Srs Bsns: Inside The WallStreetBets Coup Attempt From The Community’s ‘Top Detective’

In the wake of the GameStop short squeeze that caused the WallStreetBets subreddit to explode in popularity, racking up more than 8.8 million members, an interesting development in the story has unfolded over the last week that many might not know about. In short, it appears that a coup was attempted on WallStreetBets, which saw a number of moderators battling for control of the sub after movie deals and sudden fame came flooding into the community.

It all started early last week fresh off the announcement that the tale of retail investors vs. hedge funds would soon be getting a movie, documentary and more, not to mention the massive influx of sheer attention to WallStreetBets (WSB). All of this newfound interest led to a battle for control of WSB, with reports that old mods returned from dormancy to capitalize on the fame.

On Wednesday, the first breadcrumbs pointing to a coup attempt were shared on the subreddit after a group of WSB mods (who were inactive before suddenly returning amongst the hype) was seen discussing their plans on how to profit from the movie deal in a private Discord chat. At one point, one of the mods was seen asking, “What’s our cut?”

Shortly after, the battle for control began as the newly resurrected mods trying to capitalize on the fame started kicking other moderators out who pushed back against their plans. The struggle bubbled over as users began to take notice, with several reports surfacing that accused hostile mods of deleting posts and comments from those who tried to blow a whistle.

One such user by the name of zjz, a popular member and former mod, made a post that night claiming “r/wallstreetbets will die soon unless the admins save us.” Zjz went on to explain that, “We've been taken hostage by the top mods. They left for years and came back when they smelled money. They've been busy creating private email addresses to funnel all the press correspondence away for their own gain, talking shit about all of the active mods, and scrambling to get paid from some movie deal. That's just what we know of. They refer to themselves as ‘the board of directors’ and us as the minimods.”

(A post from WallStreetBets user zjz, who was among the first to blow the whistle on the coup attempt.)

The post continued elaborating on the struggle to regain control, adding that they begged Reddit admins for help among other claims that a top mod was planning to use WSB to launch a cryptocurrency scheme to exploit the millions of members.

By Thursday night, the WSB coup d'état was mostly contained through a concerted effort between the newer more active mods and Reddit admins, who finally stepped in after the battle attracted considerable attention. Redditor sodypop, an admin and employee at Reddit, sent a message to the WSB mods following their involvement.

“After reviewing this situation based on input from both current and past moderators, we have decided to remove several moderators at the top of the list that were creating instability in the community,” sodypop said. “It is important to note that we appreciate the past and recent contributions of each of these former moderators, and those individuals should be proud of the community they have helped build.”

(A message sent by Reddit admin sodypop to the WSB mods after the takeover was quelled.)

Redditor SpeaksInHexadecimals, an active user on the sub and WSB’s “Top Detective,” posted a comprehensive breakdown of the takeover’s events Thursday night, so we spoke with him to learn more about how the whole debacle went down. While Speaks said he doesn’t represent the mods nor the entire community, his investigative work into the coup is nonetheless essential to uncovering what happened.

Speaks, who goes by Speaks Booleans on YouTube, uploaded an illustrated guide on the coup attempt Thursday explaining how the mods tried to gain control of WSB and exploit its users, acting as a critical whistleblower.

For Speaks and WSB, this also isn’t the first time something like this has happened. In early 2020, WSB founder Jaime Rogozinski was embroiled in a similar exploitation attempt after he returned from a hiatus during the coronavirus pandemic market swing. Speaks told us that this event was the first time he became an investigator and whistleblower on WSB.

(WSB founder Jaime Rogozinski discussing on Discord how to capitalize on gathering emails from members in early 2020.)

“When he came back he came back with an agenda,” Speaks said. “That agenda was 'make money.' There was a book. There was even a trading competition planned. Here's where things went wrong. He sold out. Big time. The trading competition was sponsored by True Trading Group, led by notorious scammer Adam Heimann (registered on the business license in Florida). These two colluded to profit off WSB. The book, TTG and only things that made Jaime money were on the sidebar. They even profited to collect emails and usernames of people joining the Discord.”

(The trading competition scam attempted by Rogozinski in early 2020 on the WSB sub.)

After witnessing these events, Speaks published a video series titled “WallStreetBets Exposed Part 1: The Story of Hostile Takeover, Market Manipulation, Fraud, Corruption” that highlighted Rogozinski’s actions and helped expose his true plans to the community. Much like what was seen in the most recent takeover, Rogozinski attempted to ban or delete posts from Speaks and other opponents speaking out in order to control the narrative, which backfired as the community rallied against him.

Speaks told us that the latest debacle is still ongoing, and with the subreddit’s numbers growing by 405 percent between December and February, the mods have a lot to manage on their hands even without attempted coups and hostile takeovers. “These guys have been working their asses off behind the scenes,” Speaks said.

In previous weeks during the peak of media attention surrounding WSB, many attempted to demonize the subreddit claiming its members were alt-right or villains in the story. We asked what Speaks made of this rhetoric and he told us that most of it comes from surface-level understanding that outsiders misinterpret or even fabricate to fit their narrative.

“My response would be to come see for yourself. It's not what you think. Outsiders are so disconnected from the culture, with its own unique language, memes, values and whatnot, that news could not capture it even in a 60 Minutes type of format,” Speaks said. “Clearly, MSM [mainstream media] have decided to come up with their own conclusions based on a single post or even fabricate some stories altogether. It doesn't help that Jaime Rogozinski is trying to pretend the reason he was banned is that the current mod team are far-right sympathizers (among other reasons), which is completely not true.”

If you’ve spent any time on the subreddit in the last few weeks, you’ve likely seen many discussing how these millions of new members have also changed what WallStreetBets was known for. As the long-time members were outnumbered by the new, Speaks and others said the sub isn’t like it used to be even as recently as December.

“As you also know, WSB has an interesting and unique lingo. While in later days this language may be going away in some respect and becoming more politically correct, it still remains,” Speaks told us. “Diamond and paper hands emotes can be seen throughout. Some of the rough edges of WSB have been polished by new players, but along with that comes low-effort posts, and those looking to promote their own interests. The subreddit has changed. It feels different. There are glimpses of the old WSB I still see, but yes, the sub is fundamentally changed, and I'm not sure yet if it is for the better.”

Most of the coverage surrounding GME’s stock surge and WallStreetBets has failed to capture the true nature of the community, and some of the biggest misconceptions Speaks told us are that WSB is alt-right, hateful or part of some big anti-capitalist, Occupy movement. In the most concise way possible, WSB is about making crazy trades and either winning or losing it all.

“I suspect most people who come know this is a casino. There is ‘bets’ in the name,” Speaks said. “We're brash, bold, blunt. There's a reason the sub self-describes as ‘Like 4chan found a Bloomberg terminal.’ It's a huge ‘fuck you’ to the establishment in many respects. It's a place where people openly make fun of Wall Street by doing actions that Wall Street would be considered hypocrites calling out.”

The events over the last few weeks have undoubtedly changed WSB, and likely forever, but that doesn’t mean it’s unrecognizable from its former self. With a reported 28 percent of all Americans buying GameStop or other meme stocks last month, according to The Harris Poll, the enthralling events and sheer attention of this whole story are poised to be adapted into a slew of media, but who knows what side they’ll end up telling in the end.

If you’re truly curious what WallStreetBets is all about, take it from one of their members, dive in and then see it for yourself.

“It's motherfucking WallStreetBets, a collection of now nearly 9 million people: some who live quiet lives working dead-end jobs, some who are lawyers and doctors, some who know what's what, and some of who think memes move markets.”