The more I think about the GameStop situation, the more it seems like an outgrowth of some common elements of gamer culture, which of course is already intertwined with Reddit culture.

Gamers now commonly band together on message boards to

-rapidly solve incredibly elaborate puzzles
-do things like speed runs and other in-game stunts designed to test and map the limits of a system
-break the game

This was an attempt to crowdsource what amounts to a gamebreak/hidden puzzle in the financial system, to exploit a weird factor in the system in order to perform a really memorable public stunt.

And for some, at least, there's even a loot drop at the end.