Connecting the Dots Between Meme Stock Evangelists and AI Writing True Believers
A look at Dan Olson's latest video about meme stocks and how it connects with modern indie publishing movements.
I’ve made it no secret that I’m a fan of Dan Olson, known as Folding Ideas on YouTube, and his wild documentaries he produces on YouTube. Line Goes Up became both a historical documenting of a failed movement and a prediction over said movement cratering, leaving people with nothing. While the video didn’t stray from mocking in tone, it featured meticulous research and irrefutable facts, and became a part of the cultural zeitgeist in a hurry. It’s in a way, the canonical takedown of an entire bullshit movement.
Never mind his video about flat earthers that really got to the heart of QAnon and conspiratorial thinking. Or the Metaverse one. Or the one about hustle culture grindset grifters.
It should come as no surprise that his latest video, This is Financial Advice, has its roots—again—in conspiracy theories ruining people’s lives. This two-and-a-half hour-long documentary focuses on the meme stock movement, which began under the idea of sticking it to Wall Street through short sales and squeezes of GameStop (GME) stock to create “generational wealth” while destroying the global economy. You, like me, probably knew someone who got deeply invested in the meme stock movement for a while.
That whole period sucked. Trying to explain that becoming obsessed with Wall Street and investing all your money in Wall Street is just pumping money back into the system and only a select few people were getting wealthy just didn’t work.
The question is, how does this relate to publishing? The answer to that is a complicated one, although it’s easy to understand. Publishing, especially indie publishing, falls into traps constantly. While all signs continually point to generative AI losing steam and consumer confidence, author grifters insist on it being “here to stay.” “Learn it or get left behind!” “You don’t understand it!” “It’s the future! If you’ll just listen!”
Et cetera. Et cetera. Et cetera.
Unhealthy, cult-like behavior, elevating prominent voices to cult leader status, refusing to listen to reason and making decisions informed on loud, prominent voices that turn out to be poor ones are par for the course in publishing. Publishing isn’t unique. It mimics other fields very closely, and while the world of meme finance feels distant, considering the parallels between AI grifting and the issues with AI writers being true believers at the moment, there’s always something to take away from these documentaries.
Remember, AI (LLMs) isn’t becoming ubiquitous technology. In fact, most people don’t care much for it. The training data was stolen books. Your instincts were never wrong if you thought this was immoral bullshit.
Be good to each other, and don’t let the grifters get to you.