After two weeks of hearing in classrooms, dorm rooms, and the lines of El Jefe, how friends of friends almost amassed millions investing in GameStop, I turned to none other than my friend's dad.

Lawrence Meyers, the father of Emerson College student Amanda Meyers, has been investing in the stock market for 26 years. At 29, he made his first investment in a Vanguard healthcare fund - a standard first foray into the world of investing.

"Well, my intent originally was to invest for the long-term in a number of different stocks so that I would build wealth over time," said Meyers. "That was the intent. It kind of didn't go that way."

Investing eventually became more than a hobby for Meyers. As he learned more, he began to write articles about them for various media outlets, and he started to notice the market undervaluing some smaller companies. That is, their shares were being sold for cheap when they shouldn't have been. He would then buy when they were undervalued and sell when overvalued.

In August, he noticed GameStop. It was being sold for $5 per share.

"They had good cash flow, meaning their business was still generating cash that was coming into the company," said Meyers. "And that at the very least they have a couple of years to, to maybe turn their business around, so that's why I bought the stock at five."

He calls this a speculative investment because the company has "no clear path." 

"It may not be around very much longer," said Meyers. "If it does beat the odds, the returns on that stock may be very significant."

He also noticed that the stock had a very high short interest, which is an indicator of market pessimism. Many investors were borrowing GameStop stock and selling it short, literally banking on the price going down.

In January, the now infamous Reddit forum and meme, r/wallstreetbets, noted how much short interest there was in the brick and mortar company.

"Let me make a tangent here," Meyers digressed. "The thing about selling stock short is that if there's a catalyst of some type, and the stock moves back up and you've sold short, you have to decide at what point you are going to buy back that stock."

If the stock keeps going up to the sky, as those on Reddit say, probably alongside a bouquet of rocketship emojis, the short sellers start to lose money because they end up buying the stock at a much higher price than they sold at.

Short sellers then added to the buying frenzy by purchasing the stock back, aka covering their short.

On top of this, an exchange of volatile "contracts" based on the market heightened this. People began selling inexpensive contracts, known as call options, that predicted a certain value of the share by a certain date. If said value was reached, which it most often was, those who sold the option would have to buy back the stock at that price.

"So, all of a sudden, there's all of this buying interest because of the short sell, then there are all of these call options and everybody's having to hedge the sale of those contracts," said Meyers. "So they buy and the stock goes up very, very quickly. And that creates that cycle where everybody needs to cover their short and hedge their bet."

This is what is called a gamma squeeze.

As Meyers saw the stock rise, he sold bits of his shares on the way to the top until he sold out. The stock skyrocketed to $483 per share, a 9560% increase since Meyers bought the stock in August. While he cannot disclose how many shares he bought, or how much money he made, he can say this:

"It was the best trade I've made in 25 years."

However, others were met with less happy stories. While GameStop's stock skyrocketed, larger investment banks and hedge funds bought many shares, who sold high. According to Meyers, those on r/wallstreetbets insisted on holding onto their shares.

"A lot of those people [on Reddit] were under a mistaken impression," said Meyers. "They thought, hey, if we all hold onto our shares, there won't be any shares in the market for the short sellers to buy to cover their position, so the price will just keep going up. That's not how it works."

When the stock's value began to fall, many of those on the Reddit page held their shares, anticipating another spike. Yesterday, the stock closed at $51.20 per share.

Meyers advises young people to avoid these situations. 

"When it gets like this, it's gambling, not investing."

To reiterate his previous intention, from which he has somewhat strayed but still stayed true to, he instead advises investing for the long term in companies you trust.