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Pop CultureXJan 13, 2026

Need to Understand What a Short Is? Here’s a Katy Perry Analogy to Help You.

Sometimes the fastest way to learn Wall Street is through pop stars and vinyl.

By Precious Fondren
Katy Perry short explanation
Photo by Jason Kempin/Getty Images

And they say pop culture knowledge is useless.

This week on X, a surprisingly wholesome and hilarious financial literacy moment unfolded when Rose Dommu, author of Best Woman, admitted that four full seasons of HBO’s Industry hadn’t made finance jargon stick for her.

“Four seasons of industry and I still don’t know what a short is none of my business,” Dommu posted, tapping into the collective confusion shared by anyone who doesn’t work in finance and has watched the show.

Enter X user @slayorrr, who went on to explain short selling in plain language, no investment banker lexicon required.

“short is when you gag the market by making bets on a stock that you think is gonna flop and you make the profit based on how much it flops,” they replied, using a gif of a famous Mowry sister meme. 

Another user jumped in asking exactly how this happens. 

@slayorrr came with an analogy that immediately went triple platinum on stan Twitter.

“Borrow a Katy Perry vinyl from you and promise that ill return it,” they began. “I sell it for 10 dollars. Katy Perry is tanking so obviously the price will go down. Now the vinyl is 3 dollars. I buy it back. I make a 7 dollars profit (10-3) I return the vinyl to you.”

According to Investopedia, the explanation was impressively accurate. 

“Short selling is a trading strategy in which a trader aims to profit from a decline in a security's price by borrowing shares and selling them in the hopes that the stock price will eventually fall, enabling them to buy the shares back for less money,” the site explained.

The key takeaway though is that “Short selling has a high risk/reward ratio, offering big profits, but losses can mount quickly.”

The replies quickly turned celebratory. 

“This is a better explanation than the movie The Big Short,” one user wrote. 

“These tweets will do more to inspire people to become financially literate than any podcast or market analyst," Another user posted. 

 “4 seasons of industry and stan twt lingo is what gets me to understand what a short is," someone else summed it up.

In the end, this might be the most effective promo Industry could have ever received, because of course it makes sense that the fastest way to understand Wall Street is through pop stars and vinyl.

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