YOLO Publics: The Potential for Creative Subversion of an Online Trading Community

Abstract

Digitally mediated publics are often discussed in terms of extremism and radicalization, but it remains possible that digital communication technologies can engender new connections and conversations through “creative subversion.” This article explores the potentials of one specific instance of such creative subversion: the “GameStop rescue” as let by members of the subreddit forum “WallStreetBets” (WSB) in the early months of 2021. From a communicative perspective, what is interesting about this series of events is not only the digital platforms and affordances that enabled it, but also the reckless behavior of WSB members and the ways in which this behavior was communicated—and continues to be celebrated and facilitated by the online trading community. Members share “loss porn,” praise each other for having “diamond hands” when holding on to investments that are losing value, and celebrate the principle of YOLO (you only live once). We conceptualize WSB as a YOLO public, an online community that is loosely and temporarily formed through the common action of seizing the opportunity to wreak havoc around power. Furthermore, we understand the events of the GameStop rescue as a controversial encounter that, we argue, offers hope for digitally mediated publics to develop in dynamic relations of difference rather than as stabilized oppositions.