Latest / The Daily Sarcast / May 6th, 2026: GameStop, Hantavirus And Another Surprise Host

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May 6th, 2026: GameStop, Hantavirus And Another Surprise Host · The Daily Sarcast

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  Today's episode is brought to you by sunny 70-degree days.
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  Just when you're tired of having to wear sweaters in May, one of these comes
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  along and makes everything better.
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  Insert theme song here. This is the Daily Sarcast. I give you the news and maybe a laugh.
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  I'm not Lindsey Vernick. I'm Naveen Van Bar, and today is May 6, 2026.
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  In real news, GameStop, the video
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  game reseller turned the stupidest meme stock ever, wants to buy eBay.
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  Not like a box of baseball cards that somebody took a picture of in a wood panel
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  baselint lit by a single unshaded bulb. The actual whole company, eBay.
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  The GameStop CEO, Ryan Cohen, went on CNBC to explain the thinking.
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  First, he said that, in fact, he had to not approach the company,
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  eBay itself, with the offer, but was instead just yelling in public at them, I guess?
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  I mean, I'm no business genius here, but I feel that's probably not the traditional
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  way of declaring an intent to acquire a company.
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  One of the key problems, again, at least to my non-genius mind,
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  is that GameStop is worth $11 billion and eBay is worth $56 billion.
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  Those are two very different numbers. You know,
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  especially because, you know, GameStop is probably actually worth only about
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  $11 actual dollars and a $40 credit towards a new Nintendo game,
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  but not according to the extremely rational stock market.
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  Which, to be fair to it, did drop the GameStop stock by 10% today.
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  So, you know, maybe it is a little bit rational.
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  The CNBC interview is a masterclass in awkward humor.
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  At one point, Cohen tells a host to go to the GameStop website to learn how
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  it could possibly buy a company worth way more than his, and then refuses to
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  answer any questions beyond that, except to say something like,
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  oh, it'll be half stock, half cash.
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  That's the kind of answer I have given to people when I have absolutely not done the work.
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  I mean, he's the CEO of a company, man.
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  I think social media and these interviews, all these things that have made CEOs
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  more public to us have really shown that these CEOs are absolute freaking morons
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  and we shouldn't trust anything they have to say.
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  I mean, I kind of love it in some ways, right? You get to see that these people are not that special.
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  They just happen to have gotten rich, probably through a particular set of grifts
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  that we are not willing to actually undertake.
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  The CNBC hosts literally snort laugh at Cohen throughout this whole thing.
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  It's a masterclass in awkward humor.
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  I mean, the long, stretched out pauses where they're trying to figure out how
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  to even respond to this guy are just brilliant.
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  And he just keeps saying the same thing over and over again.
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  Half stock, half cash, half stock, half cash. Truly, truly amazing work.
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  In much less absurd news, cruises continue to be terrible places.
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  150 people have been stranded on a cruise near West Africa that has had an outbreak of the hantavirus.
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  Three of them have died. Hantavirus is a rodent-borne virus that can cause severe respiratory illness.
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  In this case, it also seems like the virus spread from humans to humans after people were on board.
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  Well, the WHO says we shouldn't have to be worried about this broadly.
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  It's not spreadable like COVID or anything like that.
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  But really, what do they know? They're only experts. But we're the country that
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  withdrew from them last year because, you know, we know better.
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  Oceanwide Expeditions, the cruise line, has said passengers are calm.
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  But poof, what a terrible way to get stuck in the ocean.
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  The one time I did go on a cruise, I basically was waffling between boredom
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  and tipsy-to-drunk every hour.
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  Even with basically nothing to do, I can't say my mood was ever really calm.
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  So I can't imagine what it's like for the people on this ship.
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  In Naveen Life Updates, I guess, I'm about to run a half marathon and every
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  single person who's run it before has told me how unbearably hot previous years were.
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  Runners, man, we're all absolute masochists.
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  Like, this is in the middle of a 10-mile practice run. And what they're telling
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  me is how they couldn't get water.
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  It was hot. There was no shade. Like, what are we doing here?
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  I mean, like, we like this, right? This is a hobby that we actually like.
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  And all we're doing is talking about how terrible it is.
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  Runners, man, really must hate ourselves.
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  Cooking tip of the day. Walking away from a boiling pot of rice is a guaranteed
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  way to make sure you have a whole stovetop of starchy water to clean up.
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  Feedback, comments, questions? A nice Jewish boy looking for a date?
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  Email lindsay at lindsay at thedailyastarcast.com. Thanks so much for listening,
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  and Lindsay will talk to you guys tomorrow.