"Mr. Kitty" goes virtually to Washington over GameStop saga

The social media movement that made a beloved icon of GameStop enthusiast Keith Gill continued to rally behind the YouTube personality known as Roaring Kitty as he testified to Congress on Thursday about his role in last month’s stock market frenzy.

“Today, the world shall know his name,” cheered one online fan on the social media website Reddit, superimposing a headshot of Gill over a boxer's body.

The 34-year-old Gill became the most visible face of the GameStop rally largely because of his videos, where he wore a red headband and colorful, cat-themed T-shirts as he spent hours each week talking about the stock from the basement of his home in a suburb of Boston.

For the virtual hearing of the House Committee on Financial Services, Gill wore a jacket and tie, although the headband could be seen hanging on a poster of a kitten with the words “Hang in There!” —- a crowd-pleasing reference to people still holding onto GameStop shares after its remarkable rollercoaster rise and fall.

Gill reaped a big profit in the troubled video-game company after months talking about GameStop stock on his YouTube channel and on the Reddit forum WallStreetBets, where he went by the pseudonym DFV, for ‘deep value’ plus an expletive.

But on Thursday he rejected suggestions that he played a key role in the GameStop frenzy, arguing his social media conversations sharing analysis of company fundamentals were no different than what people do at bars, golf courses or with family members at home.

“The idea that I used social media to promote GameStop stock to unwitting investors and influence the market is preposterous,” Gill told lawmakers. “My posts did not cause the movement of billions of dollars into GameStop shares."

But Gill did acknowledge that some investors...