In what economists are calling “the most economically irrational event since Bitcoin was used to buy pizza,” GameStop ($GME) stock has emerged as the lone survivor of President Donald Trump’s tariff bloodbath, somehow transforming what should be a financial death sentence into rocket fuel for its share price. While Apple tumbles 6.4% and Nvidia plummets 7.7%1, GameStop—a brick-and-mortar video game retailer whose business model is about as relevant as a fax machine repair shop—is experiencing another financial renaissance that has left Harvard economists contemplating career changes.
The Tariff Storm
President Trump’s sweeping tariffs have sent markets into a tailspin not seen since 2020, with the Dow nosediving 1,600 points2. His reciprocal tariff plan slapped China with a 34% tariff, the EU with 20%, and Vietnam with a staggering 46%3. When accounting for existing duties, Chinese goods now face tariffs exceeding 50%.
“We’ve run 174 economic models, and none of them predicted ‘failing mall retailer outperforms tech giants during trade war,'” said Dr. Malcolm Reynolds, Chief Economic Strategist at Goldman Sachs. “It’s like watching a horse with three legs win the Kentucky Derby while all the thoroughbreds spontaneously decide to run backward.”
The GameStop Paradox
GameStop, a company whose primary business is selling physical copies of games in an increasingly digital world, has absolutely no logical reason to thrive in this environment. The company doesn’t manufacture anything domestically. Its stores are filled with products made in the very countries facing the harshest tariffs. By all conventional wisdom, GameStop should be digging its own grave with a controller from 2007.
Instead, it’s soaring!
A detailed analysis by the Institute for Market Rationality found that GameStop shares now trade at what they call the “YOLO multiple”—defined as “price-to-earnings ratio multiplied by how many rocket emojis appear in r/wallstreetbets Reddit posts divided by the number of Wall Street analysts who’ve had to take stress leave.”
The Reddit Revolution: Electric Boogaloo
On r/WallStreetBets, where financial advice and gambling addiction meet for coffee and never leave, users are celebrating with the fervor of people who’ve discovered they can print money by simply refusing to obey economic laws.
“The hedge funds thought they understood chaos when they saw the pandemic market,” said Reddit user DeepRubbishValue4Ever (not affiliated with the original). “But that was just tutorial mode. This is GameStop Part 2: Diamond Hand Boogaloo.”
The platform has seen a 420% increase in posts containing the phrases “moon,” “tendies,” and “hedge fund tears” over the past 48 hours, according to our internal legitimate data analysis that definitely wasn’t conducted while drinking gin and tonic.
The $1.5 Billion War Chest
Perhaps the one semi-rational explanation for GameStop’s resilience is its recent $1.5 billion cash infusion from convertible bonds. While every other retailer is panicking about rising import costs, GameStop is sitting on a pile of cash that would make a small African nation envious.
“What we’re seeing is the financial equivalent of a cockroach surviving nuclear winter,” explained Jennifer Williams, Chief Investment Officer at Rational Capital Management. “GameStop has somehow stumbled into the perfect position: they have enough cash to weather the storm, a cult-like following willing to buy shares regardless of fundamentals, and the strange benefit of expectations so low that merely continuing to exist is seen as a triumph.”
The company has partnered with PSA, a collectible grading company, in what analysts are calling “the most brilliant pivot since Netflix abandoned DVD rentals”—if by “analysts” we mean “people on Reddit with usernames like XboxDestroyer69.”
Wall Street’s Collective Meltdown
As GameStop defies gravity, Wall Street is experiencing what psychologists now recognize as the five stages of meme stock grief: denial, anger, CNBC and Bloomberg appearances, liquidation, and finally, joining Reddit.
“I spent seven years at Wharton and another five getting my Ph.D. in Financial Economics, only to be outperformed by someone named ‘PotatoInMyAss’ who makes investment decisions based on how funny the ticker symbol sounds,” lamented one hedge fund manager who requested anonymity because he now spends his evenings scrolling through r/WallStreetBets for tips.
Our research indicates that 73% of financial advisors are now explaining GameStop’s performance to clients using elaborate hand gestures and the phrase “because this is how the internet reasons.”
The Tariff-Proof Business Model
Experts are scrambling to explain GameStop’s tariff immunity, developing increasingly desperate theories:
“GameStop has inadvertently created the perfect tariff-proof business model,” explained Dr. Sarah Jenkins, Professor of Economic Absurdity at MIT. “They’ve combined three elements: physical stores nobody visits, products nobody needs, and a stock price completely detached from both. It’s brilliant in its accidental genius.”
The company’s strategy of having streamlined U.S. operations has somehow become an advantage, not because it was well-planned, but because being mostly irrelevant means you have less to lose when the world economy catches fire.
The TariffCoin Conspiracy
A more fringe theory gaining traction suggests GameStop will announce “TariffCoin,” a cryptocurrency that uses the computational power of unsold Xbox 360s to create a decentralized marketplace where Chinese goods can be traded as NFTs, thereby avoiding tariffs altogether.
While there is absolutely no evidence this is happening, the rumor alone caused the price to jump 8% during after-hours trading, proving once again that in the GameStop universe, reality is whatever Reddit decides it is.
The Economic Lessons Nobody Asked For
Financial textbooks are being hurriedly rewritten to include the “GameStop Theorem,” which states that during times of economic crisis, at least one completely irrational asset will defy all logic, solely to remind economists of their profession’s limitations.
“We now have to teach students that markets can be efficient except when enough people on the internet decide they shouldn’t be,” sighed Dr. Lawrence Peterson, who has taught Economic Theory at Harvard for 30 years. “It’s like teaching physics and having to add an asterisk that says ‘gravity works this way unless enough people tweet that it doesn’t.'”
The Inevitable Prophecy
As GameStop continues its improbable ascent, projections suggest it could reach $31.91 per share by May 20254—a figure arrived at through complex analysis or, equally likely, by someone throwing darts at a board while blindfolded in a British pub.
“We’ve entered a new paradigm where the most valuable skill in finance is understanding memes,” declared Wall Street veteran Michael Burry, who may or may not have said this, depending on whether you fact-check.
Meanwhile, hedge funds sold stocks at their highest single-day amount since 2010, while retail investors bought $4.7 billion worth of stocks—the most in over a decade5. It’s almost as if two entirely separate markets are operating in parallel universes, connected only by mutual bewilderment.
Conclusion: The Last Retailer Standing
As tech giants collapse under tariff pressure and traditional retailers face extinction, GameStop has emerged as the cockroach of commerce—resilient beyond all reason, surviving on nothing but spite and Reddit awards.
Perhaps GameStop’s ultimate victory isn’t financial but philosophical—a reminder that in a world increasingly driven by algorithms and logic, sometimes the most powerful force is human irrationality combined with a good meme.
In the final analysis, GameStop isn’t just surviving Trump’s tariffs; it’s thriving specifically because nobody can explain why it’s thriving. And in that circular logic lies the perfect metaphor for our economic times: the less sense something makes, the more valuable it becomes.
Now if you’ll excuse us, we need to check if Blockbuster stock is available.
Help Keep TechOnion’s Servers Running on Meme Power
Unlike GameStop, we can’t survive on Reddit awards and hedge fund tears alone. If you enjoyed this article and want to support financial journalism that makes as much sense as GameStop’s stock performance, consider donating to TechOnion. Your contributions help us continue investigating why the stock market now operates with the same logic as a toddler selecting breakfast cereal. Remember: when the financial apocalypse comes, your receipt for donating to us might be worth more than actual money!
References
- https://www.marketpulse.com/news/markets-weekly-outlook-fomc-minutes-tariff-developments-and-inflation-ahead/ ↩︎
- https://www.cnbc.com/2025/04/02/stock-market-today-live-updates-trump-tariffs.html ↩︎
- https://www.reddit.com/r/Superstonk/comments/1jq2n9y/trumps_new_tariffs_gamestops_15b_war_chest_and_a/ ↩︎
- https://watcher.guru/news/gamestop-prediction-2025-will-gme-bank-on-crypto-to-spark-stock-rally ↩︎
- https://www.marketpulse.com/news/markets-weekly-outlook-fomc-minutes-tariff-developments-and-inflation-ahead/ ↩︎
