On Nov, 2. “YOOOOOOOOOO” was the only caption to the picture meme phenomena that blew up recently on Twitter.
Twitter user “rims” with the username @auscalum took a picture of her cashier as he was bagging her purchase from Target.
One can assume that from the caption and the picture, rims took the picture and posted it because Alex was attractive, possibly even because he looked like Justin Beiber, and she felt she needed to share this with the world.
The tweet has received thousands of retweets and favorites.
The post spurred multiple “Alex from Target” spinoffs, such as people mimicking the same style pictures, along with the new trending hashtag: #alexfromtarget.
The hashtag became so spread out and known that even the Disney stars, the Spouse brothers, commented on the picture, jokingly claiming Alex to be their lost triplet.
The now famous “Alex” was found on Twitter and gained thousands more followers.
Alex from Target has quickly become a meme, an easy task on the Internet when a tweet or a picture becomes so famous and widespread.
Sites such as Twitter and Tumblr are taking Alex and making innumerable jokes about Alex’s good looks, about how people are responding and raving about Alex, and making multiple fandom jokes and references.
However, this “harmless” tweet may not be so innocent after all. Many have been speculating whether or not this was something of a conspiracy started by Target.
Target took the opportunity to use Alex’s trending as a marketing technique. Alex has even taken advantage of his fresh fame, asking through Twitter “If we sold AlexFromTarget merch would you guys buy it?” the very same day the original tweet was posted; this only encouraging more rumors that the entire thing was a setup.
So was it real or not? That most likely does not matter because, as they say, any publicity is good publicity and Target no doubt was granted much more business thanks to Alex.