Roaring Kitty is back. Investors should stay away

Remember the heady days of early 2021? That's when YOLO retail investors, bored by the pandemic and flush with stimulus checks, poured into meme "stonks" and boasted on Reddit of buying "chicken tendies" with their profits. Don't look now, but those days could be back. The stonk king himself, Roaring Kitty, has returned to social media after a three-year hiatus by posting, you guessed it, memes.

It's anyone's guess why he came back. Roaring Kitty, a.k.a. Keith Gill, went out on top when he quit the scene in mid-2021. After beating a group of hedge fund short-sellers in a high-stakes game of chicken over GameStop shares, Gill booked tens of millions of dollars in trading profits. Faced with accusations of market manipulation, he prevailed in Congress—famously telling lawmakers "I like the stock"—and in court over the state of Massachusetts. He even got the hero treatment in a Hollywood movie.

It's a great story. How can you not root for a regular guy who, using just his smarts and charisma, makes a counterintuitive stock bet and successfully sticks it to the hedge fund barons? The story of Roaring Kitty is satisfying in the same way as The Big Short, but is full of characters who are very relatable.

Gill has not said what he's up to this time around—he's only posted “I'm back” style memes so far—but his very presence on social media has already caused the price of GameStop to more than double. Meanwhile, on the crypto front, memecoins like Doge are surging and opportunistic token slingers are making a bundle by cranking out new ones—including one named "stonks"—that invoke the Roaring Kitty brand.

As I said, it's a great story. But that doesn't change the fact anything associated with Roaring Kitty is a terrible investment. It might sound quaint, but the reason to buy stocks is because you are betting on the success of the underlying company and the cash it will generate. And the best way to do this is by buying low-cost ETFs—those offered by Vanguard (a not-for-profit collective) are a good choice—and holding them as they rise in price and pay dividends. In the case of crypto, you want to seek out serious projects built by reputable people that generate real revenue.

Buying meme stocks is less like investing in the future of a company than it is going to Vegas and playing roulette or blackjack. You might enjoy a winning streak, but it will be short-lived. And indeed that's what happened to the amateurs who chased memes in 2021—their stocks shriveled as it became clear the underlying companies had lousy business fundamentals. What this means is you can enjoy Roaring Kitty as a cultural symbol, but if you are looking to invest your money, you should stay clear of memes.

Jeff John Roberts
jeff.roberts@fortune.com
@jeffjohnroberts

This story was originally featured on Fortune.com