Tesla critics have often said that the automaker trades on emotion rather than fundamentals, and a new study from Barclays sought to determine just how influential memes and online attention are.

The firm found that the connection between Tesla's stock performance and posts on Reddit "looks real."

"On the autos team, we have painfully learned that social media memes can matter more for TSLA share performance than actual financial metrics, fundamentals or (dare we say) valuation," the firm said Tuesday in a note to clients. "There is a positive correlation between the number of WSB [WallStreetBets] submissions exclusively citing TSLA, and the performance of the stock."