The Trolls of Wall Street - by Nathaniel Popper (Hardcover)

Book Synopsis

The dramatic story of an improbable gang of self-proclaimed "degenerates" who made WallStreetBets into a cultural movement that moved from the fringes of the internet to the center of Wall Street, upending the global financial markets and changing how an entire generation thinks about money, investing, and themselves.

Jaime Rogozinski and Jordan Zazzara were not what anyone would mistake for traditional financial power players. But they turned WallStreetBets, a subreddit focused on risky financial trading, into one of the most disruptive forces to bubble up from the fringes of the internet. This crude and unassuming message board harnessed the power of memes and trolling to create a new kind of online community. The group intertwined with the distrust and turmoil of our times and spoke to a generation of young men who were struggling to find their place in the world.

Deeply reported and fast moving, The Trolls of Wall Street is the suspenseful story of the people who made and lost millions, battling with each other--and with Wall Street--for power and status. It is a sobering account of how millions of young Americans became obsessed with money and the markets, casting a long and lasting influence over finance, politics, and popular culture.

Review Quotes

"A smart, unsettling take...ambitious" -- Fortune

"Incisive...While other journalists have portrayed WallStreetBets as the David to Wall Street's Goliath, Popper depicts the subreddit as a refuge for young men starved of connection whose disaffection deteriorated during the Trump presidency into a wellspring of racism and misogyny. Vividly reported and remarkably evenhanded, this stands out as one of the more critical assessments of the GameStop rally." -- Publishers Weekly

*A Next Big Idea Club "Must-Read Book" * --

"A disruptive tour-de-force. The Trolls of Wall Street explores in an elegant and precise narrative the bros and the subculture behind the WallStreetBets phenomenon and how together, they changed Wall Street forever." -- William D. Cohan, author of Money and Power and The Last Tycoons

"Every investor should read this book. Few tell a story like Nathaniel Popper, and The Trolls of Wall Street is a great reminder that markets don't always obey the clean, rational laws of finance: They are driven by people, who occasionally lose their minds." -- Morgan Housel, author of The Psychology of Money

"Popper deftly opens up private chat rooms and late-night screens to tell the story of the very human humans behind a movement to crack the wizardry of Wall Street. An engrossing examination of how one of Reddit's communities grew from fringe to a force capable of moving markets." -- Christine Lagorio-Chafkin, author of We Are The Nerds and editor-at-large at Inc. magazine

"A vibrant testament to the power of the internet, The Trolls of Wall Street captivates with stories of digital Davids taking on financial Goliaths. Nathaniel Popper's immersive reporting and entertaining storytelling illuminates this unprecedented upheaval in the financial world." -- Bradley Hope, co-author of Billion Dollar Whale and Blood and Oil

"A brilliant exploration of human behavior in the internet age. To most of us, the frenzy surrounding GameStop and other meme stocks seemed like just another financial bubble. Popper shows it was something entirely different and new: stock trading motivated as much or more by anger, loneliness, and a need for male companionship as by the eternal desire to make money." -- Joe Nocera, co-author of The Big Fail and All the Devils Are Here

"Popper has untangled the hyper-complex story of meme stocks and WallStreetBets and spun it into a fascinating, meticulously researched narrative about the lives of the real people involved." -- Dale Beran, author of It Came from Something Awful