@sneeden @crunklord420 With an option you not only have to be correct about the direction the underlying stock goes you also have to be correct about the timeframe in which the asset hits the strike price. Your average Wallstreetbets retard doesn't buy options that expire more than a week until expiration too which is why they get fucked by theta (time) decay so hard.
Shorting has unlimited risk but assuming the stock doesn't go high enough you get margin called the time frame is effectively infinite, depending on the contract terms.