Keith Gill is a middle-class man working as a financial analyst in
Brockton, Massachusetts. During his spare time, he regularly frequents the stock market subreddit
r/WallStreetBets, posting his opinions via YouTube live streams under the name
Roaring Kitty. He struggles to provide for his family, and his brother Kevin constantly mocks his YouTube work as nerdy garbage. In July 2020, at the height of the
COVID-19 pandemic, Keith notices that video game retailer
GameStop's stock is falling. He sinks his life savings into buying stock in it, regularly live-streaming updates with his viewers. Despite Kevin and several peers claiming this is a waste of time, by January 2021, activity on r/WallStreetBets reveals that several hedge fund investment firms, including
Melvin Capital Management and its founder
Gabe Plotkin, have been short selling stock in the chain on the assumption GameStop would close. But, aggressive GameStop stock purchases by Keith and other online stock buyers – including struggling nurse Jennifer, GameStop retail employee Marcos, and lesbian
University of Texas at Austin couple Riri and Harmony – caused
a mass increase in GameStop's overall stock price. As a result, Plotkin and other investment CEOs lost hundreds of millions of dollars within the same time frame. Keith is heralded as a financial guru. Things take a turn when r/WallStreetBets is temporarily shut down for "inflammatory and vulgar content", causing a mass surge of panic selling in GameStop's stock in an attempt to beat a perceived price drop. When the commission-free stock trading website
Robinhood is unable to pay the money for the sales adequately, co-chairman
Vlad Tenev, at the behest of
Citadel LLC owner
Ken Griffin, halts all purchasing of GameStop's stock until Robinhood shores up adequate capital to cover outstanding
NSCC requirements created due to the level of purchases. They raise the $3–4 billion necessary, but the subsequent negative backlash results in an investigation by the
United States House Committee on Financial Services, with Tenev, Griffin, Plotkin, and Keith all being subpoenaed, the former three for their roles in the fiasco and the latter on suspicion of using the situation to trick the public into making himself rich. As the investors struggle to defend their actions, Keith adamantly denies any wrongdoing, stating he was only doing what anyone with a passing awareness of investment banking would do in that situation. In the aftermath, post text shows how several of the individuals were affected: Plotkin was forced to shut down Melvin Capital because of the net losses the incident caused; Robinhood was the target of several lawsuits following the fiasco and wound up starting in the
stock market significantly lower than it was prior; Harmony was able to use the money she obtained to pay off her family's debt issues and continues her relationship with Riri; Marcos sold half of his GameStop stock and quit his position in the company; Jennifer remains in debt but has retained her shareholding; Keith retired from YouTube in late April to get out of the public eye and sold part of his stocks to get Kevin an expensive car as a way to stop his nagging about how he will not loan him his car for his food deliveries. ==Cast==