From Clickers to Crypto: How ‘The Last of Us’ Season 2 Sparked the Fungal Finance Meme Frenzy
When “The Last of Us” Season 2 kicked off, I braced myself for tears, thrills, and, honestly, a bit of late-night doom-scrolling after every gnarly episode. What I didn’t expect? Needing a beginner’s guide to viral cryptocurrencies, mushroom coffee booms, and sudden stock surges. Yet here we are, May 2025, and the world’s collective brain has, apparently, contracted Fungal Finance Fever. Buckle up, because things are about to get weird, wild, and a little bit crunchy.
How CordyCoin Sprouted on Social Media
Let’s trace this cap-and-stem insanity to its digital roots. The very night Episode One aired, TikTok started bubbling. A batch of Gen Zers—some in lovingly ragged flannel cosplay, others wielding toy spore bombs—started shilling a new meme-coin: CordyCoin. Honestly, it started as pure snark. TikTokkers posted spoof investment videos, pitching CordyCoin as “your foolproof portfolio hedge when the infection spreads.”
But the internet’s sense of irony always mutates faster than a clicker’s fungal growth. The CordyCoin hashtag shot past seven, then ten, and soon over fifteen million views. Suddenly, you couldn’t scroll three posts without CordyCoin showing up. Parody NFTs popped up, some featuring Joel’s grizzled mug photoshopped onto a golden mushroom. One wild thread claimed the blockchain actually ran on “Mycelium 2.0.” It was a joke, please don’t actually Google that.
Of course, there’s no actual CordyCoin with a real blockchain (yet). But that didn’t matter because TikTok creators spun out fake CordyCoin whitepapers, investment strategies, and even reaction videos where they solemnly held CordyCoin “tokens” (usually just painted poker chips). Did anyone get rich? Nope. Did everyone get to meme about crypto, the show, and mushrooms at the same time? You bet.
Mushroom Coffee to the Moon: Watch Out, Folgers
Not satisfied with just clowning around on the internet, fans also turned a magnifying glass on actual Cordyceps mushrooms. And wouldn’t you know it: sales of mushroom-based health supplements went wild. Big names like Four Sigmatic, Om Mushroom, and Real Mushrooms suddenly found themselves fielding more questions about “infected” than “adaptogens.”
So, what happened next? Their stock tickers also went on a little jog. Bloomberg reported a 12% bump in mushroom supplement sector valuations after the “The Last of Us” premiere. Four Sigmatic especially saw a sharp spike, with mushroom coffee and Cordyceps capsules flying off the Amazon shelf faster than Ellie dodging a runner. Influencers, sensing a trend, posted side-by-side reactions: “DRINKING CORDYCEPS FOR ZOMBIE IMMUNITY???” Spoiler, folks: you will not acquire any form of infected mind control, only a possible caffeine buzz and a weird earthy aftertaste.
For some more empirical flavor, here’s what the numbers say:
- Google Trends shows “Cordyceps” search volume doubled following the first two episodes.
- Amazon’s best-seller chart snuck four different Cordyceps products into its top 100 supplements for the first time ever.
- Supplement companies started referencing “The Last of Us” in their TikTok ads—and, let’s be honest, who could resist their tagline: “Our mushrooms are 100% infection-free.”
When Fungi Crawl Into Finance: Analyst Edition
Imagine my slack-jawed delight when, just a week later, mushroom euphoria (and CordyCoin jokes) made their way into cold corporate boardrooms. Yes, you read that right. In their quarterly calls, several supplement companies actually name-checked “The Last of Us” as a measurable factor behind surging sales. A Nestlé executive straight up told investors their “mushroom beverage line enjoys a pop-culture halo.” That’s industry speak for “Pedro Pascal helped our Q2 numbers.”
It gets even better. Bloomberg finance panels started dropping “Cordyceps” and “infection storylines” into discussions of market volatility. Commentators debated if the mushroom supplement trend would last. CNBC ran a bit on how Gen Z “meme economics” can goose real-life earnings, name-dropping CordyCoin, of course. Did anyone foresee an HBO zombie show influencing health stocks? Absolutely not. Did it happen anyway, while financial analysts did the “Joel looking worried” face? You better believe it.
Follow the Spores: Why Pop Culture Messes with Commerce
What’s the real story here? Well, pop culture driving market hype isn’t brand new, but the speed and weirdness of this moment feel special. Compare it to the “Barbiecore” pink paint shortage, or the time everyone bought roller skates because of TikTok dances. “The Last of Us,” though, added a spicy twist: fans blurred lines between reality and TV, then sprinkled in some meta-meme finance for good measure.
A few market watchers I stalked on social had opinions:
- “This isn’t just a blip. Fans want to touch, taste, and trade what makes their favorite shows pop. Brands who ride the meme can get a real pay-off,” wrote one marketing VP on LinkedIn.
- “HBO has accidentally become a market mover,” joked another analyst on Threads, after referencing a spike in mushroom tea sales.
- And, of course, you’ll always hear the cautious voice: “Remember Beanie Babies and GameStop. Sometimes hype dies as fast as it blooms.”
Mushroom Supplements IRL: Safe as Sourdough?
Amid all this, science TikTok and Reddit’s r/Supplements forum jumped in, too. Real mycologists had to post friendly reminders that Cordyceps militaris, the kind in your coffee or capsules, just is not the zombie plague mushroom from “The Last of Us.” The show’s Cordyceps is based on an Ophiocordyceps genus that infects insects—not people. Still, mushroom brands leaned in, joking they’d “tested for zombie contagion” in their batch testing.
Here’s a micro-dose of real Cordyceps facts, in case you wondered:
- Cordyceps supplements have been used in traditional Chinese medicine mainly for energy and immune research.
- No major health authority recommends them for infection prevention (unless you’re a very unlucky ant).
- Side effects are rare at normal doses, though some experts remain skeptical of all the hype.
And before you even ask: Not a single celebrity has turned into an infected by sipping one mushroom latte too many—at least, so far.
Crypto Chaos, Cordycoin, and FOMO (Fear of Mushrooming Opportunity)
Let’s return to where we started: CordyCoin. The coin’s “founders” dropped a Discord server, mock “airdropped” JPEG mushrooms to early joiners, and debated launching a real ERC-20 token before TikTok mods and lawyers said, maybe, don’t. That said, the best CordyCoin productions remain the memes: videos of parents calling their kids to ask if they “should be in CordyCoin instead of Bitcoin,” dogecoin edits showing the Infected logo morphing into the Shiba Inu, and a truly inspired thread where one user photoshopped a CordyCoin billboard onto Jackson’s main street.
Crypto Twitter, famously fast on the uptake, joined the fun. Traders speculated if a real Cordy-themed meme-coin might moon, and two fintech TikTokers even tried to explain “mycelium-based decentralized finance.” No, there was no actual token to buy, but the fake “live price tracker” page—complete with animated clicker icons—remains a thing of beauty.
Will the Fungal Bubble Pop, or Is This Spores Everlasting?
Despite the hype, most economists doubt “Fungal Finance” will linger for long. Pop culture trends fade. Meme-coins fizz out. Mushroom supplement sales ebb after the show’s season ends—at least, that’s the usual pattern. And most supplement execs I scanned in interviews last week admit they’re grateful, but not planning to build their Q3 budgets around Cordyceps forever.
But others disagree. Could we see the next trendy drink at Starbucks debut, featuring Cordyceps and topped with clicker-printed foam art? Wouldn’t put it past anyone. There’s even industry gossip about a luxury skincare brand prepping a “Zombie Glow Fungi Serum,” allegedly inspired by Marlene’s unflappable cheekbones. Stranger things have happened.
So, What Did We Learn Here?
Well, next time you tune in for a little post-apocalyptic heartbreak and shootouts, peek at your phone and check the mushroom stock ticker. Watch for a new meme-coin. Pick up a Cordyceps coffee, if you dare. Hollywood and the internet aren’t just shaping our tastes anymore. They’re occasionally making us hedge our portfolios with mushroom jokes, and that is just plain delightful.
So, in the city of the infected, where clickers roam and coins grow on spores, remember: it’s all fun and games until someone tries to pay for groceries with CordyCoin. See you on the blockchain, and don’t forget to check under your bed for any lurking memes—or fungi.
