For proof that teenage girls run the Internet, look no further than “Alex from Target.”
An Internet meme of a young Target employee bagging items has, inexplicably, taken the Web by storm. A photo of the handsome young man, which appears to have been taken without his consent, exploded on Twitter this week, prompting media outlets from BuzzFeed to the Washington Post to cover the Internet’s latest obsession.
Then Breakr, a nascent marketing startup, boldly proclaimed on LinkedIn that it had organized the “social media experiment,” fueling the social flames with the #AlexFromTarget hashtag and a parody video. Publishers quickly echoed those claims, calling the Alex from Target meme “a stunt,” one potentially facilitated by Target itself. Now there’s a single question on everyone’s mind:
