Alex LaBeouf, better known as Alex from Target, became a viral sensation when two teenagers shared a photo of him clicked at a Target store and tweeted it. Another user apparently retweeted the post, and that triggered an avalanche of likes. His sudden stardom earned him an appearance on The Ellen DeGeneres Show. However, he later deleted all his social media profiles.
Early Life
Alex from Target’s real name is Alex Christopher LaBeouf. He is also known as Alex Lee. The internet sensation is from Frisco in Dallas, Texas, and worked at a Target outlet on Eldorado Parkway.
Social Media Career
On October 26, 2015, two 15-year-olds, Alanna Page and Brooklyn Reiff, visited the Target store where Alex worked as a cashier. They clicked his photo and tweeted it, as they found him cute.
Soon, another Twitter user, @auscalum, retweeted the photo, with the caption "YOOOOOOOOOOO," and what happened next is history. The retweet became viral, and Alex became a Twitter sensation.
Alex had no clue about this. His phone too was dead. His manager then broke the news to him and showed him the picture which, by then, had 30,000 retweets. Alex initially thought it was a prank and was confused. He then realized his phone had frozen, as his number was leaked on social media and he had received over 10,000 messages.
Alex was dumbfounded by his sudden stardom. His Twitter account, @ac163 (later @AlexLeeWorld), went from having 100 followers to 750,000 followers within a month. The #AlexFromTarget trend also got him numerous invitations from chat shows and interviews. He made it to The Ellen DeGeneres Show, where he spoke at length about his newfound fame. Alex also bagged a feature on CNN.
However, he also rejected many invitations for talk shows. He got offers for sponsorships and modeling campiagns too. Interestingly, the viral marking company Breakr Nation later claimed that the entire Alex from Target mania was part of their marketing campaign. The hashtag gave rise to a trend which saw young people clicking photos of their crushes in secret and posting them online.
Alex went on the 2015 social media DigiTour for a month. He was accompanied by vlogger Sam Pottorff. Sam and Alex moved in together when Alex went to California.
Alex, however, lost interest in social media soon after getting famous. He deleted all his online profiles and went on a social media break, before returning with an Instagram fitness page in 2018. However, he later deleted that page too.
Family Life
Alex is one of the three children of Marci and Eric. He grew up with his older brother and sister.
Alex was apparently in a relationship with a girl named Lindsey Diers when he became a viral sensation on social media. Lindsey was a talented volleyball player in school. However, she reportedly received death threats from some of Alex’s obsessed fans.
Alex sports a cherry blossom tree tattoo on his shoulder and has another tattoo on his rib cage. A tattoo on his collarbone, which was his first, reads “Let’s get lost.”
