GameStop’s most enthusiastic investors don’t believe in the dying retailer. They believe in Ryan Cohen, its tech-savvy chairman and potential savior. If you want proof of the billionaire backer’s cult of personality, look no further than his post yesterday about poop.
“You know what happens when I eat too much fruit…” Cohen tweeted just after midnight on April 5. He didn’t actually write the word poop, but he didn’t need to. Everyone knew what it meant and started maneuvering accordingly. Fans started trying to decipher the shitpost like a coded message, while the market promptly moved against the meme stock sensation. As of this writing, GameStop shares were down $20 since the tweet blew up on Twitter.
Correlation does not equal causation, and GameStop has been on a more volatile Wall Street roller coaster than usual these last few weeks, but Cohen’s random tweets are part of the thrill for those strapped in for the ride. The company recently announced its intention to do a stock split dividend, boosting the total number of shares while offering existing investors a payoff in the meantime. Was that what the head of the board of directors was referencing, or was it something else?
Here’s how those on Reddit, who share some responsibility for this ongoing absurdity, have been breaking it down. “When he eats too much fruit he shits on shorts,” offered one poster, talking about ongoing bets by some investors that GameStop’s stock will still fall big time. “You get dem runs,” suggested another, as in a short-term run-up in the stock price in the lead-up to the eventual split. “Apple did a 7-for-1 stock split before,” a third pointed out.
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This is not the first time Cohen has tweeted about pooping. In fact he’s done it a few times over the last year. Some have theorized it always comes right before a sell off, but that’s not always been the case. More likely than not, there is no logic behind any of it, like when Cohen tweeted about ice cream last February and sent the stock price exploding.
The schtick is also a bit remencient of Elon Musk, renowned shitposter and shitty boss, whose past tweets elevated GameStop, Dogecoin, and his own Tesla share prices. The electric car company announced its own stock split back in 2020, and another just last month. Some of GameStop’s biggest dreamers have convinced themselves the company’s share price will skyrocket the same way Tesla’s previously did as the stock split approaches. That doesn’t make any sense, but neither does a market cap of $1 trillion for a tech company that shipped less than 1 million cars last year.
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