Gill, who helped spark the meteoric rise of GameStop with bullish commentary on the videogame retailer during the peak meme-mania days of the pandemic, posted an illustration of a videogamer holding a console sitting back in his chair and then leaning forward. He has followed that up with numerous posts of movie clips and GIFs, all hinting at the triumphant return of sorts for his persona.

Other prominent meme stocks from 2021, including movie-theater chain AMC Entertainment Holdings, smartphone company turned security- software firm BlackBerry, rental-car giant Hertz Global Holdings

HTZ

9.69%

, headphone maker Koss, and the solar-energy company SunPower

SPWR

59.64%

, have all rallied in the past two days as well.

Shares of GameStop had soared last week as well, likely due to a short squeeze given that many investors are betting heavily against the stock. But the reappearance of Roaring Kitty seems to be acting as a supercaffeinated energy-drink jolt to squeeze the shorts even harder.

Gains in the price put pressure on those bearish investors to buy to close out their bets that it will fall. In a self-reinforcing cycle, those purchases give the stock yet more fuel.

Still, It isn’t clear why investors should be this excited. Yes, GameStop enjoyed a parabolic spike in early 2021 when current CEO Ryan Cohen joined the company’s board after beginning to invest in the company in the summer of 2020.

But much of what Roaring Kitty predicted for GameStop when he began posting his bull case for the stock in 2020 still hasn’t panned out.

GameStop was struggling to make money as consumers moved away from physical copies of games on discs toward digital downloads. In a series of posts on X—known as Twitter before Elon Musk took it over in 2022—and videos on YouTube, Roaring Kitty talked about how Cohen could turn it around.

Roaring Kitty made the argument that Cohen would do for GameStop what he did for Chewy, the online pet supplies retailer he founded. Its stock also soared during the pandemic.

“It’s impossible not to think of $GME when you read and listen to how Cohen succeeded with $CHWY. Replace “pet” with “gaming” and it’s the exact same strategy. It’s absurd,” he wrote in one post in his tweetstorm.

The point to remember now is that neither stock has held on to its gains. Both GameStop and Chewy

CHWY

4.53%

have plunged sharply from their Covid-era peaks. GameStop stock now trades for around $50, more than 60% below the record high it reached in January 2021. And Chewy stock has plummeted more than 85% from its record high.

Chewy shares aren’t far from their record low as sales growth has stagnated. It is true that has happened with Cohen no longer in charge. But the fact is that regardless of Roaring Kitty’s glowing endorsement, Chewy has had its pet-food lunch eaten by the likes of Amazon.com, Walmart, Target, and other retailers.

GameStop hasn’t exactly thrived during the Cohen era, either. There has been a revolving door of executives in the C-suite. And while GameStop is making money, revenue has continued to fall.

So had the stock, until recently. GameStop stock is up about 340% in May, but before turning around, it had fallen more than 35% in the first four months of the year.

Investors may be waiting to see what Roaring Kitty has to say about GameStop, assuming that his gamer-in-a-chair post is actually about the company. Even if it is, Paul Dano, who played Gill in Dumb Money, the 2023 movie about the GameStop saga, might need to get ready for a sequel.

The working title is Dumber Money.

Write to Paul R. La Monica at paul.lamonica@barrons.com