The new Netflix series “King of Stonks” is about nothing less than the Wirecard scandal. But the makers manage to convey difficult economic terms in an easily understandable and entertaining way.
Similarities with real events are purely coincidental, it says directly in the opening credits. And yet the new Netflix series “King of Stonks” deals with exactly that. A real event, namely: the Wirecard scandal. The series tries to make this major German economic scandal accessible to the general public. But how do you make complex issues relating to balance sheet falsification and the deception of investors and shareholders understandable? This seems to work best with memes. The title of the series itself is an allusion to a well-known meme. The word “Stonks” is an intentionally misspelled variant of the English word “Stocks”. It’s about financial mistakes, which often result from a lack of knowledge. In Internet culture, the term is used for private and entrepreneurial mistakes.
New on Netflix: The series “King of Stonks”
“King of Stonks” addresses both sides in a certain way, but above all it is about the former start-up Cablecash AG, which becomes a shooting star on the German stock market scene – and thus traces Wirecard’s path. The protagonist is Felix Armand (Thomas Schubert), who would like to be the second CEO alongside his eccentric boss Magnus A. Cramer (Matthias Brandt). But that just won’t work. Instead, he has to deal with the police, porn producers and the mafia and make bizarre deals that could otherwise harm the company.
After Cablecash went public, investors are all very euphoric, the share price is rising, because everyone believes: cashless payment will be the future and in general: Germany still has some catching up to do in terms of digitization. But then, with the help of an undercover investigator, a journalist discovers the truth about the fake numbers – and from this point at the latest, you no longer want to switch off the series, but rather watch the six episodes to the end.
The format understandably juggles stock market terms and is above all a satire on the world of banking and finance. Visually, it is somewhat reminiscent of the Netflix production “The Billion Dollar Code”, thematically it is more likely to be classified as “The Wolf of Wall Street” and “Bad Banks”. The team around Philipp Käßbohrer has already written the successful series “How To Sell Drugs Online (Fast)”. “King of Stonks” should be a similar success. Combining absurd yet real things that make you laugh and think at the same time, it has everything good entertainment needs.
