Weekend Meme Roundup: Explaining The Lingo And Memes Of WallStreetBets And The GameStop Stock Surge

If you've done anything related to stocks in the past two weeks, you've undoubtedly come across some random person screaming about "DIAMOND HANDS GME TO THE MOON YOLO!" or some other form of /r/WallStreetBets lingo regarding the GameStop short squeeze. What do these phrases mean? What does the party cheer you used to say before slamming five natty lights back in your fraternity days have to do with fiscal decisions? How can GameStop go to the moon when they don't have a space program? The answer to all these questions is actually more simplistic than expected.

DIAMOND HANDS/PAPER HANDS

If you've ever seen someone say "DIAMOND HANDS" or the gem emoji next to hands emoji and been confused, you're not the first and won't be the last. There are two types of hands out there in the eyes of WSB users: Diamond and Paper. If you buy a stock, it goes down 4 percent and you sell, then congratulations, you have paper-tier hands. If Apple's earnings report is expected to be bad, causing a 4 percent sell-off in the last hour of the open market Friday, but you bought calls and refuse to sell, then you got some rock-hard diamond hands there friendo. Enjoy your tendies.

Tendies

Tendies have been a staple of meme stories for quite some time. Tendies are to meme lords what steak and lobster are to rich fat cats and oil magnates. In the world of WallStreetBets, profits are "tendies" — as they are the thing you chase, the dragon at the end of the trail, and you always dip them in sauce. Where a stockbroker might say "actualized profits" and "chance of making it back," you'll find a YOLO WallStreetBets user saying, "Tendie Time."

YOLO

A phrase that was adopted out of party culture, YOLO has been used in WallStreetBets for quite some time. While originally standing for "You Only Live Once," meaning why not take that fourth Jaegerbomb, it instead is used in a much more dire circumstance here: a risky financial play that could literally bankrupt you for the rest of your life. YOLO plays are often seen when something inexplicable happens in stocks, like Tesla suddenly shooting up by 50 percent in a day. Those types of moves often see a thread about how someone literally gambled their life savings on Tesla moving up, with someone else also making a thread about how they gambled their life on Tesla going down. YOLO plays are most often seen with options, as they have until a certain day and time for their tendies to be realized.

TO THE MOON/Rocket Emoji

Saying that something is "going to the moon" is in reference to the stock graph. When a stock suddenly shoots upward, the stock graph climbs at a near-vertical trajectory, in a sense, heading so high up that it goes to the moon. This was mostly seen with Bitcoin back in the day, shooting up several thousands of dollars in a 24-hour period. People that talk about a stock going to the moon, or "mooning," is because the stock is low-valued and suddenly manages to double or even triple itself in a short time. This is also similar to "rockets refueling" or "pit stop" or "last chance to get on board" because it personifies the dot on the stock chart as being a car or human conductor, getting people on before it takes off for the moon.

Guh

The sound you never want to hear. Guh is what happens when someone hops on the moon express … only to find the stock is quickly crashing back down to earth. Guh is when your YOLO doesn't play out and you lose everything. Guh is the sound of a total collapse of the human soul as it escapes your body. Guh is what you might see a lot of in the following weeks depending on how everything shakes out with these up-in-the-air meme stocks, and how many bagholders are going to be vocal about it.

Bag Holder / Bagholder

A "bagholder" is what you call someone who buys the meme at the peak and then subsequently only has losses from it. You bought the stock at a nice, tidy $10 and sold it at $60. When you pressed "sell," someone else had to press "buy," and thus, if the stock immediately dips to $40, then the person you sold it to is the bagholder. A bagholder's favorite phrase is "Guh," and if you're not careful when following trends, you can quickly find yourself as one too.

Apes Together, Strong

Apes Together, Strong comes from the prequel Planet of the Apes movies and is in reference to how the many apes working together can be stronger than humans. This is a turning point in the series, and as such, is used to signal a turning point in the stock world. If all of us apes gather together, we can be strong, stronger than the hedge funds that conspire against us — so it goes.

We Like The Stock

"We Like The Stock" is a phrase often repeated by people on WallStreetBets and other social media when asked why they are buying into the stocks they are, such as GME. This meme comes from Jim Cramer, who is often the antagonist, antihero or hero of the subreddit depending on who you ask and what he most recently said. Cramer, while imitating the users of WallStreetBets, began chanting this phrase, which made the actual users of the subreddit take notice and adopt it as their own. This isn't the first time in history that someone has called their shot in directly making a meme happen, but it's still important nonetheless that it is getting repeated as much as it is for being a mainstream-born meme.

Meme Insider is a Know Your Meme publication and the world's leading internet culture magazine. Find out how to get your first print copy for free, and check out the Meme Insider website for more info.