The GameStop play (as with BBB, AMC, Express, etc) are classic pump and dumps, albeit with a short-squeeze magnifier (basically equal to a DDOS amplification). And if you really traced back to the origin, I highly doubt you're going to find some Joe Nobody -- you're going to find some very well financed, planned player.
GameStop is a doomed enterprise in an obsolete space (selling physical copies of games), so it was incredible seeing WSB spin fantastical tales of the marvelous future ahead for it.
Everyone else gets some intense FOMO that leads them to piss away their own money (you can't just buy options because options on hyper-volatile stocks price that in), and then a lot of people get burned. Everyone is running around talking about how everyone made millions from WSB tips or something, it's farce.
As is always the case, a tiny number of people benefit, and a huge number of people financed their return.
The whole story seems super dumb. And the SEC is likely paying very close attention.
Loads of people throughout this discussion have absolutely no clue what they're talking about. What a low information crowd this is.