The GameStop affair has already gone around the world and will go down in history. What happened yesterday, just as disturbing, will do so as well. This time, yes, there are no large groups of small investors, just a ball of misfortune that temporarily plunged the value of Costcoone of America’s largest food companies.
The story is this, a Twitter troll account shares a meme insinuating that, given the Great Inflation that is devastating the United States (and the world), Costco was going to raise the price of its famous hot dogs by 1.50 $ to $2.50, something that had never happened before.
The combination of hot dogs, fried chickens and low prices at Costco gas stations are among the chain’s most distinctive features and for which it is famous. The price change of its most popular combo is one of the most recurring fake stories, which from time to time makes the rounds of the internet as an example of immutable prices entrenched in American society, following the same price since the 80s.
The result? Shares of the company plunged 13% in the market. in a short time, causing the company to lose millions in value and dragging other similar businesses down. And he still hasn’t fully recovered.
A meme with consequences: losing hundreds of millions
The problem was not only in the meme, but in the fact that many major Twitter outlets and verified accounts shared the fake news and the ball rose until the value started to drop:
When the case was dismissed, the damage was already done and millions were gone. Even the Republican House of Representatives Twitter account shared the fake news:
The meme’s author, @JohnWRichKid, has since deleted the original meme, but bragged about misleading major Twitter accounts and the Republican Party itself, and posted a compilation of it:
