Finance memes draw from popular culture. Inspiration comes from movies, news, and increasingly from viral posts on social media. Memes are second-degree jokes. They often translate a popular opinion at a moment in time, as such are an interesting mirror image of the cliches in finance, and an occasion to reflect on common trends…with a smile on our face.
Here is one that was born from an anecdotal comment from somebody looking for a “man in finance”.
Litquidity aka Hank Medina is a meme overlord who rose to fame during the online-only covid era, and played out the excess of financial markets. One of its most famous meme is comparing the D-Day scene from “Save Private Ryan” to the brutal unwind of risky market positions as rates started to rise in early 2022. Here it is
References to popular finance movies are thick on the ground, whether it is “Wall Street”, “The Big Short”, or “The Wolf of Wall Street”. They are often crossed with modern-day market sagas, like here where the famous scene of Di Caprio selling penny stocks to a gullible investor via cold-calling is compared to Roaring Kitty pumping the price of Game Stop to mass market through his twitter account.
Some other memes play on the cliche-ed appearances, and clothing choices of the people working in finance, and their fatal attraction to loafers, Patagonia vests, and nouveau-riche luxury items.
Famous people are often the occasion of popular fun. Often cited are Taylor Swift, Jeff Bezos, Elon Musk or politicians of all feathers.
Reflecting on the ascension of Jeff Bezos, from nerd-looking startuper to super-buffed glitzy billionaire, this post goes beyond and offers a satirical view about the cultural differences between SF and Miami business ecosystems.
Taylor Swift had a major sway in the latest NFL season, as her attendance was heavily publicized. Some jokingly ventured into lending her some profound thoughts on the economy, banking and markets, while attending the games. It places in perspective the mindset of Main Street against Wall Street.
As then-Speaker-of-the-House Nancy Pelosi revealed heavy positions in the stock market, allusions to insider-trading abounded. Jokes arose on her ability to better time the market than professionals.
It might be fun, but obviously these memes have market impact. It was most apparent during the crypto frenzy of 2021/2022, where pump and dump schemes were manufactured on twitter and brought live onto token trading activity, notably in the realm of NFTs.
In the case of Game Stop, hedge funds got wiped out of their short positions in 2021, while most retail investors were left holding the bill after they had bought the stock at the top. The story was immortalized through the “Dumb Money” movie and laid to rest for a couple of years, but it is now coming back in 2024. A simple post from Roaring Kitty in May24 led to huge speculative price swings.
Laugh at your own peril.
That’s all for now !
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