It's a very cruel reality for some of these folks who were new to the market and jumped on the meme express. My former dental hygienist's husband was very heavily invested in GME. He was a true believer in the company. I have a friend who was new to investing, and he owned AMC, telling me he knew that the company had issues but didn't want to miss the next possible parabolic rise in price.
I have seen lots of $1 stocks with strong earnings and solid balance sheets triple, quadruple and more, but I have yet to see one go below zero.