GameStop, Juneteenth, Master P and a New Black Agenda

Wall Street was rocked by a deceptively simple act. A coordinated and enthusiastic force of small-time investors forced manipulative hedge fund bigwigs to take deep losses and by doing some manipulation of their own and pushing their collective resources toward a single stock, GameStop.

It was the stock version of the old adage “ If everybody just gave a dollar, then (fill in the blank),” made into reality and with the technology to make it happen.

In the effort to make it all go away, the financial industry shut them down temporarily, saving themselves, but also exposing how many ways the system is rigged in their favor. The dust is still settling and where it all ends is still in question, but a message has been sent to the world— the little guys, together, have power.

Yet while the “Reddit Rebellion” is being deemed a unique cultural shift, this is not the first time it’s happened.

On June 19, 2020, with much less attention and none of the “This is a new populist revolution” hype, thousands of black investors used social media and the occasion of Juneteenth to launch a flash-mob of frenzied stock buying. Their investments lifted the perennially undervalued shares of the (only) six black-owned publicly traded companies, including Bob Johnson’s RLJ Lodging Trust (NYSE: RLJ), Cathy Hughes’ media company UrbanOne (Nasdaq: UONE) and a handful of lesser known companies, among them Carver Bancorp (Nasdaq:CARV)and Broadway Financial (Nasdaq: BYFC).

And while the number of investors and dollars were much smaller, the results were strikingly similar. Then, as now, the vast majority of trades were made on fast, no-commission apps such as Robinhood and CashApp. And the little guys won big, driving up stock prices (with one stock increasing as much as 513%), then eventually cashing out.The little-reported event also hit the same speed bumps, with high demand triggering Nasdaq to halt new trades, claiming “market volatility” while assuring everyone their moves were to “protect the small investor”.

By September of 2020, most of the gains had all but vanished, leaving only minor percentage lifts for the companies. Assuming history repeats, the Reddit Rebellion may end the same way. GameStop, by all estimations, is a fading dinosaur, the Blockbuster Video of gaming, and its future as a company is questionable — stock price notwithstanding.

The companies traded on Juneteenth , however, were (and still are) comparatively healthy, fundamentally sound companies. Just the kinds of value companies that the CNBC crew says we’re really supposed to support, right?

Yet, in both cases Wall Street’s reaction was the same. When faced with the possibility of wealth creation among the hordes, and in a way they could not control, the economic overlords chose to make sure the middle class remains somewhere back in the middle.

So if the small investor is damned if they do, and damned if they don’t — what happens next?

What happens with all this revolutionary momentum? Do people continue to pick more low-flying stocks to artificially drive upward, and then watch Wall Street continue to shut it down? Or else use the little guy to drive the stocks the big guys want manipulated? Do they buy silver? Jump over to cryptocurrrency? Run up the market on pork bellies a la Trading Places?

Or can that energy — matched with the technology — be directed to shift the economy in a more meaningful and sustainable way? And who is poised to direct such an effort?

If he’s willing, Master P — musician, producer, businessman — could be one, perhaps unlikely, answer.

Just before the Gamestop frenzy, Master P (Percy Miller) very publicly raised the red flag on the proposed $1B IPO valuation of the audio-based social app, ClubHouse, the next hottest thing, and an app that would be substantially less hot without the uncompensated creativity of its Black members. From his point of view, and many who agreed, the people driving all the value to cultural and social products should stop making other people rich — again.

But Clubhouse’s value is less important than Master P’s rather effective use of his platform (and his large following on Instagram) to move people toward a financial empowerment agenda. As the self-designated prophet of product-based entrepreneurship, Master P has already been laying the groundwork for the next generation of founders and investors.

His own company, Miller Enterprises, is making intriguing moves into core household items — flour, cereal, baking mixes, ramen, and cleansers — and his Instagram account is focused on promoting other Black entrepreneurs who are doing the same.

By proselytizing the creation of products, he is providing a solution to the fact that 96% of black-owned companies are non-employee companies offering services such as consulting that lack the kind of scalability that can bring returns. If Black investors want more options than the six companies they supported on Juneteenth, creators need to move to more scalable business, which takes the kind of capital that Wall Street and venture capitalists won’t provide, but that a coordinated, newly revolutionized group of investors might.

Master P is simply one of many visible influencers with sizable followings and elevated platforms who could possibly serve as a catalyst to both product-based creativity and ownership on one hand, and harness the momentum of Juneteenth 2020 and the Reddit Rebellion on the other.

It will have to begin by focusing less on Wall Street-controlled stock trading and moving toward crowd equity in start-up funding platforms like Start Engine and early impact funding on Kickstarter and other forums. Then to extend that effort to coordinated movements of audiences and subscribers to black creative projects, streaming companies, apps and publishers, and sustained flash-purchases of quality black-owned products. In the ability to movepeople and a focused direction, you have the makings of a new community-led wealth-building agenda that can make substantive change. The platforms are there. What they lack is the movement.

Whether that will happen relies on any number of factors, but the question of whether it can happen has been answered — twice.