(Reuters) - Shares of GameStop ( GME ) jumped 40% in premarket trading on Monday after social media persona "Roaring Kitty," whose online posts had sparked a trading frenzy in the videogame retailer in 2021, returned on X.com after three years.

Keith Gill, known as "Roaring Kitty" on YouTube and "DeepF***ingValue" on Reddit, was a key figure in the so-called meme stock rally, which saw shares of GameStop ( GME ) surge 400% in the final week of January 2021 before crashing back to pre-surge levels in the subsequent week.

Gill on Sunday posted a sketch of a man leaning forward in a chair, a popular meme among gamers that indicates things are getting serious. It is his first post on X, earlier Twitter, after being notably absent on social media platforms since mid-2021.

GameStop ( GME ) was trending on investor-focused social media stocktwits.com on Monday, indicating interest from individual investors, while Roaring Kitty and retail trading platform Robinhood were trending on X.com.

Shares of struggling videogame retailer GameStop ( GME ) have surged over 57% so far in May, but still remain far from the peak of 2021.

"There's been a few attempts where investors have tried to justify that it's the return of meme stocks, but we haven't quite seen that materialized," said Daniela Hathorn, senior market analyst at Capital.com.

The meme stock rally in 2021 was set off by Gill's posts on Reddit's Wallstreetbets discussion group about the gains he had made on his investments in the highly shorted firm that drove a surge of interest in GameStop ( GME ).

The rally spread to highly shorted stocks including AMC as Reddit users banded together to squeeze hedge funds who had bet against GameStop ( GME ) and other firms.

Gill was ordered to testify before the U.S. Congress alongside U.S. hedge fund managers in an examination of the trading frenzy.

AMC has tanked more than 95% since the end of 2021.

(Reporting by Medha Singh in Bengaluru; additional reporting by Pranav Kashyap; Editing by Shinjini Ganguli)