A recent event has shaken up the financial markets and it has shaken up the order of this series. Hence, before the launch of Episode 1, there will be an Episode 0.5 discussing this event.

Stock markets are built on the belief that they are ultimately efficient. Their function is to find the “true” value of assets and thus help economies develop and grow. “On the stock markets, the future is traded“ is a much-cited and quite possibly overused aphorism. What does that mean, exactly? The phrase is as mysterious as the stock markets themselves.

What’s that? Do I hear the thumping beat of the critical mass?! It sounds just like it. As the stock markets and the real economy seem to drift apart more than ever in the wake of the COVID-19 outbreak, there are events that appear to be truly stranger than fiction: In early 2021, a group of small time investors organizes on social media to challenge billion-dollar hedge funds in an epic battle fought on the steep slopes of a failing computer game retailer’s stock chart. These small time investors don’t give a damn about trading the future. Instead, their call to arms is “YOLO!“—or so the story goes.

What happens if a singular event manages to break open the slush funds of the financial markets, briefly revealing a stunning interplay of mysticism and mathematics, momentum and manipulation and thus shaking the bedrock of believe which these markets are built upon?

Fabricating Reality is a project by Till Wittwer. Music, sound montage and sound design by burgund t brandt.