Jon Stewart, looking at his new Twitter feed.
Photo: CBS via Getty Images
Well, would you look at that? Just a few Redditors intentionally raising the price of GameStop’s stock, causing a few billion dollars in losses for hedge funds that bet a lot of money on that stock losing value, leading to trading apps like RobinHood to try to stop citizens from participating in the market free to get Jon Stewart on Twitter. On Thursday, January 29, the first Daily Show The host fired its first tweet in support of the disorganized gang of Redditors that, through the power of collective action, caused a bubble of “meme stock” that has not yet burst. “This is bullshit,” Stewart tweeted on his new account, aptly named @jon_actual. “The Redittors are not cheating, they are joining a party that Wall Street members have been enjoying for years. Don’t close them … maybe you will sue them for copyright infringement! We learned nothing from 2008. I love StewBeef. StewBeef coming straight out of the gate.
For a short time, it was not clear whether or not he was the real Jon Stewart. Was Stewart really able to avoid going on Twitter throughout the Trump era, only to be attracted to Stonks in less than 48 hours? Anyone who remembers Stewart’s rivalry with Mad Money’s Jim Cramer over the 2008 financial crisis knows that the issues surrounding Wall Street’s greed and corruption particularly hit the comedian. Your old friend from Comedy Central Stephen Colbert left the cat out of the bag that Stewart joined the social media platform, tweeting, “Well, one thing has changed since 2008 – a friend of mine joined Twitter.” Cryptic, but clear. Stewart was verified and fired a second tweet, confirming his identity and promising “to only use this app sporadically and ineffectively”. That’s what we all said when we joined Twitter a decade ago. In less than 24 hours, he has accumulated more than 500,000 followers, so, yes, it looks like StewBeef had a pretty ineffective start.