what happened with gamestop can someone explain to me because i am very unintelligent

Reddit made the stocks go WAAAAAAAAAAAY up to act against those nerds on Wall Street

what are stocks

memes aside this video honestly did a good job helping me figure out how it worked

i still don't get it

basically lets say you purchase $20 worth of amazon, if amazon does well their stock will grow higher, which leaves you with more money, and if you sell the stock then you get more money than you begin with

so if amazon's stock values go up 50% and you sell the stock you'll get $30, which is more than the $20 you started with