds ushered unceremoniously into bankruptcy in 2017. 

upside possibility: The potential capacity for a stock’s price to go up. 

value investing: Buying undervalued stocks based on “fundamental analysis,” research into the company’s business that leads one to believe that shares should be higher. This approach often uses ratios like “price to earnings” or “price to book.” 

r/WallStreetBets: The Reddit forum where all this went down.

“We like the stonk”: What apes say when they like a stonk!