All Night Boot and HODL
“I AM HODLING”! I fucking love this. I kept seeing it around Reddit but (I am an out of touch old man and) had no idea what it meant. So I did a little internet “research” and asked my buddy Jeeves. Jeeves told me some dude once posted a drunken rant on a message board about his bad Bitcoin trading choices. He wanted everyone to know he was buying and holding his Bitcoin from here on out but he misspelled it to read, I AM HODLING! From there, it became a meme. This makes me love it even more. In fact, these are now my three favorite words in this last shithole year of pandemic-mania. Here we are, STILL, almost twelve months later, virus 24/7, wear your mask, sanitize your hands until the skin falls off, wait for the shiny new vaccine, but look out, because there are new strains, no end in sight, stuck at home, bored, disillusioned, looking for a thrill, something, anything, HODLING on!
In the beginning of all this drudgery — you know when we got smacked with the big stay at home orders, the shutdowns, the fresh new drama — I was talking to my brother about all the folks posting their pandemic videos. It was as if this was just a silly sprint rather than the existential mind fuck marathon it would inevitably become. Yeah, you remember those videos! Where are they now? Is Steve Martin still playing his banjo in the woods anymore or is he hanging from a tree by his banjo strings? Hey Steve, are you ok buddy?
This all dragged through the summer and I got serious social media fatigue, tired to death of all the idiot personas on my 5.66 x 2.74 inch screen. Who were these people I once knew? The sheer redundancy of it all battered my senses and gave me diarrhea. Projectile diarrhea! It was time to stop the feed, pour more drinks, and figure out how to smoke a joint with this fucking mask on. Help is not on the way!
And then in December, around Xmas, or Sol Invictus, or whatever else you want to call it, my 17 year old son came to me with a novel proposition — do you want to buy some Doge? DOGE? What is this thing Doge, I asked, and he filled me in — super cheap cryptocurrency that started as a joke. Now, this is my son who told me seven or eight years ago we should get a bunch of computers to mine Bitcoin in the garage. Yeah, that’s right, he’s pushing nine or ten and keying in on Bitcoin. Of course, I didn’t know what the hell he was talking about, but all these years later I wish I had. My son is like many other kids his age. He is a native, born and raised on computers, games, screens, internet. I gave him his first PC when he was probably three or four years old, a hand me down Dell Inspiron desktop, along with his first Game Cube and then an Xbox a few years later. He learned it, loved it, and understood it all much better than I did. I remember standing in line for the midnight release of Halo Reach when he was just seven years old (at GameStop) because I did not want to say no, it was all too cool. Computers, games, screens, Bitcoin, Doge. He tells me Doge isn’t really like Bitcoin but his friends are buying it for fun. And I answer, hell yeah, I want to have some fun, let’s get some DOGE! So I signed up on the ironically named Robin Hood (which, little did I know, would become the scourge of the internet if it wasn’t already) and we got some Doge! I just like to say Doge. DOGE! Doge is great. It’s a good time and makes me laugh. That is how we bought Doge.
It had been a long time since I had even looked at a stock. And let’s be clear, I don’t know shit about stocks! The last time I had a taste of stock was about 15 years ago. My wife had a tiny piece of Guitar Center from when she worked there. Back then, it cost five bucks or something to do anything online (buy, sell, trade, breath, fart) and seemed like a big rip off. Around this time I bought one of those new-fangled, flat-screen TVs from Circuit City and had the brilliant idea to buy stock in Circuit City! Can’t go wrong with Circuit City, right? Mad magazine did a send up on it and who doesn’t want to go to where the streets are paved with bargains?! It was super cheese and I loved it. Too bad it was also total trash and going under. Then I got some TiVo because of its funky logo and bought into a bullshit pharmaceutical company with a cool name (I don’t even remember). That’s how you pick stocks right? Mad magazine jokes, funky logos, cool names? Yeah, I was a dumb ass and my portfolio took a dump. So I cashed out what little remained of my poor decisions and said goodbye to the market.
This Doge buy had inspired me though, and this “trade free from your phone” stuff was intriguing! My brother said, hey you like pot, get some pot stocks. He told me he bought some pot stocks and they were going great. Just like that, I was on board. I thought pot stocks would pair nicely with this sweet Doge and off I went searching for pot. The first I saw was SNDL, pot for fifty cents? Hell yes. But noooo, I would be a serious investor this time and only buy expensive pot stocks, because only expensive stocks are serious, right? I would get ETFs, these are serious, responsible ways to invest, right? So I bought some pot ETFs and decided I would patiently wait. Did I mention I have no idea what I am doing?
But still, I could not help myself from cruising mindlessly on my phone looking at stocks, I saw Blackberry and thought, how funny would it be to get some Blackberry?! I used to have a Blackberry! And it’s cheap! Unfortunately, I did not pull the trigger — no I would be a serious investor this time and I would only buy serious stocks. And then I saw Koss and thought about my cheap Koss headphones that blow the doors off my high dollar cans. I love Koss and it was only two dollars! I want my two dollars! How fun would that be to load up on Koss? But nooo, I would be a serious investor!
Around this time I saw the thing with GameStop happening, it was really picking up steam. I was fascinated by its surge. I had spent a lot of time and money at GameStop over the years, mostly with my son. Was it time to renew the old PowerUp rewards? No, no, this could not possibly be real, it was not serious and I would be serious and serious people know this is not sustainable. There would be no Circuit City in my portfolio this time. But man, shame on me for thinking soft! What had I become, a boomer? Fuck that. Unfortunately, I was fooling myself. I would never really be serious, I could not be serious, I hated serious. Who the hell was I kidding?
Not long after, GameStop blew up and it became my favorite moment of the pandemic so far! My son was now my financial adviser and kept me in the loop. He filled me in on BB and Koss and Nokia and AMC and Tootsie Roll and we laughed. How cool is this? I logged into Reddit for the first time in seven years and checked out the new revolution, a window to this fantastic disruption! My son filled me in on his friends’ gains and losses, these kids were doing what my generation could not or would not, a total fuck you to the establishment turds who have been robbing everyone blind all these years. Sure, they could lose it all in the process but the best part is they do not care. They will eat the dollar burgers and value fries to buy some GME and stick it to the MAN! And besides, they like the stock! Fuck yeah. The most fun! Much respect.
Then Doge went viral. This part was the cherry on top. Watching our Doge pop straight up like a boner was even more fun than the most fun days before! DOGE! Why the hell not? I just like to say it. DOGE! Forever in DOGE Jeans! And as I write this today I am a bit hungover. I threw back too much cheap red wine and smoked it up watching the Doge do its thing last night. Who knows where it goes from here? Up, down, forward, backward, upside down, inside out — however it goes, it has been a great ride regardless. Of course, the institutional knit wits are trying to jam up the new kids to the highest degree with their tired bullshit. But whatever happens, these new kids are the real fucking champs and I am inspired by the shenanigans. Moving forward I plan to consult with my son and rethink my investment philosophy. Serious investor!? PFFTTT! Screw that! Who’s got that sweet Circuit City?
