Part 3 of 6 - An account of events in the mission to DRS GME - Fidelity versus DRS GME

Part 3 of 6 - Fidelity versus DRS GME

Fidelity versus DRS GME

Investors of GameStop that directly registered their shares with DRS were taking their shares out of the hands of the DTC and putting them directly with GameStop’s transfer agent Computershare. Computershare uses a particular purple color in their themes and icons across their website. When your shares were DRS’d with Computershare, you could then sign in to your investor account and you would be greeted with a purple circle which was actually a pie chart representing all of your holdings in your account. Because for the majority of people, GME was the only stock that they had DRS’d, it was a pie chart with 1 item representing 100% of the pie, with purple being the default color, and so the entire circle was purple. If you had additional stocks in the account, it would be a pie chart with purple and additional colors, and the entire circle would not be purple in that case.

Shortly after investors of GME began to DRS their shares in 2021, they would post screenshots of their purple circle to Superstonk and other GME communities, as a matter of demonstrating that they were participating in the effort, an effort that ultimately benefits themselves and all other GME shareholders.

Throughout this entire period of time, sustained opposition and FUD towards these efforts would continuously creep into Superstonk that would subtly and not-so-subtly suggest, for example, that “hey maybe we should stop posting these purple circles – they are deterring engagement, they are uninteresting, it’s destroying our subreddit, they are not good, forget DRS, buy options contracts instead.” But the consensus of the community resisted opposition, and the purple circle posts have remained a daily part of the community experience.

In October 2022, Fidelity posts Meme Stock Guy initially on LinkedIn. Superstonk post about this

Meme Stock Guy is a less-than-attractive individual that is brandishing a purple circle on his phone.

The thing of significance here is the purple circle.

In this context, there is only one single group of people on the internet that this purple circle could have been referring to, and that is the group of investors of GameStop that were DRSing their shares of GME. No other community or group of investors use the purple circle to symbolize their group or their movement.

Fidelity, a financial services company with trillions of dollars of assets under management, and a company with direct influence and access into Reddit, created this disparaging image about a specific group of investors that primarily used Reddit as their platform of communication. As a stock broker, Fidelity would have awareness from their end the number of shares of GME that they have been requested to have DRS’d, and by using the purple circle in the image they also demonstrated awareness of the discussions that are happening on Superstonk and similar subreddits.

There was backlash on LinkedIn and on Reddit, and Fidelity promptly removed their Meme Stock Guy post shortly after posting it.

What is revealing of this event was that Fidelity, a major financial services company, ever felt the need to go out of their way to disparage this particular group of people. What is it about this group of people that they were so threatened by that they felt the need to publicly insult them by insinuating that they are all overweight, poorly-dressed, unhygienic slobs?

The answer is of course obvious: that a large amount of systemic fraud and criminality has been perpetrated by Wall Street participants against GME, and that the movement to DRS shares of GME is on track to publicly expose this fraud and criminality and its perpetrators. Fidelity, it seems, for some reason, has a vested interest in resisting these efforts and attacking the image and reputation of those that are doing it.

Fidelity would have been much better off never posting Meme Stock Guy because by doing so they showed their hand. Fidelity demonstrated their awareness of and contempt for GameStop investors that sought to directly register their shares.

In a post on Superstonk from March 2023, an investor posts a call that they had with Fidelity when requesting to DRS their shares of GME. In this call, the Fidelity representative demonstrated a certain awareness and perspective and antagonism towards certain discussions happening on Reddit, stating: “there is a lot of stuff going on on Reddit, and there’s a lot of people talking about stuff, they say 'oh you must register your shares with Computershare so Fidelity can’t loan them out, … , it totally makes no difference and that’s what usually people, that’s why they want to do them to Computershare because they don’t want them loaned out to the short sellers, so, they’re trying to put the squeeze on the short sellers is what their intent is but it’s not something that actually makes a difference.”

Coincidentally, or not, the claim that “DRS doesn’t do anything”, or “DRS will make no difference” is a common FUD theme that has been present in Superstonk and elsewhere since the beginning of the effort.