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The r/WallStreetBets subreddit has long been known to its users as a kind of hive mind for day traders, who approach the stock market with a combination of hype and memes.

Then its army of smaller investors rallied on Reddit and elsewhere to support video game retailer GameStop, by buying huge numbers of GameStop stock, trading at low prices, then continuing to buy more as the prices rose.

This is called a “short squeeze”, and elevated the stock price.

While in the end, things levelled out and the stock price dropped, for a while there we were looking at one of the biggest wealth transfers from the elite financial ruling class to the amateur stock-trading middle and middle-upper classes, in recent history.

Many thought that, with flatlining stock prices, the GameStop saga would start to fade,

By fade, I mean get absorbed into the capitalist machine – there’s already a site tracking stock-related mentions on Reddit so that the big dogs can get in on the action if another ‘GameStop’ comes along.

According to CNN, however, WallStreetBets’ latest target has nothing to do with stock, Bitcoin, or even nonfungible tokens (NFTs) – it’s gorillas.

As an aside, if you’re curious about NFTs, Elon Musk’s latest techno track is a tribute to them.

On Saturday, a member of WallStreetBets adopted a baby gorilla named Urungano on behalf of GameStop.

Since then, the Dian Fossey Gorilla Fund has received thousands of new adoptions and more than $333,000 in donations, compared with around 20 adoptions in a typical weekend, according to a spokesperson.

The adoptions are a bit of an inside joke. Members of WallStreetBets refer to themselves and others on the page as “apes,” as part of the group’s internal lingo.

The group rallied over the weekend, encouraging members to use “unrealized GME gains to adopt a gorilla”, saying that “donations to help save gorillas pointed to the benefits of making stock trading more accessible to individuals”.

“Apes on Reddit will use (gains) to donate to good causes, pay medical bills, help the needy in their communities,” one user said. “I can’t wait for wealth to be given back to the little guy and have everyone benefit from it.”

The Dian Fossey Fund says that donating to gorillas is a great investment and that money will go towards tracking, monitoring, and studying wild gorillas and their habitat.

“Gorillas live in the Congo Basin, the second largest rainforest in the world and a natural defense against #climatechange,” the group said.

“When we save gorillas, we save the planet. How’s that for #ROI [Return on Investment]?”

Top that, Wall Street.

Oh, and Elon Musk has a song about a gorilla, too, in case you’re interested.

[source:cnn]