FUD (Fear, Uncertainty, and Doubt)

FUD (n) — Content that is used in hopes of making an individual or group doubt themselves, their decisions, their research, and others. This can be a post, a comment, or a direct message, and can be spread in many different ways.

This can be rather subjective, but I'll try to break it down in detail. Let's take a look at three methods through which FUD is spread.

Bad Acting

• "I'm so tired of holding guys."
• "I'm done; I'm selling!"
• "I lost everything because of you!"
• "Let's all coordinate a mass-buy!"

Bad Acting is used in order to make it appear as if the poster is one of the group. An ape.

• By pushing the narrative that they're tired of waiting, they prey on the impatience of newer apes and attempt to shake the diamond hands of older apes.
• Under the guise of being an ape, they can pretend to sell or lose a ton of money in order to make newer apes question how dedicated the long-term investors here are and wonder if they should abandon ship.
• By acting as if apes encourage pumping or any sort of market manipulation, new apes will begin to doubt the morality or legitimacy of what's going on.

These tactics are normally aimed at new apes who've yet to experience any major red days or long periods of trading sideways and who have yet to go through a few FUD waves. These methods are most common in megathreads and especially during livestreams outside of Reddit (think back to the Shareholders' Meeting and how disruptive the chat was).

The easiest way to dispel this method of FUD is by realizing what apes are all about and have been all about for months now. Apes are zen. Apes are always buying and holding. Apes have lost nothing. Apes do their own research and make their own decisions. Not a single ape here is a financial advisor.

Foreboding

• Blatant examples of Foreboding:
  • "If you DRS your shares, [something awful will happen]."
  • "If it doesn't moon by [date], it never will."
  • "If [x] does/doesn't happen, the squeeze is over."
  • "[DFV / RC] will sell and that'll be it."
• Subjective examples of Foreboding:
  • "THIS [obscure action/event with no substantial ties to GME] WILL TRIGGER MOASS"
  • "THE SQUEEZE WILL ABSOLUTELY BE ON [obscure day]"
  • "BIG ANNOUNCEMENT ON [obscure day]"
    • The above examples relate primarily to any post or comment that claims these are facts. We all understand the "hype every day" mentality, but we always include a follow-up that says something along the lines of, "and if it isn't tomorrow, then it's the next day!"
    • This can be genuine apes with a "hype every day" approach, but get it through your head right now that nobody actually knows a definitive time when the squeeze will happen.
    • These examples can also include calls to action. Always remember to wait a bit before making a decision you're unsure of.

Foreboding is primarily used against apes of all ages. By pretending to have some sort of specialized knowledge in a somewhat-related field, the culprit can elicit some kind of fear out of the target. In the subjective examples, the culprits' aim is to create unsubstantiated hype in order to crush apes' spirits if their prediction turn out to be wrong.

Say, for example, a user attempts to spread FUD by taking advantage of apes who don't know a lot about crypt0 by saying that the recent run-ups of [any coin] will be used to stop the squeeze. A culprit could attempt to know the ins and outs of legal documents and say that a filing or regulatory article confirms that the company is failing. Someone could claim to have inside knowledge that disproves all the DD, and throw a bunch of jargon out hoping that no wrinkle-brained apes catch on.

The easiest way to dispel this method of FUD is literally to wait twenty minutes and check again. If you're being bombarded with jargon you don't understand, and the other party refuses to explain or becomes rude, they are likely attempting to shake you, and a wrinkle-brain will appear in due time to prove them wrong or give a better explanation. Another way to fight this is by reading the DD, which will make you that wrinkle-brain; please do your part to defend new apes.

Gaslighting

• "You're crazy, the shorts closed their positions a long time ago."
• "There is no naked shorting. Stop lying to yourself."
• "GameStop isn't worth anything and you know it."

The main targets of Gaslighting are old apes. Old apes are the most resistant to FUD, and are therefore a sturdy wall that defends new apes. When a new ape is being targeted, it's almost always an old ape who steps in to dispel the FUD. This is a major pain in the culprits' ass, and they employ Gaslighting methods in order to make the old ape question why they're still doing this.

This method intends to make an ape think, "I've been doing this so long and it hasn't happened. Maybe I was wrong and I've wasted all my time on a stupid conspiracy." Where have we heard that word, "conspiracy," before? Oh, yeah...

How do you fight Gaslighting? Employ logic over emotions. The DD has been done by hundreds and thousands of individuals from all different walks of life. Memes aside, Superstonk and the other GME subreddits are full of well-documented research and information that goes far beyond the fundamentals of GME, and if you sat down and read it all, there'd be no fear, uncertainty, or doubt about the investment we've all made.

Even if you don't want to dedicate the time it takes to read the DD from the beginning, you can always ask questions. One of the most common ways Gaslighting is enacted is by asking questions with a negative connotation, then denying all the answers.

FUD, in its purest form, is a question that seeks no answer.

Now that we've discussed some methods of spreading FUD, let's break it down more.

There are three components to FUD.

Fear

Fear that you'll lose your money. Fear that you'll get into legal trouble. Fear that you're harming others. Fear that you're going to be stuck as a bagholder. Fear that someone will seek you out after the MOASS and harm you or your family. We've seen all of these.

Uncertainty

Uncertainty about the fundamentals. Uncertainty about DFV's updates. Uncertainty about RC's plan. Uncertainty about the company's reputation or legitimacy. Uncertainty about the DD. Uncertainty about your own thoughts and interpretations of things. Been there, done that.

Doubt

Doubt about the research. Doubt about your decisions. Doubt about apes' intentions. Doubt about GameStop's future. Doubt about the MOASS. Doubt that any of this could be really possible. Old news, we've dealt with these many times before.

Fighting FUD

Realize now that you can always ask a question. That post flair exists for a reason, and in many cases your questions have already been answered already by the DD. There's no harm in asking questions though, as long as you work cooperatively with people trying to answer you. Apes have gone out of their way many, many times seeking counterarguments against the DD and GameStop, but nobody has produced solid enough evidence that our thesis is wrong.

Rule #3 of the sub begins with, "No FUD," and now you hopefully have a full understanding of what that means and what to watch out for. You can always report FUD.

Outside FUD

One thing that stands out is how the media portrays the GME situation. Whether it's outright ignoring GME when the headline is related, downplaying any good news related to GameStop, trying to shill (See: Shill) other stocks to new apes or non-apes, or making the "Reddit crowd" seem like a bunch of crazies or malicious people.

The media is actively trying to scare non-apes away from Superstonk by constantly referring to the old sub where this started (y'know, where talking about GME gets you banned?), talking about Reddit as if it's a hub for financial conspiracy theories with no brains, and portraying the "meme stocks" as just that: a joke, a bad investment, a bubble.

This is to prevent FOMO and buy-ins by making it look like GME has poor fundamentals or its investors are all just crazy people with no experience or knowledge. Plenty of articles have been published talking about how this is just a craze, an unsubstantiated bet, some form of collusion. That's entirely on purpose. The purpose is to scare non-apes away from "meme stocks," or in other cases just away from GameStop on to other stocks.

Shill

Shill (n) — One who poses as a satisfied customer or an enthusiastic gambler to dupe bystanders into participating in a swindle.

- DuckDuckGo

Superstonk's definition is only slightly different.

Shill (n) — One who poses as a satisfied or enthusiastic investor to divert apes' attention from GameStop and GME.

Shill (v) — To attempt to distract apes from GameStop or GME using other stocks, crypt0currencies, or products/services that have no ties to GME.

A shill is someone who attempts to pull you away from GME by hyping something else. This has happened countless times in the past, and we're currently in the midst of a shill wave as I write this. This can be anything from pumping a coin (notable examples: dog, bit, and loop [see linked post]), another stock (notable examples: anything labeled a "meme stock"), or a product/service with no ties to GME (notable examples: crypt0 wallets).

This is, and always has been, a GME subreddit. A common misconception that shills take advantage of is that we talk about seemingly unrelated thing such as the Chinese market, Michael Burry, and Reverse Repos. This argument is easy to dispel by, as always, reading the DD, but the catch-all is that these things have — at the minimum — speculative ties to GME.

This misconception is sometimes carried by apes as well, but you can tell the difference between an ape and a shill because a shill will try to sell you on something as they complain about the sub.

Fighting Shills

Downvote. Report. Ignore. Don't feed the trolls, just let the mods take care of it. The only actions you should really bother taking are downvoting, pointing out that they are shilling (with examples, preferably direct quotes), and reporting them for breaking Superstonk Rule #3.

DISCLAIMER: There is one particular coin that is alleged by shills to have direct ties to GME. This has been discussed quite a bit recently as people have attempted to pump it over and over on this sub. My post here breaks down the difference between discussion and shilling when it comes to that coin.

Conclusion

This has been my attempt to break down and effectively define FUD and shilling in as much detail as possible. These two terms are fairly subjective in how they're used on Superstonk, but I'd like you to consider these points in the future before throwing out accusations at someone who could just be misinformed, or even calling a well-meaning post FUD because you don't fully understand it.

Remember, ask questions and wait twenty minutes for a wrinkle-brain to explain. If you're a wrinkle-brain, try to use layman's terms or at least include a TA;DR in your posts and breakdowns.

Together, we can dispel FUD and ensure our apes use their lingo correctly so that APE NO FIGHT APE.