Well, would you look at that? All it took was a few Redditors intentionally driving up the price GameStop stock, causing a few billions of dollars of losses for hedge funds who bet big money on that stock losing value, leading to trading apps like Robinhood to try and prevent citizens from participating in the free market to get Jon Stewart on Twitter. On Thursday, January 29, the former Daily Show host fired out his first ever tweet in support of the ragtag gang of Redditors who through the power of collective action have caused a “meme stock†bubble which as of yet has yet to burst. “This is bullshit,†Stewart tweeted on his new account, aptly named @jon_actual. “The Redittors aren’t cheating, they’re joining a party Wall Street insiders have been enjoying for years. Don’t shut them down … maybe sue them for copyright infringement instead!! We’ve learned nothing from 2008. Love StewBeef.†StewBeef coming in hot straight out the gate.
For a short time, it was unclear whether or not it was the real Jon Stewart. Was Stewart really able to avoid joining Twitter during the entire Trump era, only to be lured in by Stonks in less than 48 hours? Anyone who remembers Stewart’s feud with Mad Money’s Jim Cramer regarding the financial crisis of 2008 knows that issues surrounding Wall Street greed and corruption hit particularly close to home for the comedian. His old Comedy Central buddy Stephen Colbert let the cat out of the bag that Stewart had joined the social-media platform, tweeting, “Well, one thing changed since 2008 — a friend of mine joined Twitter.†Cryptic, but clear. Stewart got verified and shot out a second tweet, confirming his identity and promising to “only use this app in a sporadic and ineffective manner.†That’s what we all said when we first joined Twitter a decade ago. In less than 24 hours, he’s amassed over 500K followers, so, yeah, sounds like StewBeef is off to a pretty ineffective start.
Updated January 30, 12:40 p.m.: Only two days into his much-heralded return to Twitter, it looks like Jon Stewart has finally been able to nab the @jonstewart handle and retire @jon_actual. Stewart is up to one million followers, although he only follows one account: Arby’s. Arby’s was a repeated punchline on The Daily Show; Stewart used it as shorthand for gross fast food. Which is wild, because Arby’s is good. We’d speculate it was just an elaborate Arby’s shorting scheme this whole time if it weren’t privately-owned.