Apes Together Strong

2021

Date: January 2021 · Place: r/wallstreetbets · Twitter · Figures: Anonymous WSB posters · Planet of the Apes (1968), source · Keith Gill, exemplar holder · Tags: WSB, Coalition Glyph, Self-Identification 01. Retail Calls Itself Apes Apes together strong. The WSB rallying phrase that crystallizes during the GameStop squeeze, descended via /r/Superstonk from the 1968 Planet of the Apes line. The slogan is the engine of the squeeze: retail investors choosing to call themselves apes because the alternative was being called dumb money by people on television. The self-naming is the move. Ape reframes a financial position from idiot retail bagholder into tribal member with conviction. By February 2021 hedge-fund analysts on CNBC are using the term to refer to their counterparties without irony. 02. From Stock To Token The ape vocabulary jumps from GME to crypto within months. BAYC formalizes it in April 2021. By summer the word ape is both noun (retail trader) and verb (to ape in: to buy without research). It is the era's single most successful self-identification, because it lets the buyer agree with the critic and keep buying. Cope and cringe were never the right verdicts on the ape. The ape was a coalition, and like all coalitions it priced in being called stupid as a feature. Sources • r/wallstreetbets archives, January 2021 (reddit.com/r/wallstreetbets) • KnowYourMeme, 'Apes Together Strong' • Planet of the Apes (1968), screenplay by Michael Wilson and Rod Serling