Keith Gill, the meme stock influencer better known online as Roaring Kitty, is back at it again—swapping memes from an animated movie for one based on a famed magazine cover.
On Thursday, Gill’s first social media post in three months moved markets instantaneously, sending GameStop’s stock price higher as meme coins modeled on the video game retailer with a cult-like following took flight too.
Gill, whose cryptic social media activity sparked a rally in GameStop shares earlier this year, posted an altered version of a photo-illustration created by Arthur Hochstein for Time Magazine on X (formerly known as Twitter).
In 2006, the publication selected “You” as its Person of the Year, paying homage to YouTube’s aesthetic with its cover, while discussing the revolutionary aspects of the internet’s growing popularity and cultural impact in its whimsically worded article.
“It’s a story about community and collaboration on a scale never seen before,” an excerpt of the article read regarding 2006. “It’s about the cosmic compendium of knowledge Wikipedia and the million-channel people’s network YouTube and the online metropolis MySpace.”
However, the image posted by Gill was not a carbon copy of the magazine’s original cover: “You” and other text had been removed, while the time duration shown on the photo-illustration’s mirror-like monitor showed “01:09/04:20” in the version that Gill posted (aka the meme numbers 69 and 420).
As of this writing, GameStop shares are trading hands at $28.93, rising 7% over the past day. While the stock’s price was down 5% over the past week, it has jumped 26% over the past month. Amid an initial lurch and spike to a daily peak of nearly $31, the stock’s trading was temporarily halted, according to Nasdaq Trader.
Within the crypto world, a Solana-based meme coin borrowing GameStop’s ticker name jumped 72% in price to $0.0089 over the course of three minutes, according to DEX Screener. As of this writing, GME had drifted down to $0.0067, showing gains of 30% over the past day.
When Gill’s X account posted an altered picture from Pixar’s “Toy Story 2” in September, the stock price of pet supplies retailer Chewy took a momentary hit. Showing the character Andy tossing down a dog-faced version of his toy cowboy Woody, Chewy’s 3.7% drop in price was short lived. Gill had bought millions of shares in Chewy back in July.
Gill, also known as DeepFuckingValue on Reddit, rose to prominence amid GameStop’s famed short squeeze in 2021. Emerging as the de facto mascot of a movement to bet big on Wall Street short sellers through GameStop’s stock, he’s been dubbed a “nihilist’s Warren Buffet.”
In June, Gill returned to streaming on YouTube after a three-year absence from social media, discussing GameStop’s financials carefully, amid reports that the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) and Massachusetts’ securities regulator were investigating the meme stock influencer for his recent online behavior.
In Gill’s latest Reddit post, made six months ago, a “YOLO update” showed holdings of GameStop shares and cash worth $268 million. At one point in June, his purported holdings, which included options at the time, were worth $586 million.
When Gill’s return to social media sparked renewed interest in GameStop in April, the company’s share price rose as high as $48.75. During Gill’s short-lived streaming stint, shares climbed again to $46.55, but have crept down to current levels since.
Edited by Andrew Hayward
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