On February 5, 2021, then 33-year-old retail investor Glauber Contessoto emptied out his bank account, maxed out his credit cards, and put everything he had in Dogecoin—69 days later, his initial investment of $180,000 was worth over $1 million. 

Contessoto was like millions of new traders who flocked to crypto exchanges with all the money they could gather, placing big bets on mythical securities that seemed to magically rise until the day the music stopped and the losses mounted. More than 20 million new traders and investors opened online trading accounts for cryptocurrency and stocks amid the pandemic. The combination of stimulus money, ultra-low interest rates, and work-from-home boredom fueled multiple bubbles across the capital markets.  Those bubbles popped, as we know, but not before taking new traders like Contessoto and his friends on a wild ride. 

Directed by Chris Temple and Zach Ingrasci, This is Not Financial Advice shows how cryptocurrency and the democratization of not only the stock market, but financial literacy itself thanks to social media, has changed the way people access financial information and invest. But the film also offers an at-times-painful look into the pitfalls of investing in meme stocks and crypto. 

"What gets lost in the media hype around the crypto and meme stock boom and bust is that real people's lives were profoundly affected by it,” says Caleb Silver, editor-in-chief of Investopedia. “This is Not Financial Advice reminds us about that in a profound and important way while educating us about how to understand today's markets through a compelling narrative."

Premiering at the Tribeca Film Festival in New York, the documentary follows Contessoto and other every day retail investors—a father of three who quit his job as a math teacher to go all in on day trading meme stocks and crypto, a young TikToker looking to educate herself and fellow young women on the stock market, and an investor and businessman looking to create opportunities for his community. 

The film offers a balanced, diverse perspective into the world of retail trading, sprinkled with insightful commentary from financial analysts, and an air of “enter at your own risk,” while humanizing the social media-fueled cryptocurrency bubble—and eventual crash in 2021—through the eyes of those who were right in the thick of it.

A Cautionary Tale on the Perils of Crypto and Meme Stocks

Dogecoin started off as an internet joke inspired by a meme in 2013, and gained a cult following that peaked in 2021 after Tesla CEO Elon Musk tweeted out his support of the cryptocurrency.

What followed was a social media frenzy with retail traders like Contessoto taking to YouTube, Reddit, Twitter, TikTok, and other social media platforms to document their experience going all in on Doge (and other cryptocurrencies) and telling others to do the same—but to quote the adage that Contessoto uses at the beginning of all his YouTube videos, this is not financial advice.  The film serves as a sort of cautionary tale into the realities of those making investment decisions based primarily on social media hype and FOMO—fear of missing out.  “What wins in that world is just whatever is most provocative, whatever is most entertaining,” Morgan Housel, a money and psychology writer, says in the documentary. Housel says content creators just want attention and recognition.  The documentary includes a montage of TikToks showing retail investors reacting to the crypto crash in the later part of 2021, many of them losing thousands of dollars in an instant. In one scene, Contessoto shows that he only has $245 in his bank account, but $1 million in Doge. 

Generational Divides and Social Currency 

This is Not Financial Advice highlights the results of having financial information be more accessible to a wider group of people who might not otherwise have the opportunity or resources. 

Social media and apps have allowed people to start investing without even leaving their couch, let alone consulting an investment advisor, creating generational divides around money, and highlighting how younger investors today approach investing so differently.  Where their parents might have valued cash and stability, younger investors are open to bigger risks in the hopes of higher returns, and look more to their peers and YouTube or TikTok than Wall Street when it comes to investment advice.  In one scene, Contessoto tells his mother he declined an offer from a company willing to pay him over six figures in cash annually, asking them to pay him in Dogecoin instead.  “Oh you’re kidding me!” Contessoto’s mother exclaims. “Why didn’t you ask for cash, you need cash.” To which Contessoto responds, “Because Dogecoin is the future, mom.”

Investing Success or Luck?

As exciting as the crypto-rollercoaster may have seemed from the outside, the film shows that the rush from these sometimes massive short-term gains is not always sustainable. 

“They shot their shot, it hit, they have the money, God bless,” Josh Brown, CEO of Ritholtz Wealth Management and a contributor on CNBC says in the film. “That’s not investing success. That’s lottery success.”