Why are you talking like there was some shadow group that planned this form the start and used reddit as some sort of astroturfing campaign to cause this? It's just disingenuous. I've been following this for months.
It literally started here. https://www.reddit.com/r/wallstreetbets/comments/d31bke/gme_yolo_update_following_the_q2_earnings_report/
A guy was investing in GME because he truly believed it was an undervalued stock that was due to rise. He was widely ridiculed for it for months and he kept true. Literally just lock at his posts history, people calling him retarded and telling him he'll lose everything for months on months. Overtime people saw what he was saying was coming to fruition, that along with the ridiculous short position these companions continued to call (they were only at like 70% short when he was investing) naturally snowballed and grew from there.
It's exploded recently and sure, people are pushing people to buy/hold for the squeeze, but again, it wasn't some sort of concerted effort by a "few instigators" to manipulate the market for their favour. It can be literally be tracked to be a organic play and growth until it really became a meme and took off.
In-fact, talking about manipulation, wanna know the real kicker? The event that truly kicked this off as a meme and started this effort to short squeeze was caused by the damn billionaire shorters themselves. Andrew Left, founder of Citron - a billion dollar investment group that had been publicly shorting and shitting on GameStop in the media - started a livestream to explain why "investing in GME would be a terrible idea and how the stuck is set to plunge to $20 in the coming days" - this is after months of media attacks on them. Just look at this tweet. https://twitter.com/CitronResearch/status/1351544479547760642. The day after that stream GME stock saw it's biggest rise yet, 50% in one night.
They're own attempt at manipulation of the market through shorting stock and shitting on companies in the media to reduce shareholders faith in that company backfired hard on them and was a big part in why this has taken off. Poetic, I say.
Am well aware of how it started. But what happened in January is the far flung from an obscure value strategy, and again a year ago that was a solid and good call. I have zero quarrels with that, as it was some good old fashioned value analysis. I'm talking about the discussions on reddit to push up the price and cause a short squeeze.
Citron a multi-billion dollar investment group? It's an equity research news letter - run by one person. Difficult to take anything you say seriously that, when you get something this basic so wrong, particularly in a way that makes it sound very a massive conspiracy.
A person saying they expect a stock price is going to drop is not market manipulation, particularly when it is his job is equity research analyst. It's called investment advice.
To sum up:
issuing a sell/short/underweight recommendation as an equity research analyst - not market manipulation
making a detailed post on reddit about a great value play - not market manipulation
shorting a stock (or currency or bond or any other asset) - not market manipulation
trying to convince others to join in to all try to artificially inflate the price and trigger a short squeeze - market manipulation
I'm just trying to get people here to steer clear of these shenanigans. Wonna invest in the markets, buy an index fund.