The frustrating illogic in the rise of the meme stocks

But a lot of these Redditors apparently just hate short-sellers, or like belonging to the gang, or maybe think this is all hilarious. And because there are so many of them, they’ve been able to drive a series of strange cycles: A bunch of them pile in, the stock price leaps skyward, immense paper fortunes are made and the lucky company gets to raise some much-needed capital. Eventually the joke stops being funny, the stock price regresses, a bunch of Redditors lose their shirts and the cycle starts over, often with the same stocks.