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  2021-04-15

  GameStop Part Three

  A continuation of my other two posts about the GameStop stock short squeeze. As time has gone on, GameStop's stock seems has remained volatile. In the past few weeks it has dropped slightly, but nowhere near where professional analysts (who may have a stake in it going down) have wanted it to be. GameStop has changed their internal structure, paid off over $200,000,000 in debt with cash, and all things are pointing up for them. However, the most interesting part of these few weeks as far as the pandemic is concerned is the internal dissent within GameStop communities on Reddit. This frenzy over the stock began on the subreddit WallStreetBets, but the return of old moderators to cash in on the moment caused an exodus to a new subreddit, simply called GME. Like WSB before it, this new subreddit was abandoned due to poor moderation, moving now to SuperStonks. There it remains to this day, however the active posters on these subs are extremely paranoid about hedge fund "shills" coming to spread uncertainty. The pandemic, from its very beginning, spawned a new type of investor. Tesla's skyrocketing stock price at the beginning almost one year ago is what made people on WallStreetBets rich, and many people who have previously never invested before (me included) have jumped onto the bandwagon to get some money for ourselves. Many of these new investors are now learning for the first time that the SEC is not necessarily out to protect them, and that hedge fund billionaires will not necessarily play by the rules. It remains to be seen the big takeaway from this revelation for most people, once the initial paranoia is past. Some people I have seen have developed a strong sense of class consciousness, seeing this as an attack on the little guy by billionaires who became exponentially more wealthy from such trickery during the pandemic. Others accept it as the way things are. It is certainly a historical oddity that the pandemic has triggered mass participation in the capitalist stock market, and the result may be a growing number of young opponents seeing for themselves the rigged system.
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  2020-03-17

  Empty Pasta Shelves

  When Australia first got hit with news of how devastating Covid-19, many people went onto a panic-buying frenzy, stockpiling non-perishable essential items. This is a photo taken at my local Woolworths with the pasta shelves completely gutted. Toilet paper, rice, hand sanitizer, yeast and hand soap were equally cleared out. Some stores went as far as to post signs out the front of their stores stating "NO TOILET PAPER AVAILABLE". As a young person who lives away from home, my regular diet consists of a lot of pasta (also because pasta is delicious). During this time I ended up eating a lot more vegetable soups, because ironically fresh fruit and vegetables supplies weren't particularly affected by the virus or panic buying as they wouldn't last in an impending apocalypse. It took about a month for grocery stores to re-configure their supplies, and the for the panic to die down slightly. When this first happened, the essential items were piled high front and centre at the entrance of the store: I walked in to this same Woolworths one day with a tower of 24-pack toilet pack stacked as tall as I was. This object shows how crowds can react in unexpected and instinctually self-defensive ways when threatened with a large and sweeping danger. HIST30060.
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  2020-08-23

  Portfolio_Beattie

  Throughout my time curating and finding impacts of the pandemic named COVID-19 I have learned that through the many hardships that Americans have encountered over the past several months we are adaptable and resilient to change. I have also learned that human beings ARE mostly generous and giving entities especially when faced with communal heartache. Many of us have felt empathy at its finest by living in a difficult situation that is similar to the difficult situations that those around us are going through. Through this collection, and through the collections of others, I have seen that people have deserted self-centered mentalities placing them with more understanding than ever before. I look forward to seeing where these unselfish and positive mentalities take the humanity of our world. I have thoroughly enjoyed my work curating, archiving, creating oral histories and working as a team towards a common goal in this difficult time. I look forward to refining these beginning skills I have acquired over the last 15 weeks by continuing to work in cyber archives, whether it be professionally or recreationally. This experience has been unforgettable for me personally and professionally and I am proud to have been a part of saving this historic time in global history.
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  08/02/2020

  Shawn Burris Oral History, 2020/08/02

  Shawn Burris is a paralegal located in Southern California region. He has two children and has not been financially affected by the Coronavirus other than in the stock market.