How GameStop’s Ryan Cohen became the ‘meme king’

In Reddit communities like R/Superstonk or R/BBBY, Chewy co-founder W Jim Stop President Ryan Cohen is often hailed as a hero, memorialized in face-swapping memoirs or placed at the center of “tin hat” theories.

“He’s a god figure to the meme-stock community,” said Evan, a Reddit user who spoke to CNBC on the condition that we not use his full name for fear of online retaliation. “I worry that when they see someone talking about Ryan Cohen not being God and that their conspiracy theories are untrue, they’ll see a target that needs to be removed for the better good. And on that spectrum of delusion — because you have to be delusional to believe those conspiracy theories — there will be people At the extreme end of this illusion.

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The conspiracy theories Evan is referring to can be traced back to the beginning of the meme stock movement in 2021 and to GameStop, the original meme stock.

Brandon, a Reddit user who also asked us to use just his first name, said he invested in GameStop because of “the craziness that was going on” and the amount of attention the company was getting on Reddit.

“That was a movement,” said Brandon, who used to be a “monkey,” a term Reddit users describe for stock traders on the site who stick together. “It wasn’t just a bunch of people trying to get rich.”

When Cohen joined GameStop’s board in January 2021, and then took over as chairman in June, he became a figurehead for the movement. Cohen, who rarely speaks publicly and does little journalism, has emerged as a regular topic of discussion in these online communities, and Reddit users looking for investment clues have begun to analyze his every move.

Before moving to GameStop, Cohen had co-founded pet food retailer Chewy and then became an active investor.

Arfan, a Reddit user who invested in GameStop at the time, said Cohen “realized he was on the side of the retail investors.”

As Cohen tweeted, discussions ensued on Reddit, where users come up with theories about when price moves will occur in their favorite stock holdings.

Sue Juanassociate professor of law at Santa Clara University School of Law, tells retail investors that Cohen’s tweets fall into the category of “non-traditional forms of information for their investment decisions.”

“He was posting all sorts of obscure shit, really, and all these people thought he was talking to them through code,” says Brandon.

GameStop shares are up 1,625% in January 2021, including a 400% increase in one week. Traders on Reddit teamed up to push the stock higher and put pressure on short sellers, who were betting the stock would drop.

Larry Cheng, a GameStop board member and former Chewy investor, said he realizes people look at Cohen’s tweets, as well as his own, for hidden messages.

“I think we hope people don’t scrutinize it,” Cheng said. “We’d prefer people to take tweets at face value and not ascribe some kind of hidden meaning to any of them.”

A source close to Cohen said he avoids promoting his holdings or offering investment advice and is “only on Twitter”.

The two main stocks Reddit users associate with Cohen are GameStop and Bed Bath & Beyond, where he briefly owned a significant stake in 2022. The company has since filed for bankruptcy. However, Reddit communities like R/BBBY are hoping for Cohen’s return, and community members have theories about when and how the company’s share price will rise.

After the market closed on Wednesday, GameStop fired CEO Matthew Furlong and appointed Cohen as CEO, effective immediately. The stock fell more than 20% in extended trading after the disclosure. The company did not provide a reason for the firing.

Cohen will be responsible for allocating capital, evaluating potential investments and acquisitions, and overseeing GameStop’s holdings managers, the filing said.

“Not for long,” Cohen tweeted about half an hour after the announcement.

For more on the fanatic fanatics behind Ryan Cohen, check out “Making of the Meme King” CNBC documentary on Peacock or stream it at CNBC.com.

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